GIGABYTE RTX 4090 Warranty Dispute Over 1.5GB VRAM Loss

A high-end graphics card owner in Romania is facing a warranty dispute with GIGABYTE after his RTX 4090 Windforce V2 suffered significant memory degradation. This case highlights a growing tension between manufacturer definitions of 'functional' hardware and consumer expectations for component longevity. Buyers relying on premium GPUs for stable performance should note that warranty coverage may not extend to memory errors that do not crash the system.

GIGABYTE rejects RMA for degraded memory despite high error counts

The dispute centers on a specific unit purchased in November 2023, which has now reached the end of its warranty period in November 2026. GIGABYTE rejected the replacement request despite clear evidence of hardware failure in the video memory subsystem. The manufacturer argues that the card remains usable because it can boot the operating system and render graphics without immediate failure.

Technical testing revealed severe instability in the VRAM. An OCCT test recorded 4.7 million errors in just 15 seconds. The card has lost 1.5GB of its total 24GB memory capacity. This loss occurred because 33 memory rows were permanently remapped to spare cells, a process that eventually exhausts the available redundancy.

GIGABYTE maintained that the card passed basic functional tests, including the FurMark stress test. The company stated that its own diagnostics showed the GPU operating normally despite the high error count. We looked at Mechrevo Jiaolong 15K Adds RTX 3050 earlier while tracking Gigabyte launches.

The warranty on this specific card expires in November 2026, aligning with the standard coverage period. The user reported the issue to consumer protection authorities before the warranty officially closed. This incident underscores the difficulty of proving hardware defects when the device does not completely fail to operate.