Kudos to eVGA

[jnick]

After reading the thread "EVGA going downhill" I felt that I needed to post this.

It's a known fact that on any forum, you will hear more complaints about a company/product then you will hear praise. Unfortunately, it's just the way these things work. However, I wanted to take the time and give eVGA Kudos for their service.

I have been in the 680i to 780i queue for quite sometime now and everything had been toasty. However, one day, I noticed that one of my motherboard was number #79 in the queue while my other motherboard was #508. This is impossible as they were both entered within minutes of each other and have always been sequential in queue number.

I emailed Joe Darwin, who has made his presence known on the forums here, and within 24 hours, the issue was resolved. My queue numbers were then #78 and #79. So I emailed him, thanking him for his help in this matter. However, about an hour later, I noticed the queue numbers now BOTH showed the SAME number. Therefore, I emailed him again as I wasn't sure if this would be an issue when it came time to mail back my motherboard. Within 5 minutes I received a response that it was perfectly fine, and within 20 minutes from that email, I received two emails, one for each of my motherboards, to package them up and send them back as my 780i is ready!

What really impressed me, besides Joe's response time, was that Joe took the time to personally look into my queue number issue. While it may be a small problem, should I have not emailed Joe, and he did not respond as quickly as he did, I would have one motherboard on it's way to California, while I was waiting another 500 spots in the queue (of which I had already waited!) to swap out the other motherboard.

Now, I know this isn't the motherboard forum, but since eVGA has a bigger presence in the video card community, I thought it would reach more eVGA users in this forum. However, if a mod feels otherwise, by all means move it where you deem necessary.

 

[kuyaglen]

kudos

 

[SAW]

The problem with eVGA, from what Ive read (and am personally having to go thru an RMA with them) is the sheer fact that SO MANY people are having to RMA their eVGA products.

That in itself is why there are so many "bad" eVGA threads. Its not so much the customer support, its the faulty products they put out to begin with. eVGA knowingly puts out defective products and THAT is why a lot of people are disappointed with eVGA.

Thats the difference.

EDIT:As a consumer of an eVGA product, which are supposed to have some of the highest standards around....they are falling short. As a consumer of such a well renowned company, there SHOULD NOT be so many problems with whats supposed to be a HIGH END product.

EDIT 2: As you obviously already know, you have 2 eVGA products yourself which BOTH are having to be RMA'ed. For such a supposed HIGH QUALITY company, dont you think its a "bad" thing that BOTH of your eVGA products have to be RMA'ed?

Good customer support...I'll agree with ya.....Shitty quality products though..

 

[jnick]

I have four eVGA 8800GTX video cards in the family and three 680i (soon to be 780i) motherboards in the family.

All seven products have been rock solid. Four of the seven products (2 mobos, 2 video cards) are owned by myself. The other 2 video cards and one motherboard is owned by two very close relatives.

The ONLY problem we've had is with the 680i "killing" memory. However, the boards ran fine for a year before they started to act up. Should they have kicked the bucket in the first place? No, they shouldn't have. But to say that eVGA puts out faulty products, and KNOWS it, is a pretty bold statement.

[EDIT] Do I consider it a bad thing? You be the judge...

I've had a WD Raptor come DOA, I've had a WD 120GB HDD fail after 2 months. Does that call for shitty quality products?

I've had 4 Linksys routers become faulty on me within a year and a half. Does that call for shitty quality products?

I've had a Dlink DGL-4300 die on me, which is their flagship gaming router; Does that call for shitty quality products?

The list can go on and on...Technology isn't perfect. This can be faulty. Granted, there is no excuse for the memory issues with the 680i, I'll agree with that. But if your 7900GT randomly up and dies after a year or two; I wouldn't call that shitty quality products. I'd call that a lemon.

Speaking of which, what about the 7900GTX? Not sure if you owned one, but I went through SIX XFX cards because of it's insane artifacting. This affected almost ALL of the 7900GTX brands and IIRC, it was nVidia at fault. Because of that ONE rather large scale quality control issue, do you go around saying nVidia makes shitty quality products? I know I don't, but to each his own.

We could go back and forth all day, but that's not the point of this thread. Maybe eVGA does have some QC issues, mainly with the 680i IMO, however, the difference is they are trying to fix the issue. This is something I have not seen any other company do before.

P.S> My two 680i motherboards were fully functional when they left my house yesterday. They were RMA'd ONLY to be upgraded to the 780i motherboard.

 

[SAW]

I have four eVGA 8800GTX video cards in the family and three 680i (soon to be 780i) motherboards in the family.

All seven products have been rock solid. Four of the seven products (2 mobos, 2 video cards) are owned by myself. The other 2 video cards and one motherboard is owned by two very close relatives.

The ONLY problem we've had is with the 680i "killing" memory. However, the boards ran fine for a year before they started to act up. Should they have kicked the bucket in the first place? No, they shouldn't have. But to say that eVGA puts out faulty products, and KNOWS it, is a pretty bold statement.

