SOME NVIDIAN 7900 GTs, especially the ones that are heavily overclocked, can fry up rather easily.
With card-makers pushing Nvidia’s chip to its limit, with overclocking and hyper-cooling, some its sheems are giving up the ghost.
And, with the way Nvidia manages its warranty issues, Nvidia’s channel partners might be looking at a costly overhead in replacing these Kentucky-fried graphics boards and chips.
End users should not worry too much, a Nvidia assures us, apart from the hassle of replacing their kit, that is.
HardOCP started the whole thing and I do advise you to read it here.
With companies pushing the chips to the limits, there is a high RMA (Return Merchandise Authorisation ), much higher than usual.
It is Nvidia’s obligation to replace the fried chip for the first year but the vendor has to support the product for at least two to three years.
Some companies are even offering a life-time warranty. So companies such as EVGA, XFX, Gainward, BFG or other have to replace every single card within the warranty period, at least for two years. After the first year Nvidia doesn’t care about the chips, as it offers just a year of warranty.
It is very expensive for any company to RMA a card as it has to get the card, fix it, if possible and ship it back to the end-user. That costs a lot of time and money.
If your RMA is less than one per cent the Nvidia partner company is happy but Hard OCP suggested that the RMA on a 7900 GT is close to ten per cent. That’s a lot. And certainly it means that all the top overclocking companies such as XFX, BFG, EVGA stand to lose serious money on RMA cards.
It is always pain for end users to pack the card up, ship it and get the new one. We have to wait at least a week if not two or more to get the fixed card or a new one. I guess Nvidia allowed its partners to push the chip a little bit too much this time.