A weird AMD experience.. any insight?

hello guys,
i have an Asus R9 280X Direct CUII Top Edition Card
its a Big and heavy card
and we all know that this card is notorious for Artifacting issues
But.. i never had any issues of that sort.. the only problem i had is that the gpu would crash when i played watchdogs for long hours.. which is somewhat dissapointing.. 🙁 but i hate that game anyways :)

everybody knows witcher 3 has optimisation issues.. every game Nvidia gets involved in somehow just doesnt perform with AMD cards,
recently i got witcher 3, installed latest 1.07 update..started the game.. i was getting 40-50fps.. sometimes dipping to 37-38.. on medium settings..nvidia hairworks off....dissapointing .. i know.. i played for a few days..

here where the story gets crazy..

on the 4th day the game suddenly quit to desktop... i tried the game again and the same thing happens ...i was astonished but i didnt bother.. then suddenly out of nowhere the artifacting started!! very badly.. black squares, morphed and slashed images started forming everywhere.. it got even worse when i used the chrome browser since it uses gpu acceleration

i decided to RMA , and they told me that i should bring the card to their offics which is 50kms away from where i live..they said that the card will not be reapired and will be replaced.. three days later i got a call that the new card has arrived and i can pick it up

here is where it gets even more crazy..... 😵

I get the card... something seems strange.. i can feel it but i just cant point at it..
the screw seal at the back is broken.. the card is thoroughly cleaned but there is a bit of dust at the back of the fan.. it is a used card....

the second i put it in my case i figured the difference i was feeling.. THE CARD IS SMALLER!!??
its a bit smaller in size.. about 5-10% is my rough estimate..

i start the PC.. i check the card details.. it is the same model...

heres where it gets crazier!
the pc is untouched since the RMA
i run witcher 3 and to my suprise i hit 60fps and beyond constantly 😀
i run cinebench which has the benchmarks of my old card... this new card gives 10fps higher 😵
wow!
how?
why?

have i won the "silicon lottery" people talk of?
what do you think .. leave a comment below..
 
Solution
Your old card may have had problems that just got worse until you returned it. The card you have now may be performing the way the old one should have.
It is also possible that you got a newer revision of the card that might have been tweaked a little better.
It sounds like all is well though.
Your old card may have had problems that just got worse until you returned it. The card you have now may be performing the way the old one should have.
It is also possible that you got a newer revision of the card that might have been tweaked a little better.
It sounds like all is well though.
 
Solution


yep... it was a weird experience.. 😀