Its a bold statment because there is simply SO MANY other threads which say the same thing about the quality of their products. You and others, im sure, have had no problems with YOUR eVGA, and then their are those of us who have had the flip opposite.

It all goes with the experience youve personally had, and mine hasnt been that great as well as many MANY others.

 

[vixer]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/editorial/display/2007-awards_5.html#sect0

 

[inotocracy]

After reading this I now want a kudos candy bar. I miss those things.

 

[kuyaglen]

Shitty quality products though..

Well if hundreds of these issues are out of thousands of their products then I'd still have to say kudos to EVGA.

 

[reswob]

lol

 

[Vola]

I'm pretty sure that, for most of their product, EVGA sells reference cards manufactured by some other company (same as BFG or XFX) and they tweak the cards as they see fit. So if EVGA sells shitty quality product, then so does every other well known video card reseller.

 

[SAW]

I'm pretty sure that, for most of their product, EVGA sells reference cards manufactured by some other company (same as BFG or XFX) and they tweak the cards as they see fit. So if EVGA sells shitty quality product, then so does every other well known video card reseller.

Yeap, I wouldnt doubt it.

Now lets understand something here. I bought an eVGA for the same reasons all of you bought one, Im sure. Because its supposed to be a quality product. This is what we all have read about, this is what we all have been told, myself included. Im sure, for the most part, all of us here at the [H], at one time or another, either read and/or made a thread asking the [H] for their opinions on "which card is the best buy, best OC'er, etc". I know Ive done both too.

The replies I got back is what helped me make the decision to get an eVGA 7900gt. Although I did read, even back then, some people had some heat issues with their card or just had issues with eVGA itself, I still went with eVGA because there was more good said about eVGA than bad. I also thought, for the most part anyways, that the heat issues these people were having, were due to them overclocking their cards.

I however, have never OC'ed my card and after reading thru many other reviews of the same 7900gt card from other owners, eVGA seems to have made a card which is easily influenced by heat, WITHOUT overclocking. I read thru 50 reviews at NewEgg alone, just on the 7900gt cards and about 3/4 of those reviews had people commenting on how "THE CON" was that they had heat problems and then artifacting problems.

I read other threads here at the [H] where people have had the same damn problem with their 7900gt. They will talk about how they RMA'ed and ended up recieving a 7950gt card. Which, with further investigation on the matter, turns out that eVGA produced the 7950gt card to REPLACE the 7900gt's because.......HEAT ISSUES!!!!

What does this mean then?

That means that eVGA put out a product which was, in one way or another, defective. At least I would have to say that is a defective product. More times than not, the card over heats and renders the user played games, useless.

More investigation I did on the matter also shows that OTHER eVGA cards have a problem with heat issues as well, I'm talkin about the 8series line as well as some of the 6 series. This is why there is such a common market for 3rd party GPU fans.

The OP himself has 2 eVGA mobos sitting in RMA process. I assume these mobos were bought back to back (I could be wrong, thats the problem with assumption).

So.....Is eVGA a bad company? No, I wouldnt say that. Id still have to say that their products are made with higher quality parts and components. But I do think that they have made, and for all we know, they made WILLINGLY mistakes with some engineering of their products.

If they and other companies buy, per se, their circuit boards from another company and then just slap their name on it, then that in itself is a company created problem. Which in turn, is another "negative" about said company, be it eVGA, MSI, XFX etc. Shame on them all if that is the case.

As a consumer or their products, I expect to pay for their product and for their product to work. If it does not, who is to blame? Certainly not I. Unless I am to blame for spending money on THAT company, then I am totally to blame. But, as I said, I did the research before I spent the $300+ on my card. My research told me that I could trust eVGA.

So, understand, that when I said "shitty quality", thats coming from a customer of theirs who is going to have to revert to a GeForce 5200 because I have to RMA my 7900gt to eVGA because they put out a product which cannot handle the "todays" games on normal settings. Yeah, that bothers me and from my point of view, the 7900gt was a shitty quality product, eVGA knew it and put it out on the market anyway and THAT bothers me too.

Did guy A, or B or C have a problem with their eVGA product? Maybe not, but guy D, E, G, and K all got their product defective and are now having to deal with an RMA.

The frustration I have is similar to Game Producers. We all know, as PC gamers, that, more times than not, a game is going to hit the shelves full of bugs and in constant need of patches. Is it right for them to do this, knowingly? I think not, but its done anyways and WE, as the consumer, have 2 choices. Buy it anyways and deal with it, or dont buy it at all. In the end, we get the shaft because they (the companies) know they can get away with it.

Its frustrating.

 

[Uberbob102000]

You guys do know that EVERY manufacturer uses nvidia ref products and therefore if nvidia fucks up then XFX, eVGA, BFG etc all have problems?
Also OP doesn't have them in RMA he is upgrading from 680i to 780i.
Also they have amazing tech support and I agree with the OP 100%.

