RMA approved for $740 store credit. Now what?

[Carfax83]

OK I've been trying to get a refund from Newegg for the last 2 weeks or so for my G1 GTX 970s. They really gave me the run around I must say. First they took a week and a half to get back to me, and when they did, they denied me and tried to pass it off to the manufacturer; which in my case is Gigabyte.

Called Gigabyte yesterday, and their customer service is absolutely terrible. D: I'll never buy a Gigabyte product ever again, of that you can be assured. :thumbsdown:

So after getting the middle finger from Gigabyte, I took to calling Newegg again, and my perseverance paid off. I had to get a little dicey with them, but in the end I convinced them to approve my request. Basically it came down to telling them over and over that several other retailers including Best Buy, Amazon etcetera have accepted returns for unhappy GTX 970 owners, so why not Newegg?

I told them that denying me would lose them a long term customer, which wasn't worth it, and it's true. It's better for them to eat a small loss, rather than lose the potentially thousands of dollars from me not buying anything from them ever again.

It also helped a lot that I still had the boxes and everything for my cards. Also, I asked for store credit rather than a refund, because I was going to buy my next video card(s) from them. Although on my RMA authorization it still says "refund," but whatever.

Anyway, I plan on shipping them out later today, or on Friday. But now my dilemma is what to do with the $740 store credit that I'm going to get?

My original plan was to use the money to put towards a Titan X when it becomes available as I want to ditch SLI, but when that will be I have no idea. Could be well over a month or more from now. I don't know if I'm willing to wait that long.

Plan B would be to buy two EVGA GTX 980s (because &%$# Gigabyte), use one of them but leave the other unopened. The one that I'd use would eventually be for stepping up to a Titan X whenever it is released, whilst the other unopened one would be sold on eBay, Craigslist or on Anandtech's FS forum brand new.

And if you're wondering, why not just buy one GTX 980 instead, well if I did I'd still have almost $200 dollars of store credit left. If Newegg actually does give me an actual refund though instead, then yeah I'd definitely only buy the one card.

Plan C would be to keep the GTX 980s, and deal with the annoyances that comes with multiGPU setups.. If SLI ever ticks me off again like it did with Watch Dogs and AC Unity, I'll sell them both and buy the fastest single GPU I can get my hands on.

So what do you think? On one hand I want to ditch SLI, but on the other I'm so used to the high performance that SLI brings. GTX 980 SLI is going to be much faster than a single Titan X at 1440p, and pretty much guarantees 60 FPS unless you actively try to cripple the card by using ridiculously excessive settings such as 8x MSAA and high levels of downsampling.

A single Titan X, judging by it's specs should easily handle 1440p at high IQ settings, but 60 FPS is far from guaranteed. I want to play the Witcher 3 at 1440p with everything turned on to the max except supersampling. GTX 980 SLI should deliver that, but I'm not sure a single Titan X will..

Decisions, decisions, decisions :'(

 

[PC Master Race]

Anyway, I plan on shipping them out later today, or on Friday. But now my dilemma is what to do with the $740 store credit that I'm going to get?

Buy more GPUs.

 

[MiRai]

Plan B would be to buy two EVGA GTX 980s (because &%$# Gigabyte), use one of them but leave the other unopened. The one that I'd use would eventually be for stepping up to a Titan X whenever it is released, whilst the other unopened one would be sold on eBay, Craigslist or on Anandtech's FS forum brand new.

The Step-Up program did not include Titans last time due to limited supply, and I would assume that it will be the same this time around, as well.

Besides that, I'd probably just hold out for the Titan if you really want the Titan.

 

[RussianSensation]

Option D - Buy used 970/980 SLI, keep the store credit for GM200 that you want. You can always resell GM204s later. Think of it as you used 970 SLI for free for 5 months.

Buying new 980 SLI sounds like a waste of money since you plan on buying GM200 anyway. If you go that route, might as well try to find used ones since you'll be selling them in 6 months anyway.

If you do decide to go 970s again, try MSI Gaming.

I am not even sure why you decided to return your cards since going AMD isn't an option for you. You are pretty much back to where you started. Could have just held on to those cards and sold them for GM200 anyway.

Also, not sure why you are so mad at Gigabyte as it's 100% NV's fault. Why should Gigabyte refund you and take a loss when it's not even their fault?

