ATI Vs NVIDIA ...... on Reliability

[wombraider]

Hi Folks,
I have been thinking lately about what prompts me to buy a particular type
of graphics card. Up until now it was always fastest for the money , but events
are making me change my mind in favour of reliability.

I can only draw from my own experiences but I curious to know how others feel
about this issue , I dont want to start an Ati Vs Nvidia performance dabate ,
but I want to see what others have experienced with reliabilty.

For myself

Ati , I have owned about 6 or 7 Ati cards over the years ( up until 9800pro days)
None of them has died in normal operation.

Nvidia , I have now owned 4 Nvidia cards starting with the 8800GTX. Of the 4 cards
only ONE is still working , the first 8800GTX lasted 15 months and died. The second
8800GTX is still working but its only 9 months old so far.
First GTX280 (lasted 2 weeks) had to go back due to overheating and downclocking and
my second GTX280 died on sunday night( only lasted 2 months)

I mean I want a fast card , but I also want a fast card that is going to be in my PC
not off being RMAed every so often.

What are others experiences of reliability ?
Have I just had really bad Nvidia luck , or is their QA a bit carp ?

 

[Mojo]

I'd have to say that's just bad luck. I would have thought that they are basically on par with each other in terms of reliability. Had a few problems with my 3870s when i bought them, but the problem happened to be my Nforce motherboard =/. Every card has it's horror stories, regardless of how reliable they are. My general rule of thumb is the higher end the card and the more cores you add per card, the higher temps and voltages and the bigger opportunity they have to fail. That's why i usually go for crossfire instead of dual GPU cards

 

[arc@css]

I like both but I've had much much more reliability from ATI, not much if any difference in performance imho.

 

[gurusan]

I think you've had really bad luck. I know a bunch of the G92 chips were faulty but I never actually saw much evidence of widespread dying.

I've had numerous amount of both cards and have never had a single one die.

 

[gt_junkie]

Yeah - seems to be simple bad luck more than anything.

I've had plenty from each manufacturer and only one card from each has had issues.

First was from ATi (3850 512mb) and was a memory failure and the second was an NV GTX 260 which worked fine but generated a lot of capacitor squeal so was returned for a refund.

gt

 

[bledd]

without reading any posts so far, they're both as reliable as each other

both can have bad driver releases, and unlucky 'broken' cards

 

[w00dy85]

My general rule of thumb is the higher end the card and the more cores you add per card, the higher temps and voltages and the bigger opportunity they have to fail. That's why i usually go for crossfire instead of dual GPU cards

I totally agree

I’m in the middle of an RMA at the moment, I bought my HIS 3870x2 the day they came out. A few months ago the graphics card started to do random reboots. I sent the card back 3 weeks today for RMA and I’m still waiting for the replacement.

I don’t think I will buy a high end card again, next time I will buy a mid range card and save the money.

 

[Gaijin]

Having had plenty of both, every single card has arrived and worked, and further to that, has outlived its useful period.

Guess I might be lucky though.

 

[EvilOne]

Never had a GPU die on me, always upgrade when i cant run what i want to run.

My current 4870 1gb has been active 2 1/2 weeks without any stability issues, the pc was active for 14 days without a reboot (needed rebooting this morning to install seti@home again lol).

My 9600, worked most the time but was the odd crash (especally with newer drivers after the 260/280 came out).

7300, flawless.

Gforce2Mx, flawless.

Voodoo Banshee, lacked support in some games, grrr

 

[kylew]

I totally agree

I’m in the middle of an RMA at the moment, I bought my HIS 3870x2 the day they came out. A few months ago the graphics card started to do random reboots. I sent the card back 3 weeks today for RMA and I’m still waiting for the replacement.

I don’t think I will buy a high end card again, next time I will buy a mid range card and save the money.

I think that's more the retailer really, I bought a 3870X2 a about 6 months ago, and it was dying on me 3 months after I bought it, I sent it back for RMA and requested a refund.

They collected the card themselves and refunded me 2 days later.

 

[domthecondom]

Well TBH i never had HIGH END Cards, Nvidia 6600 and 8600 and a ATI 4850

The 6600 lasted a good 3 years before swaping it for the 8600 =] which i bought 2007 and had it for a year

The ATI is amaizing and hasn't died yet had it for 3 months

 

[AWPC]

Had plenty of each never any hardware issues but then again I never overclock them. I know some people who have overclocked all their cards and gets lots of issues but thats to be expected really as most of the Vram is set to stock speeds for a reason!!

Some people on here even like to overclock an already heavily oced card!!!

 

[w00dy85]

I think that's more the retailer really, I bought a 3870X2 a about 6 months ago, and it was dying on me 3 months after I bought it, I sent it back for RMA and requested a refund.

They collected the card themselves and refunded me 2 days later.

I won't say where I got it from, but I think you could guess. I had to send the card to them which cost me £20.70!

The worst thing is I have 3 games waiting to be played, COD5, Stalker Clear sky and Warhead and don't wanted to use my 1950 Pro.

 

[Yamahahahahaha]

I would say ATI and Nvidia are both more unreliable than eachother. To the point that I would both say that ATI and Nvidia are so much more unreliable than the other it's beyond belief!

Both are fine, it's pot luck whether or not you get a rotten card.

 

[ClubCX]

When I bought my computer it had a GeForce4 MX 440 which failed after a couple of months. I went out and replaced it with a Geforce 6200 which lasted about 18 months before failing and I'm now using a Geforce 7600GT which I've had for about a year. Recently it's been giving me errors about excessive heat (125 degrees) as soon as I log into Windows, but after letting it reduce the clock speed it returns to normal heat levels and games play fine. I hope it will last until I build a new computer in May.

 

[86JR]

Owned ti4600 for 5 years that never broke.

x1950xt that broke 6 months later (rattly fan)

8800GTX perfect

x1950pro - died

260GTX - ok for the moment!