- A Redditor reports that their RTX 5070 (which they were gifted with) died
- PNY replaced the faulty graphics card with an RTX 5070 Ti
- These kinds of upgrades can pay off if you’re very lucky, and others on Reddit have similar stories to share
If your graphics card breaks, it’s obviously considered bad news – as even if it’s still under warranty you’ll have to go through the trouble of returning it for a replacement – but such a failure can turn out to be a good thing.
The recent experience of a Redditor (as highlighted by VideoCardz) who had a PNY GPU go bad makes this clear. They reportedly received an unexpected upgrade after their RTX 5070 went to silicon heaven.
The Reddit post says: “5070 completely died, PNY sent me a 5070 Ti to replace it. RMA process was quick too. Basically a free upgrade for $400.”
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The Redditor further explains, “To make matters 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 said if I would handle the potential hassle of the RMA.” [return merchandise authorization]I could keep it. So he basically gave me a $500 GPU that turned into a $1000 GPU, all for an hour of work and $30 shipping.”
As another poster succinctly puts it: “Unlimited GPU upgrade bug is unlocked.”
Obviously, we need to add some spice, but as other posters indicate, this can happen, and there are other reported incidents of swapping GPUs that thankfully turn 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 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 narrative surrounding PC components these days, as the price of RAM, storage, GPUs (and now CPUs) are all increasing – wildly in some cases – we’re hearing a lot more about sometimes sophisticated scams trying to swindle people out of the huge sums that jack-of-all-trades have now become.
Don’t believe that a graphics card manufacturer would replace a broken GPU with a higher end model? Well, I understand where your skepticism is coming from, but this can happen, and the Sapphire example mentioned above is a clue as to why – mainly because the return took so long to act. In these cases, the problem is likely to be finding storage of the GPU in question.
It could be the case that PNY didn’t have RTX 5070 stock in stock at the time and wanted to get the return completed in good time (there was a quick turnaround on this RMA, as the Redditor noted) — so the company sent an RTX 5070 Ti instead. It’s obviously a good way to keep the customer happy, and it works as a positive word of mouth when it’s broadcast on social media, as is the case here.
So if you need to return a GPU in the future, you might just get lucky. However, note that these cases of apparent on-site upgrades as part of a return are not the rule, but very much the exception. However, they definitely happen.
The one potential wrinkle in this scenario – as one poster pointed out – is that if you’re already at the limit of the watts your power supply is capable of handling on 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 smaller model again, saving the profit).
The best graphics cards for all budgets
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