- A Redditor reports that their RTX 5070 (which they were gifted) died
- PNY replaced the faulty graphics card with an RTX 5070 Ti
- These kinds of upgrades can happen with returns if you get very lucky, and others on Reddit have similar tales to share
If your graphics card goes kaput, that's obviously regarded as bad news — as even if it's still within warranty coverage, you must go through the hassle of returning it for a replacement — but such a failure could turn out to be a good thing.
The recent experience of a Redditor (as highlighted by VideoCardz) who had a PNY GPU go wrong makes this clear. They reportedly received an unexpected upgrade after their RTX 5070 went to silicon heaven.
The Reddit post states: "5070 died completely, PNY sent me a 5070 Ti to replace it. RMA process was fast, too. Basically, a free $400 upgrade."
The Redditor further explains: "To make things even better, it wasn't even my GPU originally. It was in my brother's work computer. But since he had already replaced it, he gave it to me and said if I wanted to deal with the potential hassle of the RMA [return merchandise authorization], I could keep it. So he basically gifted me a $500 GPU, which turned into a $1000 GPU, all for an hour's work and $30 shipping."
As another poster succinctly puts it: "Unlimited GPU upgrade glitch unlocked."
Obviously, we must add some seasoning, but as other posters indicate, this can happen, and there are other reported incidents of replacement GPUs happily turning into upgrades.
Such as Gigabyte replacing an RTX 4070 Ti with a 4070 Ti Super, or Sapphire switching out a dead RX 6650 XT for an RX 6700 (albeit that took a month and a half, according to the poster).
Analysis: winning the RMA lottery
It's a breath of fresh air to hear a positive tale around PC components these days, as with the price of RAM, storage, GPUs (and now CPUs) all increasing — by wild amounts in some cases — we're hearing a lot more about sometimes sophisticated scams trying to con people out of the large sums of money asking prices have now turned into.
Don't believe that a graphics card manufacturer would replace a broken GPU with a higher-tier model? Well, I get where your skepticism is coming from, but this can happen, and the mentioned Sapphire example above is a clue to why — mainly because the return took so long to action. In these cases, the problem is likely finding stock of the GPU in question.
It might be the case that PNY didn't have RTX 5070 inventory in the warehouse at the time, and wanted to get the return completed in good time (there was a quick turnaround on this RMA, as the Redditor noted) — so the firm sent an RTX 5070 Ti instead. Obviously, this is a good way to keep the customer happy, and it serves as a positive piece of word-of-mouth when aired on social media, as is the case here.
So, if you have to return a GPU in the future, you might just get lucky yourself. However, note that these instances of apparent on-the-spot upgrades as part of a return aren't the rule, but very much the exception. They certainly happen, though.
The one potential wrinkle in this scenario — as one poster pointed out — is that if you're already at the limit of the wattage that your power supply is capable of coping with in your current PC, a more power-hungry GPU won't work in your system. Although you could, of course, just upgrade the PSU in this case (or just sell the GPU, and buy the lesser model again, pocketing the profit).
