Even the most advanced graphics cards are not immune to defects and breakdowns.
Recently, a user with the nickname kromz shared a story about their RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization) experience. Their ASUS ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card broke down.
According to the GPU owner, the PC started rebooting at a certain point, and the screen periodically went blank. The system worked fine with another graphics card, so they decided to send the RTX 5090 for RMA.
ASUS rejected the warranty and requested so much money that it would have been cheaper for kromz to just go and buy a new graphics card.
Support asked for 4661 Canadian dollars (about 3370 US dollars) for a graphics card replacement — more expensive than a new one. As Tom's Hardware notes, even in Canada, where PC components often cost more, you can find GPUs for sale for 4059 Canadian dollars.
ASUS discovered a «surface irregularity» near the PCI. kromz claims that they photographed the graphics card before sending it and did not find any cracks or visible defects.
They continued communicating with support and managed to get a 50% discount — the replacement now costs 2330.5 Canadian dollars. kromz continues to hope that the case will be recognized as a warranty case:
I used the included graphics card support, carefully installed it, and my PC has not been moved since then. This graphics card weighs 3 kilograms, and all this weight is held at one point. Honestly, this is a design flaw that will make itself known sooner or later. It's easy to see how this could have led to the very crack they attribute to «user-caused damage».
