I own a GTX 670 FTW and am very happy with it. It performs very well and consistently. However, I'm afraid that an acquaintance of mine has had a terrible experience with EVGA's support and I just cannot see myself standing beside a business with such horrible practice.
 
I am part of a distributed computing project which has, in the last couple of years, taken advantage of CUDA computing to drastically increase throughput (a GTX 670 is ~ 10 times faster than the combined four cores my i5-3570k overclocked to 4.6 GHz). One of the members recently had his GTX 570 die on him and he sent it to EVGA for RMA. Their response was: "Congratulations. We've upgraded you to a GTX 660 Ti," much to his chagrin. We have dozens of benchmarks on hand to prove that the GTX 570 outperforms the GTX 660 Ti by nearly 100% in our applications. Yes, the CUDA core count is higher in the 660 Ti. Yes, the frequencies are higher in the 660 Ti. It doesn't matter: For whatever reason, the GTX 570's architecture is just plain better in the compute application.
 
 
Our friend was told: "The GTX 660 Ti performs better in our own benchmarks so you're getting a better card."
 
His response was: "Your benchmarks are not my application, and thus they aren't a good representation. Send me back a GTX 570 like the one I sent in."
 
They said: "Our policy is to return an equal or better card, and the GTX 660 Ti outperforms the GTX 570 in every way."
 
He sent in benchmark results (the times for maybe 10000 iterations out of the tens of millions required per test) showing that the GTX 660 Ti does not beat the GTX 570 in this regard, despite it being better 'in every way'.
 
They reply: "A manager has already contacted you about this. Test the GTX 660 Ti and should it not be satisfactory, begin the RMA process to get a GTX 570."
 
 
Does their support not speak English? He paid for a GTX 570 because he wants a GTX 570. The architecture is much better suited for our purposes is the reason he bought a GTX 570! They could give him a GTX 780 and it wouldn't be satisfactory. Our benchmarks table show that the GTX 570 outperforms the GTX 780 by 10%. The story isn't quite over, but I can spoil the ending anyway. He's going to get his card and be very disappointed with the results (hint: we already know what they're going to be) and he's going to have to pay through the nose for a second RMA and lose a bunch of time with his GPU flying around the planet. This could have been avoided if the tech support drone was allowed to think and give his company's paying customer the service he wanted, not the service the handbook says he wanted.
 
EVGA fails customer service 101.
 
Adieu

Maybe you and your friend should read Post http://forums.evga.com/FindPost/2047425 and that for Folders the newer drivers are not meant for Folding and some of the Folders are using 326.80 Beta Driver This is the One Fellow Folders.
See http://forums.evga.com/FindPost/2046092 for more info and  http://forums.evga.com/FindPost/2048022
What I have found was My GTX 660Ti Folded Great with the 326.80 Beta Driver as Do All My Folding Rigs.
I started Crunching@EVGA and CUDA is old school GTX 5xx and below are OpenGL for GTX 6xx and above.
Their is a lot of talk about NVIDIA Drivers and Folding.
 
Other Links:
Free-DC
BOINC Combined Statistics
BOINCstats
The Knights Who Say 'Ni!'
BOINC all Project Stats
BOINC Statistics for the WORLD!
 
PS I need a 4th GTX 660Ti SC 2 GB card is your friend willing to sale?
""Congratulations. We've upgraded you to a GTX 660 Ti"" I call this Outstanding Support.
I hope that when my GTX 660Ti die they upgrade me to a GTX 760
Kepler GK104 -v- Fermi GF110
http://www.game-debate.com/gpu/index.php?gid=874&gid2=462&compare=geforce-gtx-660-ti-vs-geforce-gtx-570
 

Good afternoon,
 
I do apologize for any issues your friend has had with EVGA. I can assure you EVGA prides itself with our excellent customer service. Unfortunately I can't divulge information about someone else account and RMA information. However if we replaced a GTX 570 with a different/greater performing model it is because there were no 570s left for replacement at that time. Our inventory changes on a daily basis and what we have today will differ from tomorrow. While I can understand were your friend is coming from, I can try to work with him. I would suggest having him contact me at JoeyC@evga.com to see what I can do. Have him include his RMA number and I'll have to check with our RMA manager on Monday once normal business hours resume. Thank you and have a good weekend. 

I have dealt with EVGA on a few RMA's of my own.  All the times they have came through for me.  And while GPU computing power can vary greatly versus GPU gaming power, EVGA is doing their best to match the card up. 
 
From my own experience on upgrading cards, each card has had a little better FPS and ran cooler then the last.
GTX 470 = GTX 560Ti = GTX 650Ti

True, I'm not expecting a gtx285 if I rma it.

giltyler

kaninja
True, I'm not expecting a gtx285 if I rma it.

Is the 285 a 1 or 2 gig card

lol, it is a whopping 1Gb card......ancient by today's standard, and by the way people are whining over cards coming with 3Gb's I suppose I should count myself lucky that I'm able to run Windows calculator without being V-Ram limited.

Refer to post #5....THAT'S Evga customer service!

lulz at someone posting (first time) a complaint for someone who doesn't seem to want to post a complaint .and then he threatens EVGA for something the card owner should have done .To funny

Yawmawn
EVGA fails customer service 101.
 

Not bloody likely.  You and your friend failed disgruntled customer 101, apparently, which is: Sometimes even with the best of companies and best of intentions, things don't always go right the first time.  When that happens, calmly and professionally escalate the issue and give the company a chance to make it right.
 
You chose to place a rant in a public forum instead...and EVGA is *still* going to make it right.  To practically no one's surprise who's ever dealt with them before, I might add.  I sure hope you or your friend will be back to post a public follow up when this is resolved, one way or another.

I just don't see how it's possible for a 570 to beat a 780 at ANYTHING. Very weird software you are running OP

Can I ask what distributed computing project has a 570 besting a more current generation card?
 
+1 to the poster above me.

This is typical of all nvidia AIB partners (maybe AMD too, not sure). The policy is put in place when they don't have that card in stock, and I'm sure it's even more of a headache for people running SLI. Seems like you guys should be using cards more suited to GPGPU-only uses.

It sounds like too me if EVGA is going to loose a customer over this then its a customer they really don't need

I will trade you a gtx570 for a 780 if you want...

giltyler
Very simple you and your friend should think outside the box on this  issue,  Sell the GTX 660ti and use the money to buy a GTX 570 or two with the proceeds from the sale simple as that.
There is no company that can guarantee that you will get the exact item on a replacement where technology changes so frequently.
 

 
It is a shame that some people would rather throw a fit than focus their efforts in the right direction to solve their issue using the same or less amount of energy.
 
To OP, EVGA is thanking you right now for giving them the opportunity to go above and beyond publicly.  I am pretty sure JoeyC's response just gained them more customers than they lost from your comment.