Questions for folks with first hand EVGA Step Up Program Experience

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Neon01

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I applied for the step up program on a pair of GTX 980s that I bought just under 3 months ago. I understand there is no way I can get EVGA to send me the new units (980 Ti) prior to sending the old, so I had a couple questions. I'm mired in TW3 right now with FFXIV Heavensward coming in a couple weeks, so I want minimum downtime on my box.

1. Assuming overnight shipping both ways, how long does it typically take from the time you send out your old GPU to the time you receive the new one?

2. When is your credit card actually charged? After they receive your old card?

Since I didn't want to be completely without a PC during the exchange period, I had considered sending one card first in the hopes that I would receive it's replacement prior to the date I had to send out the second card. They say you have 14 days from the time you get the "go ahead", so with overnight shipping both ways, is that doable?
 
Answer to question two is when the new card ships is when your CC is charged.
 
Dood, you know EVGA has a FAQ on this right? :p

http://www.evga.com/support/stepup/

How long does it take EVGA to ship out my new product once they receive my old one?

All RMAs, even Step-Ups, will be processed within 1-3 business days. This means from the day we receive your old product, we will process and ship out your new Step-Up product within 3 business days. If there are any problems with your shipment (No RMA number, no serial number sticket, damage, etc.), this will delay the processing time.
 
BroHamBone said:
Dood, you know EVGA has a FAQ on this right? :p

http://www.evga.com/support/stepup/

How long does it take EVGA to ship out my new product once they receive my old one?

All RMAs, even Step-Ups, will be processed within 1-3 business days. This means from the day we receive your old product, we will process and ship out your new Step-Up product within 3 business days. If there are any problems with your shipment (No RMA number, no serial number sticket, damage, etc.), this will delay the processing time.
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FAQs aren't worth much. I'm hoping for real world info. 1-3 days "once we receive it" is basically their way of covering their ass. Even if the tracking manifest shows it received, they could always just say it hasn't made it from receiving to processing, or some BS.

That's why I titled this thread accordingly... ;p
 
Lol, ok. I would say the worst, 3 days. Never 1 day, but possibly 2 days. ;)
 
i used the step up recently when the gtx 980s were released. the only gtx 980s one could step up to at the time of launch was the reference cooled unit. the supply of those cards cleared out quickly. within a couple of weeks the only gtx 980 users could step up to were the acx cooled units and the reference cooled units were taken off the list. it took months for me to receive final notification that i could package up and send in my gtx 780 6gbs.

the question of 'how long' depends on how much you're willing to spend on shipping. i chose the cheapest shipping option and i live in oregon. it took a bout three days to hear back from evga that they received the cards, then it took another three days before i received the gtx 980s.
 
rennyf77 said:
i used the step up recently when the gtx 980s were released. the only gtx 980s one could step up to at the time of launch was the reference cooled unit. the supply of those cards cleared out quickly. within a couple of weeks the only gtx 980 users could step up to were the acx cooled units and the reference cooled units were taken off the list. it took months for me to receive final notification that i could package up and send in my gtx 780 6gbs.

the question of 'how long' depends on how much you're willing to spend on shipping. i chose the cheapest shipping option and i live in oregon. it took a bout three days to hear back from evga that they received the cards, then it took another three days before i received the gtx 980s.
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Whoa - months? When did you request the Step Up and when did they notify you that you could send in your card? Did you get in queue pretty early or did you wait for the ACX units? I'm hoping I only have to wait a few weeks. Otherwise, may as well just sell my card and buy. It's not like Step Up is that great.
 
sk3tch said:
Whoa - months? When did you request the Step Up and when did they notify you that you could send in your card? Did you get in queue pretty early or did you wait for the ACX units? I'm hoping I only have to wait a few weeks. Otherwise, may as well just sell my card and buy. It's not like Step Up is that great.
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How do you plan to get anywhere close to retail price for your 980s?

If a couple hundred bucks don't matter to you then I agree with you that it's better to sell and re-buy.
 
mope54 said:
How do you plan to get anywhere close to retail price for your 980s?

If a couple hundred bucks don't matter to you then I agree with you that it's better to sell and re-buy.
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It's a single 970. You can usually get about 80% back from your purchase price. It's not that big of a difference. 970s have held their value much better than the 980 or TITAN X.
 