 

[SAW]

Hey SAW, You do know that EVERY manufacturer had these problems not eVGA alone?
Also they have amazing tech support.

Yeap, I do....as I mentioned near the end of my post. And thats just a shame too.

Which is why I created a thread talkin about this issue with cards and the 8600gt's. In fact, I asked if anyone who have had or still does have an 8600gt, if they have had any heat issues.

Some have said not one problem at all, others in other research have said they have had minor problems.

In the end, the customer gets the shaft and its frustrating.

 

[Vashypooh]

All EVGA really does is put a few stickers on it, pick a heat sink, load a bios and ship. The stuff breaking is 99% not their fault. They stick to reference design mostly. If something keeps breaking, IE 680i's do you really think it's EVGA's fault 680i's fail? Or might that be the people who make the item, not the marketers.

 

[SAW]

You guys do know that EVERY manufacturer uses nvidia ref products and therefore if nvidia fucks up then XFX, eVGA, BFG etc all have problems?
Also OP doesn't have them in RMA he is upgrading from 680i to 780i.
Also they have amazing tech support and I agree with the OP 100%.

We wouldnt have to care if they have amazing tech support if they didnt make defective products. Be it eVGA or any other company.

Make it RIGHT the first time instead of having people make threads about how good your tech support is. I'll take a quality made product over "amazing" tech support any day.

 

[SAW]

All EVGA really does is put a few stickers on it, pick a heat sink, load a bios and ship. The stuff breaking is 99% not their fault. They stick to reference design mostly. If something keeps breaking, IE 680i's do you really think it's EVGA's fault 680i's fail? Or might that be the people who make the item, not the marketers.

If they put their name on it, they are 100% reliable for ANY problems that product may have. If their "name" is of such high caliber, then they DAMN WELL better make sure, if they are going to use an outside source to make their product they sell, MAKE IT VERY GOOD. After all, they are putting their name on it.

 

[Arcygenical]

f they are going to use an outside source to make their product they sell, MAKE IT VERY GOOD.

Oi...

If they and other companies buy, per se, their circuit boards from another company and then just slap their name on it, then that in itself is a company created problem. Which in turn, is another "negative" about said company, be it eVGA, MSI, XFX etc. Shame on them all if that is the case.

You know, they often don't have a choice where they purchase reference parts from, right?

 

[Malbadawi]

yeah kudos to evga for their great support. when i wana buy somthing i look first for the support then quality then price. if u get a quality product but with out support whats the use? thats just my opinion

 

[SAW]

yeah kudos to evga for their great support. when i wana buy somthing i look first for the support then quality then price. if u get a quality product but with out support whats the use? thats just my opinion

If you get a quality product, you wont NEED the support. THATS the "use".

 

[Kowan]

Thankfully I've not needed to use their support since I've had no problems.
That's how I like it too.

 

[Vashypooh]

If they put their name on it, they are 100% reliable for ANY problems that product may have. If their "name" is of such high caliber, then they DAMN WELL better make sure, if they are going to use an outside source to make their product they sell, MAKE IT VERY GOOD. After all, they are putting their name on it.

THERE IS ONE SOURCE. That is it, one. They do the best they can with the hardware they got. Nvidia makes a shitty product, is that EVGA's fault, or Nvidia for not doing it right?

Sounds to me like youd blame EVGA, but forget that BFG, PNY, Galaxy etc etc are running the same basic board at the bottom line.

 

[BallerX]

LOL, I can tell you. I will never, I repeat NEVER buy another EVGA card again.

They try to exclaim that they are for the enthusiast. They sent me a 7900gt that didn't even boot up once without the rainbow effect. I sent it back and got a new one.. Low and behold, the new one was the same freaking revision. It started having problems with its fan first. Then I couldn't keep it cool with the stock heat sink. So I bought a water block for it and used it for a while. It gradually got to where I had to de-clock the memory down to 600mhz before it would run right. I talked to RH about it. He said he would check it out. Then he started giving me that "Your a bad customer" bullshit(NOTE: He didn't say that! I just got that impression from his final correspondence.), because I don't have the shitty fan it came with anymore or the screws to put the heat sink back on. So here I am with a broken card, with a life time warranty that I paid a premium for.(If you remember the eVGA cards where more expensive than everyone else.) Some fucking life time warranty.

 

[SAW]

THERE IS ONE SOURCE. That is it, one. They do the best they can with the hardware they got. Nvidia makes a shitty product, is that EVGA's fault, or Nvidia for not doing it right?

Sounds to me like youd blame EVGA, but forget that BFG, PNY, Galaxy etc etc are running the same basic board at the bottom line.

Are you guys not reading my posts. I mentioned more than once that ALL companies should be ashamed to use a 3rd party product and put their name on it if they quality of the product was/is inferior to what they say the product can do. eVGA, BFG, XFX, etc, i.e. ALL of them.