 

[MeldarthX]

or 290X crossfire still cheaper than most to wait until see what's coming. Honestly I wouldn't reward Nvidia for lieing by going to 980s.......but that's me

 

[Silverforce11]

You want a refund because NV lied to you and you reward them by giving them more $$ for 980s?

Have you seen that youtube parody yet? Describes the situation perfectly, NV lying = win by getting users to spend more $ on 980s. I don't normally link parody but its just so fitting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spZJrsssPA0

If I were in your shoes, I'd spend as LITTLE money as possible now and wait for R390X & GM200. I'd grab a R290 ~$240 for a good custom model. You can sell it later and lose less $ overall when R390X/GM200 drop the hammer on the mid-range GM204 SKUs.

 

[guskline]

Carfax83: First, I had the same experience with Newegg concerning returning my Gigabyte G1 Gamer BUT they did come through in the end with a refund Checked my gift cards and they work!). I say Kudos for Newegg. Have not heard a "peep" from either Gigabyte or Nvidia (that's for another day. Nvidia's lack of a simple apology seems to show me they have taken the route of waiting this out in the legal realm while loyal customer's flail in the wind. SAD.).

On to your dilemma. I was replacing 2 EVGA GTX 670 FTWs in SLI (2 G Vram each) so the GTX 970 seemed the smartest route (was in my 2nd rig with a 3770k).

If you could wait until the AMD 300 series releases I bet you could get what you want. However that may take too long AND if you are opposed to AMD, I understand.

I replaced my GTX 970 with a Sapphire Tri-X R9 290, lost a bit of performance, hardly noticeable and saved some $$ to apply toward the 300 series cards when they come out.

As you can see I run 2 R9 290s in CF (exact same model and brand as the newest one in the 3770k) and they are really solid.

If your heart is set on the Titan X, no matter what, get a "hold over" card and bank the $$$. BTW, what's the estimated price of the Titan X?

 

[desprado]

I would be in ur position than i will buy a MSI GTX 980 TF V and wait for GTX titan X or what ever it is called.

 

[Carfax83]

The Step-Up program did not include Titans last time due to limited supply, and I would assume that it will be the same this time around, as well.

Besides that, I'd probably just hold out for the Titan if you really want the Titan.

Thanks for pointing that out to me :thumbsup:

 

[Carfax83]

Option D - Buy used 970/980 SLI, keep the store credit for GM200 that you want. You can always resell GM204s later. Think of it as you used 970 SLI for free for 5 months.

Does Newegg even sell used 980/970s? I don't think so man. They only sell new or open box items.

Also, not sure why you are so mad at Gigabyte as it's 100% NV's fault. Why should Gigabyte refund you and take a loss when it's not even their fault?

It's not their fault, but the point is how you treat your customers. Newegg had the least amount of culpability in all of this, but they're giving me the refund.

So that makes me want to be a loyal customer to them. EVGA is also allowing unhappy 970 owners an opportunity to step up to a 980 or something else.. Gigabyte on the other hand, isn't doing crap for their customers so they can *%#& off...

 

[Carfax83]

or 290X crossfire still cheaper than most to wait until see what's coming. Honestly I wouldn't reward Nvidia for lieing by going to 980s.......but that's me

290x crossfire isn't an option because:

1) Power consumption

2) Very high driver overhead and CPU scaling issues

3) Crossfire compatibility is less than SLI

If it weren't for these three things, I would go with AMD in an instant.

 

[Silverforce11]

It also depends on when you think Titan X is arriving.

Rumors suggest AMD may launch R390X or announce a paper launch in late March. If its decent, its going to force NV to release GM200 for consumers earlier.

So if you feel its not too far away, spending a lot of $ on any disposable GPU is wasteful, particularly so if such GPUs are going to lose their premium status/price when the big boys arrive.

Edit: IF AMD is a no go for you, then I agree with RS, get a used/refurb/open box 970 and use that to tie you over. Don't waste a lot of $ when you know its a very temporary solution.

 

[desprado]

290x crossfire isn't an option because:

1) Power consumption

2) Very high driver overhead and CPU scaling issues

3) Crossfire compatibility is less than SLI

If it weren't for these three things, I would go with AMD in an instant.

one more point is that all this year 1H AAA games are gamework titles expect Battlefield Hardline.

 

[Carfax83]

You want a refund because NV lied to you and you reward them by giving them more $$ for 980s?

I'm nearly 100% certain NVidia intentionally lied about the specs, and yes that ticked me off.. I never would have bought them had I known the real specs.

