Well I just got an email back saying "open the box", so I did, opened it and it's repaired!
They received it on 21/12/2011 @ 2pm, and I received it back at 23/12/2011 1pm, so that's some uber fast turnaround time!
I thought it took weeks, and no word of a lie, they've packaged it in the same box I sent it in, and it looks exactly the same, no changes to the box!
But socket is all repaired, so happy!
Thanks to everyone who's helped me with this, and to Gigabyte themselves! Christmas come early!!!!