But, the underlying remains. If they are going to put their name on it, it becomes THEIR problem. eVGA puts their name on something they didnt make themselves as the eVGA company, thats on them. BFG puts their name on something. They are responsible.

If I were one of these companies, I sure wouldnt want to use someone elses product, add to it and put my name on it if I didnt think it was a worthy product to begin with. Otherwise, Im "knowingly" making a defective product.

 

[Climber]

Are you guys not reading my posts. I mentioned more than once that ALL companies should be ashamed to use a 3rd party product and put their name on it if they quality of the product was/is inferior to what they say the product can do. eVGA, BFG, XFX, etc, i.e. ALL of them.

You do know that all the 7900 cards suffered from heat problems. You do know that all the 8800 cards have complaints about heat problems. You are aware that all 680i boards are experaincing problems? I, and am sure many others are, reading your posts...but are you reading ours? If you bought an XFX, BFG, gainward, Asus, etc...instead of an evga you would be experiancing the same problem.

Did you read the OP's post where his 680i's are in RMA not because they were borked but becaue he was stepping them up to the 780i's? Instead of saying kudos to a company that is allowing you to step up your motherboard to a new design your thread crapping on it instead? Can you name another company which will allow you to step up your product because you want to and not due to any particular defect or current problem?

I look at the majority of the threads where people are complaining, and on whole it is how the companies handle the situation which determines the caliber of the company. For the most part I can say that Evga, BFG, XFX, MSI, and VisionTek all have excellent support for whenever I had a problem or question on documentation (both XFX and Evga answered my questions before I had purchased said products).

I've had to RMA a couple asus and abit boards in the past. Does this make them have QC issues? Not when you consider how many of their products i've purchased and used. You say there are MANY threads that complain about Evga and their lack of customer service. I would tend to disagree, just because of simple statistics and being involved in the tech community now for over a decade has given enough experience to know the complaints always outnumber the praiseworthy.

 

[SexTreX]

First of all, I would like to say thanks to eVGA. I've owned several eVGA products, and with their amazing customer service and untouchable step-up program, they are without a doubt one of the best companies in the industry.
I have a feeling that, despite the bashing that's going on around the site, eVGA's satisfied customers are the silent majority.

READ: EVERY SINGLE eVGA PRODUCT ON NEWEGG RIGHT NOW HAS AT LEAST 4/5 EGGS. How many other companies can say that?
Check it out yourself. Go to newegg, search eVGA, sort by best rating, and go to the last page.


-Sex-T-reX

 

[MrWizard6600]

BFG and XFX support is just as fantastic.

if your going with an ati chipset, go Visiontek, or Powercolor, you do not want to deal with sapphire or his.

Sapphire warranty service... not fun. Computer parts are one of those things you really don't want to have to worry about.

 

[SAW]

You do know that all the 7900 cards suffered from heat problems. You do know that all the 8800 cards have complaints about heat problems. You are aware that all 680i boards are experaincing problems? I, and am sure many others are, reading your posts...but are you reading ours? If you bought an XFX, BFG, gainward, Asus, etc...instead of an evga you would be experiancing the same problem.

Did you read the OP's post where his 680i's are in RMA not because they were borked but becaue he was stepping them up to the 780i's? Instead of saying kudos to a company that is allowing you to step up your motherboard to a new design your thread crapping on it instead? Can you name another company which will allow you to step up your product because you want to and not due to any particular defect or current problem?

I look at the majority of the threads where people are complaining, and on whole it is how the companies handle the situation which determines the caliber of the company. For the most part I can say that Evga, BFG, XFX, MSI, and VisionTek all have excellent support for whenever I had a problem or question on documentation (both XFX and Evga answered my questions before I had purchased said products).

I've had to RMA a couple asus and abit boards in the past. Does this make them have QC issues? Not when you consider how many of their products i've purchased and used. You say there are MANY threads that complain about Evga and their lack of customer service. I would tend to disagree, just because of simple statistics and being involved in the tech community now for over a decade has given enough experience to know the complaints always outnumber the praiseworthy.

You apparently are NOT reading mine. I mentioned that "others" were having heat issues as well. But since IM having problems with my "eVGA" card, I am talkin about them.

I even said in one of my last posts that ALL companies should be ashamed of themselves if they are going to use a defective component in THEIR product. Read thru my posts again.

I also mentioned NOTHING about them having a "lack of customer service". All I said was that if the product was of better quality, there would be NO NEED for a company to have a reputation for having a GOOD customer service.

 

[Arcygenical]

Are you guys not reading my posts. I mentioned more than once that ALL companies should be ashamed to use a 3rd party product and put their name on it if they quality of the product was/is inferior to what they say the product can do. eVGA, BFG, XFX, etc, i.e. ALL of them.

We are reading your posts, and we're all ignoring how idealistic (read:unrealistic) they are.

