- A Redditor reports that their RTX 5070 (which was gifted to them) is dead
- PNY replaced the faulty graphics card with an RTX 5070 Ti
- These types of upgrades can happen with returns if you’re very lucky, and others on Reddit have similar stories to share.
If your graphics card fails, that’s obviously considered bad news – because even if it’s still covered under warranty, you have to go to the trouble of returning it for replacement – but such a failure could turn out to be a good thing.
The recent experience of a Redditor (as pointed out by VideoCardz) who had a problem with a PNY GPU makes this clear. They reportedly received an unexpected upgrade after their RTX 5070 went to silicon heaven.
The Reddit post states: “The 5070 is completely dead, PNY sent me a 5070 Ti to replace it. The RMA process was also quick. Basically a free $400 upgrade.”
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The Redditor further explains: “To make things even better, it wasn’t even my GPU originally. It was in my brother’s work computer. But since he had already replaced it, he gave it to me and told me if I wanted to deal with the potential RMA hassle. [return merchandise authorization]I could keep it. So he gave me a $500 GPU, which turned into a $1,000 GPU, all for an hour of work and $30 shipping.”
As another poster succinctly puts it: “Unlocked GPU Unlimited Upgrade Issue.”
Obviously we need to add some seasoning, but as other posters indicate this can happen, and other reported incidents of replacement GPUs happily turning into upgrades.
Like Gigabyte replacing an RTX 4070 Ti with a 4070 Ti Super, or Sapphire replacing a dead RX 6650 XT with an RX 6700 (even if it took a month and a half, according to the poster).
Analysis: winning the RMA lottery
It’s a breath of fresh air to hear a positive story about PC components these days, because with the price of RAM, storage, GPUs (and now CPUs) all rising – crazily in some cases – we’re hearing a lot more about sometimes sophisticated scams trying to fleece people out of the large sums of money that asking prices have now become.
You don’t believe that a graphics card manufacturer would replace a broken GPU with a higher tier model? Well, I understand where your skepticism comes from, but it can happen, and the Sapphire example mentioned above is a clue as to why – mainly because the return to action took so long. In these cases, the problem is probably finding the stock of the GPU in question.
PNY may not have RTX 5070 stock in the warehouse at the time and would like the return made on time (there was a quick turnaround for this RMA, as the Redditor noted) – so the company sent an RTX 5070 Ti instead. This is obviously a good way to satisfy the customer, and it constitutes positive word of mouth when broadcast on social networks, as is the case here.
So if you need to return a GPU in the future, you might get lucky yourself. However, note that these cases of apparent on-site upgrades as part of a return are not the rule, but rather the exception. But it certainly happens.
The only potential problem in this scenario – as one poster pointed out – is that if you are already at the power limit that your power supply is capable of handling in your current PC, a more power-hungry GPU will not work in your system. Although you could, of course, just upgrade the PSU in this case (or just sell the GPU and buy the lower model again, thereby pocketing the profit).
The best graphics cards for every budget
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