- A Redditor reports that their RTX 5070 (which they were given) died
- PNY replaced the faulty graphics card with an RTX 5070 Ti
- These types of updates can happen with returns if you’re really lucky, and others on Reddit have similar stories to share.
If your graphics card fails, it is obviously considered bad news, since even if it is still within warranty coverage, you have to go through the hassle of returning it for replacement, but such failure could turn out to be a good thing.
The recent experience of a Redditor (as highlighted by VideoCardz) who had a PNY GPU go wrong makes this clear. They reportedly received an unexpected update after their RTX 5070 hit silicon heaven.
The Reddit post says: “5070 completely died, PNY sent me a 5070 Ti to replace it. The RMA process was quick too. Basically a $400 free upgrade.”
Article continues below.
The Redditor further explains: “To make things even better, it wasn’t even my GPU originally. It was on 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 annoyance. [return merchandise authorization]I could keep it. “So he basically gave me a $500 GPU, which became a $1,000 GPU, all for an hour of work and $30 shipping.”
As another poster succinctly puts it: “Unlimited GPU upgrade glitch unlocked.”
Obviously we need to add some seasoning, but as other posters indicate, this can happen, and there are 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 (although that 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, as with the price of RAM, storage, GPUs (and now CPUs) rising, by huge amounts in some cases, we’re hearing a lot more about sometimes sophisticated scams trying to scam people out of the large sums of money that the asking prices have now become.
Don’t you think a graphics card manufacturer would replace a broken GPU with a higher-end model? Well, I understand where your skepticism comes from, but this can happen, and the Sapphire example mentioned above is a clue as to why, mainly because the comeback took so long to act. In these cases, the problem is likely to be finding stock of the GPU in question.
It could be the case that PNY did not have RTX 5070 inventory in warehouse at the time and wanted to complete the return in time (there was a quick response in this RMA, as the Redditor pointed out), so the company sent an RTX 5070 Ti instead. Obviously, this is a good way to keep the customer happy and serves as positive word of mouth when broadcast on social media, as is the case here.
So if you have to return a GPU in the future, you might be in luck. However, keep in mind that these cases of apparent on-the-spot updates as part of a return are not the rule, but the exception. However, they certainly happen.
The only potential problem in this scenario, as one poster pointed out, is that if you’re already at the power limit that your power supply is capable of supporting in your current PC, a more power-hungry GPU won’t work in your system. Although of course you could just upgrade the PSU in this case (or just sell the GPU and buy the lower model again, pocketing the profits).
The best graphics cards for all budgets
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