What is eVGA to do if the third party source product is subpar? Sit back and wait for a better product, while other companies get all their market share?

It's great that you think a company should be ashamed of a product they have no control over, but sales with a high return rate is fiscally better than no sales at all.

 

[Uberbob102000]

Okay, It's time to calm down, Saw.. This is not what you make it to be.
If nVidia gives them a bunch of 7900GT cores and then they find out later that they have issues what are they going to do? They replaced all of the 7900GTs that they know now have problems with the 7950GT that doesn't. They have ONE supplier, nVidia.
EDIT: Arcygenical beat me to it.

 

[SAW]

First of all, I would like to say thanks to eVGA. I've owned several eVGA products, and with their amazing customer service and untouchable step-up program, they are without a doubt one of the best companies in the industry.
I have a feeling that, despite the bashing that's going on around the site, eVGA's satisfied customers are the silent majority.

READ: EVERY SINGLE eVGA PRODUCT ON NEWEGG RIGHT NOW HAS AT LEAST 4/5 EGGS. How many other companies can say that?
Check it out yourself. Go to newegg, search eVGA, sort by best rating, and go to the last page.


-Sex-T-reX

Again, is good customer service what makes a company "good". And if so, why? Shouldnt a company be more interested in making a name for themselves in lines of RELIABILITY, QUALITY and more over, the LACK of people NEEDING to talk with customer service.

As I said.....but once again. I bought my eVGA card BECAUSE their reputation for being a good company. Ive had my card for about a 16mths. Sounds good, right. I would think so too. Good company, quality product. I was wayyy happy with my card when I first got it. Ran like a champ. I never overclocked AT ALL, because im one of those timid types who doesnt like to jerk around with all those settings in fear of making the card go POOF. I was happy with what the card gave me, out of box.

About 4mths (give or take) of usage, again, NO OVERCLOCKING. I started getting artifacting. I never even jacked up the setting in games. Mostly using default, except choosing 1280x1040 res. It was just a little artifacting, here and there. Nothing major....BUT, artifacting nontheless.

Here I am now with a gaming useless card. Lucky if I can even load a game without it artifacting and temps spiking at 192f. Who's fault is that that their card is running hot? Mine? Or eVGA? If eVGA used another companies fan, heatsink, whatever. Then eVGA should be on that companies ass, but just the same, should be ashamed of themselves for allowing that card to hit the market with poor quality fans, heatsinks, etc.

As far as NewEgg and the reviews you talk about, go back and look at the the reviews again and READ the cons people most talked about with their eVGA video card. There are more cons than not. Even though people still liked and would buy from eVGA again, they still had a "con" to say about whatever product they bought.

If my problems were from an XFX card, I would be saying the exact same thing in exact same threads, but instead of the title being "My eVGA 7900gt went....", It would be titled "My XFX 7900gt went ......". So, im not being bias towards eVGA to single them out at all.

 

[RussianHAXOR]

LOL, I can tell you. I will never, I repeat NEVER buy another EVGA card again.

They try to exclaim that they are for the enthusiast. They sent me a 7900gt that didn't even boot up once without the rainbow effect. I sent it back and got a new one.. Low and behold, the new one was the same freaking revision. It started having problems with its fan first. Then I couldn't keep it cool with the stock heat sink. So I bought a water block for it and used it for a while. It gradually got to where I had to de-clock the memory down to 600mhz before it would run right. I talked to RH about it. He said he would check it out. Then he started giving me that "Your a bad customer" bullshit(NOTE: He didn't say that! I just got that impression from his final correspondence.), because I don't have the shitty fan it came with anymore or the screws to put the heat sink back on. So here I am with a broken card, with a life time warranty that I paid a premium for.(If you remember the eVGA cards where more expensive than everyone else.) Some fucking life time warranty.

I clearly said i was sorry but that's how the warranty boils down. I tried to find a way to get a work around but they will not accept the video card at all unless it has the original heatsink attached. I just wanted to convey that i could not help you any further.

The last thing i said was...

I'm going to have someone contact you with a final answer regarding this issue.

I'm truly sorry if you took that as me calling you a bad customer.

 

[SAW]

We are reading your posts, and we're all ignoring how idealistic (read:unrealistic) they are.

What is eVGA to do if the third party source product is subpar? Sit back and wait for a better product, while other companies get all their market share?

It's great that you think a company should be ashamed of a product they have no control over, but sales with a high return rate is fiscally better than no sales at all.

Hmm, If I were to have anything to do with it. Hmm, I think I might like to do some tests with a product I plan to sell. If I want my company to have a DAMN GOOD reputation, I want that reputation to be about a DAMN GOOD quality of a product. I would by far, not want to be known as a company who deals with customer complaints and RMA's.

If I see that this heat sink my company bought to use with their video card or fans, start to not work because of this reason, or that reason, Id be on the phone with the company I bought those heatsinks and fans from and asking them a big ol WTF!!!!

