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Friends card died, how long do GPU's generally last?

Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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His graphics card recently died, like two days ago.

Basically what happened at first is he would randomly get freezes while playing Skyrim. These started occurring more and more often and eventually it just broke.

He had it for 2 years and the warranty is 3 years. He doesn't have the slip or whatever though and he's just going to upgrade. I'm not exactly sure what card it was, I wish I could remember but it was expensive for a card bought back then (215$) I do remember it being Nvidia though.

So my question is, how long do graphics cards generally last?

My first graphics card was a Nvidia Geforce 6600 (or 6800?) which still works after 2 years of playing it and 3 years of being in a cupboard. I replaced it with a Geforce 9400 GT which I had for a year and a half before I gave it away after getting my first Radeon card.

Discuss :) 

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Graphics card Master

It depends how a card is treated during it's working life as well as the quality of the card to begin with, my old Geforce 2 card is still working in a PC somewhere last I heard.
Graphics card Expert

I have some 8800 GTX's in SLI in another PC that I've had for like 6 yrs. One of them died after like 6 mos, the others had no issues at all and they have been used heavilly.

I have some older cards in my closet that still work as well, some are like 10 yrs old lol.

It just depends, a lot of it can just come down to luck with slightly better hardware. They can last 2 days or 20 years. That's one reason I always buy EVGA, most of their stuff has lifetime warranty. Keeping them as cool as possible definitely helps though.
Graphics card Master

As mousemonkey it depends on how it was treated. I'm also sure the climate you live in has a lot to do with it. I have an old 7900GT still kicking strong myself. :) 

Actually I have a 9500Pro that still works, not good for anything though....
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Graphics card Master

well if there's not any manufacturing defects causing sudden deaths, cards can last at least a decade if traeted nice, ie low temps and cleaned when needed so the dust wont clog it up

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Graphics card Master

internetswag said:
Really? Don't certain parts have limited use? Like little nodes or transistors or something that can't function after x amount of hours.

nope, not really...
thermal cycling can cause solder joints to fracture, too high ambient temps can dry up the elcos, high current densities can cause electromicration in the metallic conductors on dies leading to open circuits or shorts, etc... but nothing really has a 'best used before date' stamped on them
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