ATI Cuts Video Card Warranty To One Year

[Apoptosis]

I do see where your thoughts are coming from, but if you look at the entire market my comments are not naive. When you look at the entire GPU market you have two major players when it comes to desktop graphics cards: ATI & NVIDIA. In recent months NVIDIA has had a faster graphics card, increased sales/profits, and their partners are offering a longer warranty (in some cases lifetime). On the other hand if you look at ATI they have had delays and paper launches recently with no crossfire of X1000 family cards on the market, sales and stock prices are down, and their main competition is offering lifetime warranties via their partners.

How do you play catch up? For starters if ATI or their partners don't offer lifetime warranties more consumers will continue to by NVIDIA cards. I for one would buy a card with a lifetime warranty over a similar card with a 1-3 year warranty. By ATI reducing their warranty they are getting out of the spot light of the sales game. Did you think that ATI might be slowly cutting back to eventually end selling retail cards direct to consumers? Remember NVIDIA doesn't sell cards off their site. Did that harm the company and sales? Of course not nvidia is #1 in graphics sales last time I checked!

When I made the statment "We hope that it will increase warranty competition among the third party builders and in the end it will be the consumers who win." I was looking at the entire industry. I also spoke with a number of ATI partners and asked them about their warranties and ATI's reduction. All of the card partners were talking about going longer, not shorter on their warranties. I'm sorry, but Naive is not the right word to use. I spoke with ATI and several partners before I wrote the articles and posted the facts and my overall thoughts on what the market is doing. Right now it is warranty competition between ATI and NVIDA and if ATI's partners want to sell cards you will see longer warranties not shorter.

You can disagree with me all you want and that is fine as time will tell who is right.

[Jetsam]

I bought 3 Sapphiretech Radeon back in 2001 and two of them broke. They were replaced under warranty, and broke again after a year or two. As a result, I only buy "built by ATI." I haven't had any problems from my BBAs, which include a Rage, 2 Radeon DDR, a 9500, and a 9600. The Rage and DDRs are old, I know, but they have no problem running Office at 75 FPS.

This warranty reduction bothers me. ATI gets my business because I believe they build better parts. If ATI does not believe their parts are reliable, why should I?

[kenc51]

As far as I know ATI don't actually make any cards themselves!

Sapphire make all ATI's cards!
Infact Sapphire used to make ALL x800 cards (even those for other makers, they just stuck a new sticker over the ATI sticker)

I have a x800pro (mod to xtpe), It's made by powercolor (TUL), but under the sticker is an ATI sticker.....

Not sure about the new generation cards, but I'd say Sapphire make all otf them aswell!

[Bio-Hazard]

Yeppers........last I heard is that ATI is still a fabless card maker...... But so is Nvidia, they don't make any cards themselves either.

[kenc51]

So "Built by ATI" and a shorter warranty, means ATI have no confidence in their GPU's!!! The GPU is the only thing the "make" - infact TSMC make all their GPU's

Same with Nvidia... Just they never claim to have a "built by Nvidia" card...

[Bio-Hazard]

Almost no one makes their own stuff these days. It's contracted out to the lowest bidder, but as always, there are exceptions to every rule.

[Conveyician]

This is total bull.

The quality of the ATI card has been reduced, especially the cooling fans - thus the reduced warranty. Every single ATI card I and my customers have had the past 6 years the fan fails past the halfway mark of the warranty period - then the card dies.

Most cards last just past the 1.5 years, then die. the replacements are even worse quality - some last just 6 months - some even have bad fans out of the box!.

Both The fans bushing/Bearings wear from lack of lubrication - then starts "cavitating" - reducing RPM which reduces cooling - the card runs hot then fails.

They have been eating a boat load of cards older than 1.5 years. The warranty is killing them. China made cards now anyway - even the replacements. I am DONE with ATI - forever.



BTW - I have been installing genuine ATI products since the EGA era. . . I now have switched to Nvidia and so will all of my customers.

I no longer support or recommend ATI for ANYTHING - it's a money loser for me.

[Apoptosis]

you do know this article is 5 years old right and ATI doesn't sell cards at all anymore.

[skier]

you do know this article is 5 years old right and ATI doesn't sell cards at all anymore.

LOL i didnt know either made cards! almost 2 years before i really knew anything at all about computers hahaha

[Conveyician]

ok - this thread is not locked - nor is it closed - and it is the 2nd position on a google search result page TODAY. So - Get off it . . .

Secondly - your dumb remark about ATI not selling cards anymore is idiotic - We all are aware AMD acquired ATI 4yrs ago - yet all the cards being sold are still branded ATI - so - to try and knock someone - you exposed yourself as a total moron.

If you are going to start a pissing match, better drink some more beer buddy - you just lost, and got pissed all over too.

BTW, why the hell are you watching AND responding to a 5yr old thread?

I think you just like the golden showers....

[stereo55]

Ok , lets meeeeeellow out .

Iam sure no disrespect was meant here .

So lets all just keep our

Welcome to the forums Conveyician

[Illuminati]

Wow... just wow.

All Apop said was ATI (yes, AMD owns the brand ATI, we all know that) does not sell cards anymore, meaning you can only buy ATI cards from 3rd parties (ASUS, HIS, Powercolor, XFX, MSI, etc). This thread was pertaining to before AMD bought them and you could buy an ATI branded card sold by ATI themselves... not a third party.

The forum automatically lists recently replied to topics at the top of a category... so everyone notices when a 5 year old thread gets bumped back to the top of the list.

Welcome to LR!

[pwcmed]

Man I love keyboard warriors!! You guys are awfully polite welcoming someone with no manners.

[Apoptosis]

ok - this thread is not locked - nor is it closed - and it is the 2nd position on a google search result page TODAY. So - Get off it . . .

Secondly - your dumb remark about ATI not selling cards anymore is idiotic - We all are aware AMD acquired ATI 4yrs ago - yet all the cards being sold are still branded ATI - so - to try and knock someone - you exposed yourself as a total moron.

If you are going to start a pissing match, better drink some more beer buddy - you just lost, and got pissed all over too.

BTW, why the hell are you watching AND responding to a 5yr old thread?

I think you just like the golden showers....

Sorry, ATI doesn't sell cards any longer.. Back in the day they used to sell cards directly to the public.

Move along please.

[geokilla]

Why are you guys even responding to him? Just lock the damn thread! Lol

[Apoptosis]

Why are you guys even responding to him? Just lock the damn thread! Lol

No need to lock... i dusted off the ban button and he is the 4th person that I have banned ;)

[InspectahACE]

Good form Nate.