And as you mentioned, if a company put out a card with "sub-par" components, to stay competitive with other companies, then thats putting PROFIT ahead of CUSTOMER, which is contradictory to them being about and for the customer. Again, its "to hell with the customer" lets get this product out on the shelves....I have that 2nd house in Maui I need to pay for.

My thoughts may be "Idealistic", but damnit, its the RIGHT thing for a company to do. They have an opportunity to "make it right" but dont for higher profit and thats just wrong. Its "OK" with them, and apparently you to have a company put out a product which they know "might" or "might not" work correctly as long as they will replace it with no hassle.

EDIT: Again, I want to say that I BOUGHT an eVGA card. Why did I do that? BECAUSE of their reputation for being a good company. Ive already gotten my approval for my RMA, though, it did take 7 days, never got a reply email and had to call them, but, got it approved just the same. To reiterate, Im just saying that, more times than not, people had an issue with heat. That issue shouldnt have become an issue. PERIOD. I dont care what company made the damn card.

 

[MrWizard6600]

**disclaimer** I'm not totally sure on all of the information about the way these cards get from Nvidias design to your computer. What I said was true at one time or another, but the times change pretty fast.

The replies I got back is what helped me make the decision to get an eVGA 7900gt. Although I did read, even back then, some people had some heat issues with their card or just had issues with eVGA itself, I still went with eVGA because there was more good said about eVGA than bad. I also thought, for the most part anyways, that the heat issues these people were having, were due to them overclocking their cards.

I however, have never OC'ed my card and after reading thru many other reviews of the same 7900gt card from other owners, eVGA seems to have made a card which is easily influenced by heat, WITHOUT overclocking. I read thru 50 reviews at NewEgg alone, just on the 7900gt cards and about 3/4 of those reviews had people commenting on how "THE CON" was that they had heat problems and then artifacting problems.

I read other threads here at the [H] where people have had the same damn problem with their 7900gt. They will talk about how they RMA'ed and ended up recieving a 7950gt card. Which, with further investigation on the matter, turns out that eVGA produced the 7950gt card to REPLACE the 7900gt's because.......HEAT ISSUES!!!!

Not quite. the 7950GT was an SKU pushed down by Nvidia mainly to compete with the X1950XT (which, imho, was a superior card even after said refresh).

Your heat issue is well (privately) documented and is a flaw common to all PCBs with a G71 strapped to it. I didn't look into this in great detail (but the sources I did look at were far superior to the rants newegg calls "user reviews"), but I believe the issue was in the power refining parts of the circuitry (the mosfets). It was actually only a couple of resistors and ratings that had to be changed. They were on later revs of the all G71 boards.

The result was all these board vendors bitching to NV about how they had all these dead cards. Since it was such an easy fix, some plant was hired, on advice by Nvidia execs to board partners or by Nvidia themselves, somewhere, to re-sauder the boards and try to turn this potential catastrophe into something soluble. This attempt was released as the 7900GTO SKU, and was very successful. All the major board vendors, at the time, jumped on board (no pun intended), as you all recall I'm sure.

More investigation I did on the matter also shows that OTHER eVGA cards have a problem with heat issues as well, I'm talkin about the 8series line as well as some of the 6 series. This is why there is such a common market for 3rd party GPU fans.

Well if your talking about the 6800 Ultra, no shit, that was possibly the worst card in history as far as I'm concerned. You simply couldn't push Nvidia's 130nm process as hard as you could ATIs 130nm process. I don't know exactly why, but it was just fact. Don't try. But Nvidia did try, and the result was an SKU which I have had multiple dealings with none of which have been pleasant. This however, was a fault of Nvidia and their over-aggressive SKU ratings, not of EVGA, or any board partner.

So.....Is eVGA a bad company? No, I wouldnt say that. Id still have to say that their products are made with higher quality parts and components. But I do think that they have made, and for all we know, they made WILLINGLY mistakes with some engineering of their products.

If they and other companies buy, per se, their circuit boards from another company and then just slap their name on it, then that in itself is a company created problem. Which in turn, is another "negative" about said company, be it eVGA, MSI, XFX etc. Shame on them all if that is the case.

To strap the cores to the PCBs, Nvidia outsources to the lowest bidder (it might only be a one man race actually: Foxconn, or maybe phoenix does too). The cores themselves are manufactured in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC's) own fab buildings (as are ATI's, and even Matrox's S3). The job of the board partners is simply testing, packaging, shipping, and acting as the customer front. Testing is the key to this thread. I would assume its the board partners job to run tests on the boards to see if they can perform at the SKUs required speeds in conditions they deem best to test in.

MSI is notoriously bad for this. A good test is one in which the board is able to run at faster then its required speed in terrible air conditions (Arizona type heat with no airflow). MSI seems to test their cards only at the required speeds and in scenarios that are most common, leaving the guy with a crappy case out to dry (again, no pun intended).

