Which brand of GPUs should you buy for maximum warranty coverage?

Yes

I'd stick to ASUS, despite whatever warranty they offer.

I think the move here by zotac is they have nothing to differentiate themselves from the other brands so they slapped this 5 year of total warranty. They know their quality, if 20% of cards fail and they replace them, the loss is compensated by the amount of sales they gain by the 5 year warranty sticker.

My opinion zotac uses cheaper grade parts on the GPU to bring the cost down. Moving away too much from the parts specification recommended in the Nvidia/Amd GPU reference design for the board partners.

Heisen said:

I think the move here by zotac is they have nothing to differentiate themselves from the other brands so they slapped this 5 year of total warranty. They know their quality, if 20% of cards fail and they replace them, the loss is compensated by the amount of sales they gain by the 5 year warranty sticker.

My opinion zotac uses cheaper grade parts on the GPU to bring the cost down. Moving away too much from the parts specification recommended in the Nvidia/Amd GPU reference design for the board partners.

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They probably also gamble on the fact that not everyone who's card has gone bad will claim warranty as 1st: they might have forgotten to register their purchase for that sweet extra 2 years of warranty and 2nd some forget/misplace their invoice/bill so can't initiate RMA. Remember 5 years is a long time and people are clumsy.

One more thing since 5 years is a long time there is a higher chance of physical damage occurring without you even touching the card such as rusting or ants/spiders living there eating wires and whatnot, which upon inspection they can deny warranty. check this horror lol

And like @Heisen has said they makeup their losses by having such a big presence in Indian market.
I would still go with zotac If I were to buy a new card today. For AMD cards I heard sapphire is good but I personally had a card go bad literally a few months after warranty period so I'm biased against it.

So i have used over the period of last 18 years,

EVGA 560ti - Could not get the card to die even after 5 years of abuse..too bad no longer an option to buy.
ASUS gtx 760 DCU II- card was doa, replacement died after 1.5 years, post which 3 more replacement cards were doa then a voucher for 75% purchase cost was issued.
Sapphire amd 6970 - card died a week after 3 years warranty expired worked fine during warranty period.
Zotac 780ti- owned and used 6 cards so far gtx 970, gtx 1080(*2) 3060ti, 4070ti, none died or required claiming warranty yet.
MSI - Card worked fine for 2 years post which i sold it, buyer was happy for as long as i can remember.
Inno3d gtx 1070- card worked fine for 3.5years of usage even survived a corsair hx850w cap blowing and taking mobo/cpu with it.( sudden rains and left the window open)
Palit 8800gt - died after 6 years of usage was solid till it lasted.
XFX 8800gt - was my fault i killed it, was a solid gpu, xfx had shut shop so it was a loss as all gpu's i recieved from rma went bad after a few weeks.

I used all my cards with a custom fan curve not letting any one of the above go over 72c while gaming or load. Abuse is what kills a gpu from my experience if product is ok it should last as long as you keep an eye on it. post 80c even the most expensive components will die after a few years.

At the moment from what i have heard all manufacturers warranty service in india has taken a hit, declining warranty on stupid things, giving repaired cards which have not gone through QA. Whichever brand you choose just take care of your hardware so warranty claim is not needed,

1) Use in a good airflow case, prioritize airflow over looks or try to find the best balance but never sacrifice airflow for looks.
2) Keep an eye on hotspot temps and use custom fan curve's to keep gpu temps under 72-73 where possible. the hotspot should stay under 90c if gpu is built well. anything above 90c can cause issues in long run in my opinion.
3) clean the card every 2-3 months so the dust build up in the cards dont hurt the temps.
4) Fans are replaceable and easy to find and fix then a burnt component on the gpu so crank up the fans when needed.
5) try to undervolt as you will consume close to 50-60% power while getting close to 90% performance.
6) Dont rely on overclocking for more performance as nowadays the hardware are already pushed to max by manufacturer's leaving very little to no headroom, the degradation vs performance ratio is bad. Invest in a higher end gpu if you need more performance. for eg :- my 4070ti in a undervolt gives 110fps with all maxed settings and frame generation on 4k in ghost of tsushima while consuming under 155w. If i were to remove the undervolt and oc the card it gives 10-15fps more but the power reaching 260-270w and temps start closing into 80c, not worth it based on degradation.

Edit1 :- Above is my my opinion and advise based on years of usage and explains what i do. Its upto the end user how they want to treat their hardware as getting it rmaed will be on you in the end.

salman8506 said:

2) Keep an eye on hotspot temps and use custom fan curve's to keep gpu under 72-73 where possible.

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Hotspot temps under 72 ??

Right now my Zotac gpu temps go to around 67-68, generally 65 with fans at 70%. ( PL 85% + some undervolt = stock performance )
Hotpost is +10C and memory is approx+20C ( GDDR6X)

Even at PL 70% i only lose 10% performance. I use that generally, increasing to 85% for intensive games.

salman8506 said:

4) Fans are replaceable and easy to find and fix then a burnt component on the gpu so crank up the fans when needed.

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Makes sense, but they do get loud. What speeds do you generally use ?

