ATI and 1 year warranty..

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Parabellum

[H]ard|Gawd
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Nov 4, 2001
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Hello,

Short question, would you be worried to only have 1 year warranty for a 500-600$ video card? I usually keep high end graphics about 18 months so if anything goes wrong after 1 year, that means I am screwed..

Para
 
paying $500 for a VGA with a one year warrenty could be a dumb thing to do.

i've seen a number of VGA's fail i wouldn't even consider a $500 card with a less than five year warrenty . and it would have to be from a good company that has great service . preferrrably with a lifetime warr on it. like--

--evga-BFG xfx ectra-

-avoid PNY they have a one year--that supposedly after regestration should go three--but on my 6800gt that died they wouldn't pay up.

if i was getting a ATI i would definetly look for one with a good warrenty. do go cheap and save $30 then get a card that croaks one week out of it's short warrenty !
 
Thanks for the reply. BBA cards are non-sense then since they carry only one year warranty. I may look for Asus but they are always more expensive than other while having nothing special in return. For ATI, there is only saphire, power color, HIS left.

Para
 
JSF35rhino, I went thru the same thing with PNY over my 6800GT. Left a VERY bad impression. I just replaced it with a VisionTek X850XT/PE with a "lifetime warranty". No telling how good that will be, but I HAVE had good luck with them over the years. Some of the nVidia card manufacturers are offering lifetime warranties, and a couple even offer "double lifetime" warranties, where it not only covers the original purchaser, but if you sell it, and they register it, they'er covered as well...THAT is a good selling point, as I won't buy a used card, in part, because of a lack of warranty.
 
Yeah its too bad their partners are not ferociously fighting like eVGA, BFG, etc...

ATis own warranty is the worst. I got 2 years on my sapphire though. Might not help the resale but I certainly won't have it anymore.
 
Visiontek's video cards have lifetime warrenty and powercolor's video cards have lifetime warrenty on their highend, like the x1900.
 
I have at least 3 cards that are over 4 years old still in service, so the longer the better for a warranty.
 
Point 1. The warranty is provided by the card manufacturer. ATi only provides the GPU and the card specifications standard. (Unless it's an ATi branded card, of course.)

Point 2. I never bother about warranties which extend beyond 1 year. In my experience when products prove to be 'duds' or 'lemons' they do so pretty much straight out of the box, and paying extra for extended warranty periods isn't something I like to allocate my cash to. Never had to make use of an extended warranty, and don't really expect to.

Get it, work the hell out of it straight up, if it has problems send the thing back and demand one that works! That's my approach, and I reckon I've saved quite a bit of money over the years from following it.
 
Catweazle said:
Point 1. The warranty is provided by the card manufacturer. ATi only provides the GPU and the card specifications standard. (Unless it's an ATi branded card, of course.)

Point 2. I never bother about warranties which extend beyond 1 year. In my experience when products prove to be 'duds' or 'lemons' they do so pretty much straight out of the box, and paying extra for extended warranty periods isn't something I like to allocate my cash to. Never had to make use of an extended warranty, and don't really expect to.

Get it, work the hell out of it straight up, if it has problems send the thing back and demand one that works! That's my approach, and I reckon I've saved quite a bit of money over the years from following it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I agree but I often sell my old card to friend (like I did with my X800 XT PE last tuesday) and I like the fact that if it goes under I have at least a way of replacing it. 1 year is too short and I agree with the other posters that the ATI camp should follow the nvidia partners with some great warranty like eVGA. ATI cards are nice but I like eVGA and their step up program and their very good warranty and support. That alone would make me switch to nvidia (my last 3 cards were BBA).

Para
 
No problems with ATI cards here...

Currently having an old 7500LE (~5yrs) and a 9700Pro (~3yrs) running fine... and my friend has an old 8500LE (~4yrs) running well too. No problems with the X850XT AGP's in my other friend's system as well.
 
Catweazle said:
Point 2. I never bother about warranties which extend beyond 1 year. In my experience when products prove to be 'duds' or 'lemons' they do so pretty much straight out of the box, and paying extra for extended warranty periods isn't something I like to allocate my cash to. Never had to make use of an extended warranty, and don't really expect to.
Click to expand...

Iam pretty much with the same boat as Catweazele.

Most hardware will work to the far future if they work the first month or two (if not OC too much that is). With 3D cards the fans can always failure, but luckily there are plenty of aftermarket products around.Only things that Iam really careful buying are hard drives since they are the only completely mecanical parts in computers nowdays and can blow up anytime.
 
ATI has had a 3Year warranty for BBA cards for a fucking long time.

I had to use it twice with my 9700PRO and my roomate had to use it with his as well. They are real easy to work with.
 
Parabellum said:
That makes sense. But I prefer BBA card over "board partners". ATI said that 90% of cards fails whitin 60 days but I remember that I had to RMA my 9700 Pro like 1½ years after purchase. I fell in the 10% category. if it had not had the 3 years warranty, I could have trashed my card.

Para
Click to expand...
yeah i prefer BBA cards as i once had a Sapphire 9800 Pro 128MB and they wouldnt honor the warranty as i didnt have the receipt for the purchase of the card even though the card was only about 1 year old at the time. It turned out htat ATI had the same part # and model # so i contacted them and they gave me warranty on the card and even upgraded me to a 9800 Pro 256MB which i then modded to become a 9800XT 256MB hehe
all i had to do to the card was peel off the Sapphire sticker on the fan
 
One year warranty is pretty lame. If you spend hundreds of dollars on a part, you deserve to know you'll get years of trouble free service out of it.
 
I wish there was a company for ATi offering lifetime warranty like eVGA and BFG.
 
As per newegg, powercolor offers lifetime warranty. It makes sense for ATI to have only 1 year warranty as a business decision but not for the end user.

Para
 
Parabellum said:
As per newegg, powercolor offers lifetime warranty. It makes sense for ATI to have only 1 year warranty as a business decision but not for the end user.

Para
Click to expand...

Surprisingly the BBA cards sell for a premium over the other manufactuer's.
 
i want to see ati partners step up to the plate and offer service like evga does for nv parts

a lifetime warranty alone just isnt impressive anymore when evga has set the bar

1. lifetime warranty

2. covers overclocking damage, BIOS flash mishaps, and supports changing out the stock cooling (any of this voids any other board partners warranties from ati or nv)

3. step up program that gives you full retail purchase price credit, not a pro-rated value

4. real live american (not outsourced) knowledgeable customer service and tech support 24/7
 
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