EVGA seems to do reasonably well in this department. To find out how strenuous a board partner tests its cards we overclock em. We can conclude that the lowest stable overclock you can find on the web is probably right around the speed the board partner tests their cards at (since if they tested any higher then that card probably wouldn't have made it past quality control). Its true that there are cards that don't overclock well, but I've never heard of an EVGA card that wont overclock.(period) I've seen two from MSI that wouldn't do 20 MHz above stock speeds.

As a consumer or their products, I expect to pay for their product and for their product to work. If it does not, who is to blame? Certainly not I. Unless I am to blame for spending money on THAT company, then I am totally to blame. But, as I said, I did the research before I spent the $300+ on my card. My research told me that I could trust eVGA.

This is a terrible mindset. In computers, the consumer is never to blame. Its my opinion that if someone cant figure out even something as little as where to click, its the softwares fault for not making it obvious. Being part of the internet generation I kinda instinctively know what stuff does in computers, being a hobbiest programmer only helps, but I'm annoyed that I can't send my pictures of my trip to France to my grandma in Canada, when all the infrastructure is there, the only hold up is grandmas difficulty with computers.

When something goes wrong with a computer the average end user blames one of two things: Themselves, or Microsoft (but thats another topic). Its never the consumers fault.

So, understand, that when I said "shitty quality", thats coming from a customer of theirs who is going to have to revert to a GeForce 5200 because I have to RMA my 7900gt to eVGA because they put out a product which cannot handle the "todays" games on normal settings. Yeah, that bothers me and from my point of view, the 7900gt was a shitty quality product, eVGA knew it and put it out on the market anyway and THAT bothers me too.

They didn't know upon release, but they sure did find out mighty quickly. Not all 7900GTs are bad, The 2nd rev fixed the problem and was widely in production only a few months after the 7900 hard launch.

The problem is also with testing methods, such a problem could get by quality control because it doesn't show up until several weeks of use. As I said Its somewhere in the power refinement circuitry, I do not believe heat was a factor as I have helped someone return one such defectiv card and we forced it to run a 80C load for ten hours (to test a minor overclock, he probably ran it for longer as he did some 3d rendering work).

Did guy A, or B or C have a problem with their eVGA product? Maybe not, but guy D, E, G, and K all got their product defective and are now having to deal with an RMA.

Which is where you test the company's customer front devision. If you want to criticize EVGA for this, then you have a valid complaint and I'm sure [H] board mods (who have EVGA contacts) or EVGA reps on the boards will be able to help you. That said, you shouldn't have to go to a public forum to get help.

The frustration I have is similar to Game Producers. We all know, as PC gamers, that, more times than not, a game is going to hit the shelves full of bugs and in constant need of patches. Is it right for them to do this, knowingly? I think not, but its done anyways and WE, as the consumer, have 2 choices. Buy it anyways and deal with it, or dont buy it at all. In the end, we get the shaft because they (the companies) know they can get away with it.

Its frustrating.

I've got mixed feelings on the topics of game technical problems. There are good publishers/developers and there are bad publishers/devs. Blizzard has always been pretty good, (granted Vista has a couple problems with Starcraft, but thats... what 6 OS revs later? a tad extreme) EA is a total crapshoot. Sometimes their games are fine on all platforms, sometimes its just downright terrible.

If the consumer employs all of the general fixes, s/he will seldom have a problem. Game technical difficulties are often very very superficial and can be changed with a few clicks. Open a port, allow greater access, get a driver update, stuff like that. Don't get me wrong, with the Trillions of potential PC hardware combinations out there, its hard to get your software running on all flawlessly. Don't think its minor differences either, low level kernal changes and instruction set changes are more frequent then the software vendors would like.

I could go on and on, but its almost 2 am, I gotta get to bed....

on one more note, I would ask SAW what he considers heat issues. You mean your GPU core temp hits 80C? Well I hate to say it but thats becoming the norm, scary as it is (you can get warped PCB or broken sauder at that temp), but, if the card runs, not much more can be said. Do you mean the card's randomly crashing/artifacting?? well that could be plenty of other things besides the cards own heat dispersing system, (your case sucks, your power supply(an Apvia power supply will chomp on 7900GTX's for breakfast, a new video card every day isn't enough to keep those assholes happy which is really another thing: NV/ATI board vendors have to clean up after crappy power supply vendors), dust, brownout conditions, mobo problems).

 

[BallerX]

I clearly said i was sorry but that's how the warranty boils down. I tried to find a way to get a work around but they will not accept the video card at all unless it has the original heatsink attached. I just wanted to convey that i could not help you any further.

I got the impression that you where blowing me off. Was I wrong? I don't think so. I never heard word from anyone about the subject. Either way thats not the fucking point! It's four screws man!! So if someone is kind enough to loan me some Nvidia screws can I send it back then? Mind you, I don't have the fifty cent fan or the plastic cover but I bet I can get a set of those screws.

