Wednesday, March 18th 2009
Study: Modern Graphics Card Failure Rates
Here's an interesting story with emphasis on graphics cards failure rates. It was interesting for me to see the results, and I hope it will be interesting for you too. The original story comes from Hardware France and is based upon results from a major un-named French retailer. The data of faulty graphics cards was collected in the period of seven months from August 2008 to March of this year. To build the statistics, an ideal sample amount of at least 500 units was used. The statistics provide reliability information on a 'per brand' and 'per GPU model' basis. You're welcome to comment on the results. Read the English version at GPU Cafe here, or the original French version here at Hardware.fr.
60 Comments on Study: Modern Graphics Card Failure Rates
i had to use that info there to get RMA request, only problem is it appears they only have service centers directly in US and Canada, other than that I believe you may have to send in a Support Ticket for those not in those Nations, which I guess then the Sapphire HQ in Hong Kong handles the RMAs Directly for being outside of US or Canada. Two years ago I sent in a board and got a brandspankin new one but that was thru the US office (althonmicro) Processing was very quick as of paperwork, just took some time to ship the board as it winds up going to Hong Kong anyway.
My cards are boiling temp almost all the time and still running!
Even though the single slot cooler sucks, the cards dont seem to mind!
Just like nV is having all those laptop GPU failures, I'm quite sure that *just after* your warranty runs out, these super-heated desktop GPUs will fail too.
Interesting though, I haven't really seen reports of GPU failure in this frequency at all, maybe people just return them instead of asking on forums nowadays.
Also, does this count actual hardware failures or just RMAs? It could be that the extremely power hungry 280 was returned most often because it was most likely to be out of spec with the intended PC's power supply.
-didn't have the appropriate PSU
-changed their mind (wouldn't it just go back to the store...)
-etc
However, it would be nice to get some clarity on the return rates.
Anyways I have an ASUS GTX 280, so lowest and highest (single core) failure rate compined, maybe I'm ok :)
edit: maybe I'm not..
If you look more closely at the less reliable models, you’ll see two cards at over 10% sold at 100 plus: the Gigabyte GV-RX26P5H, a Radeon HD 2600 passive, is at 14.1%, compared to 10.2% for the ASUSTeK ENGTX280/HTDP/1G.
Oh well if it was going to fail it would have done it by now, 89.2% is still pretty good odds, I'd bet on them.
eBuyer does their own testing on site so the turnaround, from lodging the RMA, to getting the replacement is as little as one week. Plus free collection & delivery. :D
What is the cheapest ?
Sapphire?
Whats some of the best ?
Sapphire?
What is good for ATI? : XFX HIS ASUS Sapphire.
40 ati cards, none defective.
20 nvidia.
3 rma'd (notice GF3 and GF4) pissed me off, 400£ gfx, burns up first week, no serial code on print card.
No rma.
Piss of nvidia after that, unless ati gives me a bad time, i see no reason for me to switch.
*My opinion over the years, nvidia seemed to have that quality stamp on them, but they're like league that audi is in, good reputation breaks down! (not as bad as audi tho)
**Note audi's running in norway, temps here and level of salt at the winter might affect the cars.
but i think the point is made, and dunno if people agree to nvidia have a better quality stamp than ati, by opinions, but not by stats.
My previous card was an XFX 8800gt, it came with a fan that had the control wires clipped (stuck on 100%). I would consider that "defective", but it was actually done on purpose by XFX because they didn't want the cards overheating... I talked with customer support and they said they were just offering to ship variable fans/heatsinks out with installation instructions.
It may not seem that big of deal, but for someone who has put money into making their case quiet (silent fans, etc.) discovering the new GPU you bought has a fan running on constant 100% is not a pretty thing. ;)
Another very frequent reason when I worked in the store was because of the AGP/PCIe thing. There were countless devolutions/exchanges for that reason. And I always asked about it like 3-4 times before the buyers left, but more than half of them returned soon, most of them with the box opened. It's irrelevant to the topic, but is just one more thing that happens. Only God knows how many more things there could be.
Similarly dual gpu cards should have AT LEAST double the rate of single gpu versions?
That's a whole lot of speculation and not much else. :shadedshu