But the 970 is still a great card, and a great buy. It was priced extremely well for what it offered so it wasn't like I was being ripped off. If it had the 4GB of full speed memory, 64 ROPs and 2MB of L2 cache like originally advertised, it would have been priced higher I'd think..

Anyway, I'd love it if AMD could be an option, but I gave my reasons why they couldn't in my reply to MeldarthX..

 

[desprado]

It also depends on when you think Titan X is arriving.

Rumors suggest AMD may launch R390X or announce a paper launch in late March. If its decent, its going to force NV to release GM200 for consumers earlier.

So if you feel its not too far away, spending a lot of $ on any disposable GPU is wasteful, particularly so if such GPUs are going to lose their premium status/price when the big boys arrive.

Edit: IF AMD is a no go for you, then I agree with RS, get a used/refurb/open box 970 and use that to tie you over. Don't waste a lot of $ when you know its a very temporary solution.

Maybe Nvidia launch their new GPU on this year GDC so who knows.

 

[Carfax83]

As you can see I run 2 R9 290s in CF (exact same model and brand as the newest one in the 3770k) and they are really solid.

How's your CPU scaling and driver overhead? AMD's drivers don't seem to scale well above two cores, which results in a severe performance penalty in CPU bound situations.

For GPU bound situations though, AMD is on par with NVidia in most cases.

If your heart is set on the Titan X, no matter what, get a "hold over" card and bank the $$$. BTW, what's the estimated price of the Titan X?

Word on the street is that it will be $1,300 for a Titan X with 12GB of VRAM. I'm hoping NVidia makes a 6GB version though for $1,000. 12GB is absolutely useless to gamers. Only professionals can use that much VRAM..

 

[MeldarthX]

290x crossfire isn't an option because:

1) Power consumption

2) Very high driver overhead and CPU scaling issues

3) Crossfire compatibility is less than SLI

If it weren't for these three things, I would go with AMD in an instant.

You and I don't always see eye to eye........but power consumption after taking OC into account usually about 50-75W over 970s; and 980s; its less...

Drivers seem to be far better side on AMD with the new games that Nvidia; and crossfire and sli have all their own issues; but with 290s crossfire is smoother usually when working. Both have lagged on profiles though got to admit.

I've not seem issues with driver over head or cpu scaling; but there have been some issues.

Honestly bro; I'd pick up 290 or 290x; the 290x; faster than 970; and only ave now 9.5% slower than 980.

They are dirt cheap; will hold you over until the new big boys come out and doesn't reward nvidia for lieing

 

[3DVagabond]

OK I've been trying to get a refund from Newegg for the last 2 weeks or so for my G1 GTX 970s. They really gave me the run around I must say. First they took a week and a half to get back to me, and when they did, they denied me and tried to pass it off to the manufacturer; which in my case is Gigabyte.

Called Gigabyte yesterday, and their customer service is absolutely terrible. D: I'll never buy a Gigabyte product ever again, of that you can be assured. :thumbsdown:

So after getting the middle finger from Gigabyte, I took to calling Newegg again, and my perseverance paid off. I had to get a little dicey with them, but in the end I convinced them to approve my request. Basically it came down to telling them over and over that several other retailers including Best Buy, Amazon etcetera have accepted returns for unhappy GTX 970 owners, so why not Newegg?

I told them that denying me would lose them a long term customer, which wasn't worth it, and it's true. It's better for them to eat a small loss, rather than lose the potentially thousands of dollars from me not buying anything from them ever again.

It also helped a lot that I still had the boxes and everything for my cards. Also, I asked for store credit rather than a refund, because I was going to buy my next video card(s) from them. Although on my RMA authorization it still says "refund," but whatever.

Anyway, I plan on shipping them out later today, or on Friday. But now my dilemma is what to do with the $740 store credit that I'm going to get?

My original plan was to use the money to put towards a Titan X when it becomes available as I want to ditch SLI, but when that will be I have no idea. Could be well over a month or more from now. I don't know if I'm willing to wait that long.

Plan B would be to buy two EVGA GTX 980s (because &%$# Gigabyte), use one of them but leave the other unopened. The one that I'd use would eventually be for stepping up to a Titan X whenever it is released, whilst the other unopened one would be sold on eBay, Craigslist or on Anandtech's FS forum brand new.

