If you will recall, my GTX 970 card died recently. Here is the timeline of events:

• Feb 12th – Submitted RMA request to ZOTAC.
• Feb 13th – RMA request is approved.
• Feb 15ish – I mailed my card via UPS.
• Feb 21st – ZOTAC received my card.
• Feb 22nd – ZOTAC confirmed the card is dead. Asks if new card is OK.
• Feb 24th – New card shipped out.
• Feb 27th – New card arrived.

In other words, from the time ZOTAC received my card to the time they mailed a replaced out was pretty much less than a week. Most of the delay was on my end of things, when I tried changing the power supply, sent my PC for repairs at Microcenter, etc. Given the horror stories I have heard and the “please give us 30 days” boilerplate, this is incredible.

Also incredible was this exchange:

We unfortunately do not have your specific model in stock, so we would like to offer you the ZT-P10600A-10L. Please confirm this change is agreeable asap.

For those playing at home, this is the ZT-P10600A-10L. As in GTX 1060 6GB Mini. As in, a card that is smaller, quieter, uses less electricity, and is roughly 10% better at benchmarks than a 970. Needless to say, I confirmed that this change was agreeable.

So, yeah. I installed the card on Monday and put it through its paces. On the Heaven benchmark software, I got 100-120 fps with temps stabilizing at 72C. I’m still pouring hours into XCOM2 at the moment, but I will hopefully be back to eye-candy gaming here shortly.

All in all, my graphics card dying worked out rather well for me.