Tracer_Bullet said:

Hotspot temps under 72 ??

Right now my Zotac gpu temps go to around 67-68, generally 65 with fans at 70%. ( PL 85% + some undervolt = stock performance )
Hotpost is +10C and memory is approx+20C ( GDDR6X)

Even at PL 70% i only lose 10% performance. I use that generally, increasing to 85% for intensive games.


Makes sense, but they do get loud. What speeds do you generally use ?

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GPUs are safe to work till 90c so not necessarily it has to be under 72c etc. Its a personal perspective. I had gpus hovering around 92c as well on loads and idling at 40-45c so as far as its idling to the most comfortable normal temps the loads shouldn't bother much. Only if the gpu idles post 50-55c I will be worried.


Todays Galax bad review..

Tracer_Bullet said:

Hotspot temps under 72 ??

Right now my Zotac gpu temps go to around 67-68, generally 65 with fans at 70%. ( PL 85% + some undervolt = stock performance )
Hotpost is +10C and memory is approx+20C ( GDDR6X)

Even at PL 70% i only lose 10% performance. I use that generally, increasing to 85% for intensive games.


Makes sense, but they do get loud. What speeds do you generally use ?

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I mentioned gpu temp, hotspot can upto 85-90 depends on gpu temps, I have a custom fan curve and have a headset while gaming once gpu touches 70 the fans get to 85% , its overall ok and not that loud for my usage.

nRiTeCh said:

GPUs are safe to work till 90c so not necessarily it has to be under 72c etc. Its a personal perspective. I had gpus hovering around 92c as well on loads and idling at 40-45c so as far as its idling to the most comfortable normal temps the loads shouldn't bother much. Only if the gpu idles post 50-55c I will be worried.

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All of the above is my 2 cents over the years of usage. All are free to do whatever they want with their hardware in the end you are responsible for your hardware and doing an rma it if it blows.

Edit 1:- agreed galax is outright bad for warranty services from what i have read recently they are denying warranty to almost everyone.

Zotac has a new policy now that says extra 2 years warranty only available if purchase invoice date is within 90 days of distributor invoice/import date for the card. If not then only 3 years standard warranty. More importantly, if difference between purchase invoice date & mfg/import date is more than 1 year like what usually happens during some too good to be true flipkart sales where they clear old stock at heavily discounted prices then even standard warranty of 2/3 years will apply from the mfg date as per serial no. & not the flipkart invoice date.

I would rather get FE cards than trust any OEM these days, the only good one was EVGA and they were driven out of business by Nvidia

salman8506 said:

All of the above is my 2 cents over the years of usage. All are free to do whatever they want with their hardware in the end you are responsible for your hardware and doing an rma it if it blows.

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Yeah, hence I mentioned its a personal perspective and choice altogether. I have gamed even on 102c few times but goodness nothing happened!

nRiTeCh said:

Yeah, hence I mentioned its a personal perspective and choice altogether. I have gamed even on 102c few times but goodness nothing happened!

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102c is the tjMax, CPUs/GPUs are rated for 105c iirc but of course its not recommended to run them that high for longevity

guest_999 said:

Zotac has a new policy now that says extra 2 years warranty only available if purchase invoice date is within 90 days of distributor invoice/import date for the card. If not then only 3 years standard warranty. More importantly, if difference between purchase invoice date & mfg/import date is more than 1 year like what usually happens during some too good to be true flipkart sales where they clear old stock at heavily discounted prices then even standard warranty of 2/3 years will apply from the mfg date as per serial no. & not the flipkart invoice date.

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Interesting so manufacturers never cease to amaze finding ways to not honor warranty.

guest_999 said:

Zotac has a new policy now that says extra 2 years warranty only available if purchase invoice date is within 90 days of distributor invoice/import date for the card. If not then only 3 years standard warranty. More importantly, if difference between purchase invoice date & mfg/import date is more than 1 year like what usually happens during some too good to be true flipkart sales where they clear old stock at heavily discounted prices then even standard warranty of 2/3 years will apply from the mfg date as per serial no. & not the flipkart invoice date.

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wow this is crucial information... how do we even know this when buying online

EVGA used to be King of all. I even preferred getting no Indian warranty EVGA over Asus that offers domestic Indian warranty till they ran out of business after 3xxx series.

DigitalDude said:

wow this is crucial information... how do we even know this when buying online

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When buying from specialised stores like primeabgb.md/vedant etc then simply contact them to know import date as it is visible clearly on the sticker on the box itself. For amazon/fk though you will only know it after receiving the package. If it is flipkart then open box delivery must be there so when delivery person open the outermost packaging just see import date on box & refuse to accept delivery by not sharing the otp if import date is too old. In case of amazon you will have to take chance but then amazon is not known to sell more than 7-8 months old stock of graphics card as far as I know so in worst case scenario you still get 3 years standard warranty from the date of purchase invoice.

Zotac official warranty terms -
I would say you should be able to challenge anything apart from this legally but obviously only if you have the time and money.
Personally I would go with a brand, if it gives me better QC and ASS than just focus on the warranty.