And if you're wondering, why not just buy one GTX 980 instead, well if I did I'd still have almost $200 dollars of store credit left. If Newegg actually does give me an actual refund though instead, then yeah I'd definitely only buy the one card.

Plan C would be to keep the GTX 980s, and deal with the annoyances that comes with multiGPU setups.. If SLI ever ticks me off again like it did with Watch Dogs and AC Unity, I'll sell them both and buy the fastest single GPU I can get my hands on.

So what do you think? On one hand I want to ditch SLI, but on the other I'm so used to the high performance that SLI brings. GTX 980 SLI is going to be much faster than a single Titan X at 1440p, and pretty much guarantees 60 FPS unless you actively try to cripple the card by using ridiculously excessive settings such as 8x MSAA and high levels of downsampling.

A single Titan X, judging by it's specs should easily handle 1440p at high IQ settings, but 60 FPS is far from guaranteed. I want to play the Witcher 3 at 1440p with everything turned on to the max except supersampling. GTX 980 SLI should deliver that, but I'm not sure a single Titan X will..

Decisions, decisions, decisions :'(

So let me see if I understand. If Newegg didn't give you a refund they would lose your business forever? Gigabyte has lost your business forever? Both of these because of nVidia deceiving you about the specs on the 970? Now you are looking at buying nVidia again? If anyone has caused you this grief and deserves to be shunned over it, surely it's nVidia, isn't it?

 

[PC Master Race]

so let me see if i understand. If newegg didn't give you a refund they would lose your business forever? Gigabyte has lost your business forever? Both of these because of nvidia deceiving you about the specs on the 970? Now you are looking at buying nvidia again? If anyone has caused you this grief and deserves to be shunned over it, surely it's nvidia, isn't it?

roflmao !

 

[Carfax83]

I would be in ur position than i will buy a MSI GTX 980 TF V and wait for GTX titan X or what ever it is called.

This is an option.. The only bad thing is the inconvenience factor of having to sell the GTX 980 when the Titan X became available..

Selling stuff on eBay, Craigslist etcetera can be a hassle!

 

[Silverforce11]

How's your CPU scaling and driver overhead? AMD's drivers don't seem to scale well above two cores, which results in a severe performance penalty in CPU bound situations.

Functions just fine since I got them (R290s).

I play at GPU bound settings so fps into the hundreds is not an issue, nor would I feel the CPU overhead.

Take a look at recent games (latest is Evolve & BF Hardline), R290/X does damn fine considering the "terrible DX11 overhead" that keeps on getting pushed around like a mantra.

If you're CPU bound, you need to turn on better IQ settings. There's no games where a modern i5/i7 is not capable of meeting at least 60 fps. You're with 1440p where its 99.9% GPU bound when IQ settings are upped.

 

[MeldarthX]

Car I'll be getting 8320e next week along with either 290 or 290X......and I'll run some tests for you if you want

I'm getting 8320e to play with with OC; I want to see just how far I can take it

plus you have other here with 290/290x and some with cf that will run tests for you. I mean; honestly I know you got the cash to burn; but you also have time

 

[Carfax83]

So let me see if I understand. If Newegg didn't give you a refund they would lose your business forever? Gigabyte has lost your business forever? Both of these because of nVidia deceiving you about the specs on the 970? Now you are looking at buying nVidia again? If anyone has caused you this grief and deserves to be shunned over it, surely it's nVidia, isn't it?

NVidia will get their due, but I don't have time to wait for some infernal class action lawsuit unfortunately..

And as I said before, while the fault doesn't lie with Newegg or Gigabyte, customer care is an important part of doing business.

If Amazon, Best Buy and other retailers, plus AiB manufacturer EVGA hadn't allowed returns, then I wouldn't expect such of Newegg or Gigabyte..

 

[_UP_]

So let me see if I understand. If Newegg didn't give you a refund they would lose your business forever? Gigabyte has lost your business forever? Both of these because of nVidia deceiving you about the specs on the 970? Now you are looking at buying nVidia again? If anyone has caused you this grief and deserves to be shunned over it, surely it's nVidia, isn't it?

That is exactly what I was thinking.
+1

 

[Silverforce11]

Think about it:

Maybe use this opportunity that NV has wisely provided for you (false advertisement matters these days??)... and go team Red with a great & cheap R290.

It's only a temporary solution, so you don't have to feel disgusted at having an AMD product in your rig for long.. it may surprise you by being very quiet & delivering excellent smooth fps for cheap.