So, to preface, I have always thought of EVGA as a prestigious and highly regarded brand, until I bought once of their PSUs. This was a couple years ago, and it was a 850w unit which turned to be defective. It would randomly shut down my PC at times, so I returned it within the 30 day period and have been happy with no issues from a CorsairRMi 750w unit. Love it. Fast forward a couple years and here we are, me finally getting my hands on a 3070. And as such, only the EVGA model was available. Given my previous experience with the brand I was skeptical, but it was all I could get my hands on. After spending $1000 CAD on a XC3 Ultra 3070, I was ecstatic. Coming from a GTX 1080 the upgrade was great. Until, I began to run into a plethora of issues with the card. At first, I noticed a screeching scratchy sound whenever the fans would begin to spin up, you can see it in this clip:
https://www.reddit.com/r/EVGA/comments/tukfat/why_is_my_brand_new_evga_3070_xc3_ultra_making/It really annoyed me, because the fans would kick in at around 55c and bounce between on and off while watching youtube. So I set a fan curve to where they never shut off and went about my life. Then, I noticed, the card got quite hot for a 3070. Under stock settings the hottest it got was on Cyberpunk 2077. The card reached 82c at one point and the fan RPM was around 2500RPM. It was stupid loud even at 2000RPM. My old 1080 strix was quieter under load ffs. It was completely unbearable and after seeing reviews and reports of the card being in the 60s, I knew something was wrong. So I contacted EVGA and they offered a warranty replacement. I ended up having to spend $130 in shipping and insurance to get the card shipped, I was quite unhappy that they did not pay for the shipping, it is quite literally their mistake to allow a GPU like this off the factory, why does the consumer need to pay? I have dome RMAs through Corsair, for faulty fans and keyboards and they all paid for the shipping cost... So fast forward a bit and I receive the "new" card. They said it was "EVGA Ceritified". Oh boy... Upon opening the card I see spots of dust, proving the card was used. I put it into the system and fire it up only to hear the exact same sound coming from the fans when they start. So, im down $130 and the issue was not resolved. Oh and on top of that. THE CARD IS ARTIFACTING UNDER STOCK SETTINGS. I cannot play a video game, the card simply artifacts. I ran OCCT VRAM test and within the first 30 seconds it came back with 450000 errors related to the VRAM. I have since told EVGA and am waiting for a response but I highly doubt they will do anything to rectify this. I am extremely frustrated right now and expected better from a company that made GPUs for 22 years prior. It is safe to say that I am NEVER buying an EVGA thing again.