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XFX Kills Double Lifetime Warranty for New AMD Cards  

Hardware Canucks > News > Video Card News > XFX Kills Double Lifetime Warranty for New AMD Cards
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Posted by skymtl — January 24th, 2012, 4:09 PM

With the introduction of AMD”s HD 7000-series, XFX has silently moved away from their Double Lifetime Warranty and has instead moved to a more basic coverage model.

XFX has been known as a company that pushes the boundaries of both performance and customer support.  Their graphics cards were among the first to receive lifetime warranties and what was called “modder friendly” coverage which allowed users to upgrade the included heatsink without voiding the warranty term.  Things took a step to the next level when XFX introduced their “Double Lifetime” warranty which essentially covered the original purchaser along with the first person who bought the card second hand.  At first this practice sounded too good to be true but it seems to have paid dividends since the Double Lifetime Warranty turned into a major selling point for XFX’s cards.  Times have changed though.

Soon after the HD 7970 was released, we started hearing reports of XFX including “Warranty Void If Removed” stickers on the heatsink’s screws, possibly indicating a retraction of the Modder Friendly warranty.  Luckily, this can be ignored if you live in North America but in all other regions, removing the heatsink means throwing out your warranty.  XFX just asks that you call them before making any modifications.

Our discussion about heatsink stickers did however turn into a much larger conversation about warranties…

According to XFX, their Double Lifetime warranty just wasn’t sustainable and decided against offering it on HD 7900-series cards.  From a business standpoint, we tend to agree with a move away from money loosing propositions but we can’t recall any public notification of this shift so consumers were in the dark.  Buyer beware we guess.

So what do buyers of XFX HD 7900 cards get?  That’s a bit complicated so bear with us while we explain this:

-  Cards with Double Dissipation (Double D) or whose product number ends in “R”:  Lifetime warranty if registered within 30 days.

-  All other cards (ex: HD 7970 Core Edition; FX797ATNFC):  2 Year Warranty

As should be evident by now, like every other graphics card manufacturer XFX is moving away from lifetime warranties on everything but their highest end SKUs.  But this doesn’t mean their customer support has been left by the wayside since it still runs well and feedback from the community continues to be positive.  If anything we recommend you take a close look before buying any XFX graphics card to ensure it comes with a warranty that suits your needs.

You can read more about the warranty and its implications HERE.

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  • Jdorush

    Does this mean that the 7970′s that have come out are too unreliable?

  • Babrbarossa

    Found the “void if removed” stickers on a 6950 today.

  • Lifetimesh1t

    xfx = bullshit

  • Xonor

    Jdorush – There still reliable, just moved away from that type of warranty.
    Babrbarossa – The 6950 still has the Doublr Lifetime warranty. Its only on the 79xx series.
    Lifetimesh1t = bullshit (Asus/MSI/Gigabyte all have the same warranty. 2-3 years with receipt. No receipt it goes by manufacture date.)

  • lkashl

    Lifetime warranties let alone double warranties are too unsustainable in the long run imo. Everything has an expiration date especially when it comes to computer technology that customers are eligible to tamper with. Hopefully XFX cards become more affordable with this new stratagem, their products were pretty overpriced considering their lack of performance

  • Varroa

    There is a thread by me in the forums about finding that sticker as well (back when I bought my 6950). I contacted XFX since I was going to put a full coverage block on my card and they said not to worry about it and the sticker was only meant for non-N. American customers.

  • Johnny Buntu

    My XFX 4970×2 died this summer (2011), it was under warranty…I was shocked that such a fantastic card died on me after only 2 years. XFX honored the warranty by giving me a “Factory refurbished HD 6850 “…which “technically is better than the older 4979×2 , but I thought also that it was a cheap lowball return on what was a very expensive high end graphix card..that I bought expressly for that reason, the warranty!!
    I thought about this for some time and now I believe that many of the HD4000 and 5000 series were coming back to the XFX warranty dept

  • lkashl

    Doesn’t a 6850 perform relatively similar to a 4970×2 anyway?
    You can’t expect them to honour the warranty with a card of identical value at the time of purchase, these things depreciate at like 25% p.a. (if you average it, more weighted on the first year and lesser depreciation in the later) and they’re only obligated to provide you with a similar product. No offence but it seems pretty fair to me

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ian-Kirkness/100002254033328 Ian Kirkness

    Well i can understand the business behind the decision to cancelled the double lifetime warrenty, however I DONT agree of limiting the lifetime to the most expensive card they carried.
    That to me is low.
    I will not buy any card that has a warrenty less than 4 to 5 years. 2 Years warrenty?, goodbye card, i move on.

  • Somejewishguy

    What they should do is offer a 5 year warranty, I would change my card by that time anyways, they obviously want to make money which is why they dont. Makes sense from a business perspective.

  • m3t4lm4n222

    I originally bought my HD 7770 not knowing XFX didn’t provide a double lifetime warranty on the 7-series GPU’s but i’m not upset. It makes sense anyways. XFX probably gets RMA requests for 3-series and 4-series GPU’s and end up replacing them with 5-series or 6-series GPU equivalents. Say my XFX 4850 I purchased 3 years ago died on me in 2012 and I RMA’d it i’d end up getting a better card. It’s like a free upgrade.

  • Soldier

    Good, now that I know this I will not buy from XFX. Thanks for informing me that you’re a douche company XFX.