For a few days or so i've been thinking the issues im experiencing are driver related but having tried multiple drivers and now running 3d mark 11 and getting blinking screen and blue flashing lights from test 2 onwards.

booting up crysis 2 and saw artifacting and pixilation after about 20 mins into playing one of the later levels.

was getting visual errors in BC2 but it was running at a res with 60hz and not 59hz, since changing that it seems to have fixed it.

source games have been sluggish but this is driver related (except portal 2 for some reason).

the highest the card run at is 71c, average is 40 odd
PSU is 850w and as far as im aware it's fine.

So guys, you recommend an RMA? (Never had to RMA a card before in my life so got no clue as to how that works out)

i'll get screens in a bit so you can share my plight.

edit: oh yeah and the card is a 580 gtx from Zotac, gotta ship it to china apparantly if i want to RMA it.

In the first year of ownership the retailer is legally responsible for handling warranty issues. Your contract is with them and not the manufacturer of the product, if they say anything different they are in the wrong.

Chances are it's a duffer, would be useful if you could try it out in another pc before filling in the RMA for testing purposes.