Obviously I confused your post with the OP--hence why I specifically referred to the 980 in my response.
 
sk3tch said:
Whoa - months? When did you request the Step Up and when did they notify you that you could send in your card? Did you get in queue pretty early or did you wait for the ACX units? I'm hoping I only have to wait a few weeks. Otherwise, may as well just sell my card and buy. It's not like Step Up is that great.
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I requested my step up late day on June 1. I guess that was the day after they were released? When I asked previously how this sort of thing goes, the answer I got was that it's usually on the order of 2-3 weeks if you put in your request relatively early. Granted, this is completely anecdotal.

If it is indeed months, I'll be very disappointed.
 
I put in for a 980 ti from my 970. I applied in the first hour of availability to step up and I was placed in queue. 3 days later I got an email saying my queue had been completed. I paid at that point... Once payment was approved I was given shipping instructions to send in my old card. I mailed it off last friday and they received it monday. It has been showing product received and pending shipping since monday. Just waiting for them to send my card now, cant wait :D

FYI you have to pay for your new card and it gets charged before you even send your old card back in.
 
omega53 said:
I put in for a 980 ti from my 970. I applied in the first hour of availability to step up and I was placed in queue. 3 days later I got an email saying my queue had been completed. I paid at that point... Once payment was approved I was given shipping instructions to send in my old card. I mailed it off last friday and they received it monday. It has been showing product received and pending shipping since monday. Just waiting for them to send my card now, cant wait :LOL:.

FYI you have to pay for your new card and it gets charged before you even send your old card back in.
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Congrats! Thanks for your reply. When was that exactly? That it went live? They don't give out queue numbers anymore, so it's impossible to tell where you are other than from when you applied, I guess.
 
Neon01 said:
Congrats! Thanks for your reply. When was that exactly? That it went live? They don't give out queue numbers anymore, so it's impossible to tell where you are other than from when you applied, I guess.
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Yea, in the first hour it went live to step up. I was honestly surprised when it said my queue had completed lol. I was expecting to wait a month at least
 
omega53 said:
Yea, in the first hour it went live to step up. I was honestly surprised when it said my queue had completed lol. I was expecting to wait a month at least
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Gotcha, yeah, I was wondering what time that actually was. You said you hit it within the first hour so I thought you might know.

I've been reading the forums every few days over the last couple months hoping for a release, so I just checked by dumb luck on June 1 and saw that it was available and put in my request. I was 7 days from the expiration of my step up.

My request was at 5:30 pm EDT on the 1st. I'm trying to figure out roughly where I am in the queue.
 
I wake up at 6am for work and was checking a few times before leaving. I noticed it available to I put in for it instantly.
 
My last few experiences with EVGA cards and StepUp has been pretty positive. But the one thing I learned to do early on was opt for the cross ship when I register the card. You have a very limited window when you can do that from the original purchase date of the card. When I used the StepUp, they honored the cross ship support when I registered my card, so I had no downtime at all. I received the new card and then sent back the old card.

I have not done it for a few years now, so I don't know if they changed their policy. Also for quite awhile I received free cross shipping and free Step Ups from EVGA for reasons. Unfortunately their support is not quite what it used to be, which is the cost of becoming a larger company.
 
They have changed their policies in that it costs more for those options now and I think the window may be reduced but I haven't had an evga since a 285 I believe
 
Mope is correct. They do still have the cross ship option at a cost, but apparently this no longer applies to step up transactions.

From the FAQ:

Can I get the new product first in a cross-shipment?

There are no options for cross-shipping a Step-Up product at this time. If you have purchased EVGA's EAR on your original product, this does not apply to Step-Up however the EAR will transfer to your new product.
 
the day the nda broke on the gtx 980s i had my step-up submitted by 9pm pacific time. maybe i was the only one paying any attention to it, but reference cooled evga gtx 980s remained sold out on all channels for a long time.

three months in i asked evga if switching over to the acx model would speed things up. the response was that if i changed my mind on the model, i'd have to go back to the end of the line. i suspect what happened was that evga ordered a small batch of reference units from nvidia then turned their attention solely toward trying to saturate their market with the acx cards.

from what i can tell, all variants of evga gtx 980 ti cards seem to be easy to come by so what i endured might not be anyone's experience right now.
 
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