iv seen too many failing 8 series or similar video cards to believe its just limited to mobile parts, still sus.

Why is it that Nvidia has a couple of problems and its all doom and gloom, same thing happened when AMD's TLB issues came about. It also happened when the 2900 XT came out and underwhelmed. Doom and Gloom.....
Seriously, ATI was done and nothing but chumps when the 2900 came out and didn't compete with Nvidia's 8 series, yet Everyone is singing ATI's praises now....that the 4000 series is good. Just like when the 8 series was King.

Sure it looks bad for Nvidia if you focus on whats happening right now...but if you stand back and look at the big picture, you realize this happens every few years and Some Company is always in trouble....but a product cycle or two or three later, and its the other company in trouble...

I've gone back and forth with GPU's because every couple of cycles the other guys do something amazing...and I switch. I'm not a fanboy of either company, I go with whats good at the time, and easier on my wallet.

well when you order mid to high end cards in you expect quality, and the failure rate to be ~1 in 20 tops, when you see 4 out of 5 9800GTX+'s cards die within an hour in different systems you start to wonder and loose trust in the company, we have stopped ordering as many nvidia based cards now just to be sure, and last year we saw the same thing with 8600's and 8500's - you cant tell me its just coincidence.

Dont get me wrong there cliffro i got my self an 8800GT when they were the bomb, but after all this ill think twice before i buy nvidia again, make sure there up to scratch again.

in short dont become a fanboy just chose the best card for you (price/performance) fanboyism will only get people pissed when there chip bakery bakes a batch of bad chips.

That being said ... i always burn NVDIA board while ATI board seem to survive my way of coping with low frame rates.
If i start burning ATI boards i wont hesitate to try another NVDIA board

It's just their current problem, just like ati's 2000 cards, or nividia's FX cards, they'll get past it and release something awesome again.

4 out of 5... I'm guessing that's not typical. Something special is happening there.

2nd. I find it amusing when people try to predict the downfall of billion-dollar corporations, as if having just one graphics vendor would somehow be good for the outlook of 3D graphics.

They may not fall (i.e. collapse) but they may loose their market dominance in the discreet market, opening it up for ATi or Intel.

So, why is Dell and HP moving to ATI only in future models? nVidia is completely CLUELESS! Their statements are made only to lie to investors. nVidia cares little about consumers, only investors.

I've had one of the 9800GTX cards go south on me, though that was due to faulty ram, and not the GPU itself. Personally, though I would have to wonder at the possibility of fatigue issues due to thermal cycling, especially considering the emphasis the current driver set makes on low noise over temperature control. Now mind you, I love my quiet computing as much as the next person, but when the GPU is cooking along at 84C at the fan's PWM is autoset to 38% and the rest of the system is starting to get cooked as well, I start to worry.

And, incidentally, as per Narg's "They care primarily about investors" comment, that's pretty much to be expected in any publicly-owned company. This is not to say that the consumer doesn't matter, but when consumer opinion starts to turn, there's usually a certain amount of time to respond. If the investors decide the company's through, they can kill it overnight. Factor in the fact that the average day-trader is more concerned about when they're going to get their next stock split or dividend than whether the company is going to be around in 12 months, and you've really got a system where the driving factor is, "keep the investor happy."

While you guys may find it fascinating to see the predictions of those big companies, and doubt these predictions, I found something else to get my attention! The mention of truthful comming from the mouth of apple. That's like a politician complaining that someone is lying! Probably one of the least trusted electronics manufacturers is apple. I think all the bigger companies are doing some shady business, but I am surprised apple even knows what truthful means. Censorship is their cup of tea, not honesty! Also quite entertaining seeing them complain about the failrates of a given amount of devices, yet picking the 'offender' to supply stuff intel used to! Kinda wierd really. Nobody predicted sony was about to close shop when they had to recall a gazillion batteries (costing more than gpus per unit I'm sure), yet everyone screams at nvidia or predicts ati dead when they have a bad day.

They aren't nessecarily. Our workstations from hp still come with quattro graphics, and I don't think that'll change any time soon.