EVGA, Asus, MSI, Gigabyte uses same hardware and same components, on standard GPUs at least.
It is proved that 95% of the time buying a custom PCB card is useless.
The only difference between those brands are:
1) Customer Service
2) Efficiency of the cooler and bells and whistles like LEDs
3) Price and availability
Let's analyse EVGA in Europe when compared to the competitors.
1) EVGA is well known to have a good customer service
2) They scores all the same, asus scores a little bit better but who cares, one or four degrees are not game changer. You can't beat Asus Aura ecosystem.
3) Since they costs all the same price is a non important factor. EVGA is one of the worst in terms of availability in Europe.
So the only reason why I buy EVGA is for the first point, because I want a piece of mind experience.
If I spend 1600€ for two cards, I want to have a piece of mind experience and I want to minimize the stress for some problems that may occur.
Doing RMAs requires time, time is money or it can be better spent doing other than an RMA. Leave alone the time needed to identify the problem, ecc. ecc.
My via crucis started when I bought two 980 SC,
after some months cards started freezing my system at default frequency.
Those two cards were not able to handle the slight factory overclock, lowering frequency well under the factory overclock solved the freeze problem.
For this reason I asked an RMA and due to some lucky time I was able to do a step up from my two 980 to two 980 Ti.
They gave me nothing, I paid good money for the step up and for the two backplates needed since they gaved me cards without backplates.
Two months ago one of this two cards died, PC does not boot with that card connected.
I have done another RMA for the broken card and received a new card.
This card have some serious thermal problems, fans never stops, I can see 60°C in idle and up to 92°C degrees in full load with some graphics artifacts and huge frequency drops.
I tried to troubleshoot the problems with the customer care and after various tentative the cards doesn't want to maintain a normal temperature.
This is the third defective card I received. Leave alone the fact that I have some problems with customer service because they don't wanted to accept the rma for some dates error done by EVGA.
If a problem may occur, a second problem should not occur but it can occur, a third problem must not occur specially after only two months from the last RMA.
The sticker where the serial number is written is consumed on the third defective card, a sticker consumed? Did you send me a defective card from someone else who had some problems? How many hands are needed to consume a sticker? Is this a card that saw 10 RMAs? Bad quality control can't be my problem, since I was victim of a bad quality control for three times I want to have a special treatment.
I think that I deserve it after all the time spent doing RMA, dismanteling my PC and reinstalling new components.
Leave alone the fact that I did not enjoyed what I bought because it was more the time spent doing RMAs and troubleshooting the problems than using those cards.
For this reason I asked to upgrade my cards to two newer gpus BY PAYING the difference.
I don't want a fourth old card that will die in three months because they will send me a regenerated not tested one.
Customer service said me that they offer a fourth RMA of my card with an exact same model and that they can't upgrade my two cards even by paying the difference.
For this reasons I see no more convenience in choosing EVGA, they have bad quality control with a customer service that don't know when it's time to recognize their errors and ask sorry to a customer with a kind (and paid) move.
From now on, I'm an Asus customer.
Same products, a little bit "more cool" thanks to Asus Aura and some other cool addition, easyer to find in Europe with the same bad customer service.
Bye bye guys!
post edited by sblantipodi - 2018/06/15 04:52:58