5-star card + 2-star support for defective fan = 3-star product experience, to date

First of all, I would probably buy this card again. It is exactly what I wanted, albeit at a bit of a premium though not off par for the chipset. I have unfortunately had to interact with Gigabyte's support/RMA process all for a fan on the cooler block that has an internal defect causing it to make a grinding noise constantly. This started happening within days of receiving and installing the card. First, to get to the RMA, you have at minimum two accounts to create and tickets to submit, one for tech support, another for RMA. Then they will ask you to send in the entire card for what could be a fairly simple swap of a fan, rather than just sending the fan. They will also drop the ball on communication, so you will have to hound them for answers. At this point I expect to replace the fan on my own dime. In short, despite the fan issue, this card has been pretty reliable for being so easily OC-able and I would probably choose this model over what else is available out there right now, unless I planned on setting up a custom water cooling setup. Dealing with the inferior fan quality control issue, including interaction with technical support, RMA dept., and customer service, has been far less than ideal.

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