 

[Climber]

I also mentioned NOTHING about them having a "lack of customer service".

That is what this thread was about. Evga's customer service. You've been trying to derail it since your first post about how crappy their products are

What we are trying to tell you is that no matter who you went with for your particular product you would have had trouble becuase of the reference design. Evga on both occassions, IIRC about the 7900's, have allowed their customers to trade up those products due to the bad design by nvidia. That in my book ranks as outstanding.

 

[Glow]

I bought a evga mobo it lasted 6 months I bought a shuttle mobo it lasted 6 years, I don't think evga is that fantastic it just has good marketing and had a good a good warranty

 

[Climber]

I bought a evga mobo it lasted 6 months I bought a shuttle mobo it lasted 6 years, I don't think evga is that fantastic it just has good marketing and had a good a good warranty

Toyota has had to recall over 500,000 toyota pickups during its 2006/2007 manufacturing dates. Does this mean they make crappy trucks? No it just means things fall through the cracks. I had two shuttle boards for a friends rig, neither of which lasted two months. The third has worked great.

I have a 650i Ultra in a friends box and that board has been rock solid since day 1.

The whole point of customer service is that when things do slip through the cracks or when things do go wrong it is how they treat the consumer. In the case of SAW he is upset that his card, which had notorius heating problems, started to overheat. Evga as far as I know allowed their consumers to upgrade to the newer revisions, the same goes for the problematic 6801 boards.

The problem with your complaint xballer is that you removed your original heatsink and have since misplaced it, but their warranty specifically states that in the event it needs to be returned it needs to be shipped back with said origianl heat sink. Very clear and very reasonable at least IMO. The fact that they took the time to help you and attempt to find a way around the warranty process I think speaks volumes.

Which brings us back to the OP's premise. Evga has great customer service. Stop and think about how many e-mails a day that Joe Darwin, and perhaps even Russian Haxor get asking for help, basically by passing the day to day tech support Evga employs. Each one of those e-mails basically assuming their case to be the most urgent and want help outside of normal means. In my mind I think that is awesome that they would be willing to give out their contact info on our forums and advertise that they will do what they can to help.

 

[jacuzz1]

Its is all about the numbers. Bfg suffered this when they were the most popular. The more product you sell the more defectives are in the channel. There is a fixed and predictable percentage of defective boards that can fluctuate slightly from company to company base on handling practices but generally speaking you wil l have same amount of defectives from any of the companies.

Evga is currently the most popular (subjective opinion here) and as such they sell the most video cards and subsequently you will see more defectives.

I still feel EVGA is the best choice hands down if your going Nvidia based video subsystems

Just my .02

 

[SAW]

That is what this thread was about. Evga's customer service. You've been trying to derail it since your first post about how crappy their products are

What we are trying to tell you is that no matter who you went with for your particular product you would have had trouble becuase of the reference design. Evga on both occassions, IIRC about the 7900's, have allowed their customers to trade up those products due to the bad design by nvidia. That in my book ranks as outstanding.

Now see, thats the problem. All you guys think the same thing. I, in no way was trying to derail eVGA at all. Not once with all my posts have I said anything "bad" about eVGA, aside from saying "shitty quality". All else I have said was about how "wrong" it is for eVGA AND/OR ANY COMPANY to release a product that wasnt tested to the breaking point.

I even mentioned how I bought eVGA because of their good rep. Even said that I got approved for my RMA.

I do not see how anything I have said was to "derail" eVGA at all. For the most part, if you want to call it bitchin, I was bitchin at the fact that now, I HAVE to RMA my card, a card I paid over $300 bucks for, I have to RMA it because it was put out on the market with known problems. So now, I get to wait (from what ive been reading) about 2 weeks for a replacement. THAT SUX!!!! And THAT, is what Ive been talkin about.

I believe the problem with some of you posters is that youve read tid bits of my posts and decided I was bitchin about eVGA. If you took the time to read thru ALL of what I have posted, perhaps you would understand my point of view a bit more clearly.

Ive also got a thread in this exact same portion of video cards titled "My eVGA 7900gt went...." Take a look thru it and even in MY OWN THREAD, I do not bash eVGA.

 

[Climber]

Now see, thats the problem. All you guys think the same thing. I, in no way was trying to derail eVGA at all. Not once with all my posts have I said anything "bad" about eVGA, aside from saying "shitty quality". .

eVGA knowingly puts out defective products and THAT is why a lot of people are disappointed with eVGA.

That isn't saying something bad about a company? Your entire first post was you saying how bad they were.

Since "all of us guys" keep thinking the same way maybe you might want to re-evaluate how your saying it.

Evga has and continues to have some of the highest quality support in the industry. There are others as well, XFX jumps to mind, Corsair, OCZ, and others who stand firm behind their products which is why they have garnered the reputation they have and it is a reputation that is well deserved.