Life expectancy of a GPU

[Jacky60]

What do you exactly mean when you say "died"? I bought a second hand 770 in december. That's a 8 year-old card. Didn't work, had overheating problems with it so the PC would shut down itself after a few seconds... All it needed was to be cleaned and to get the thermal paste changed... replacing the fans would be ideal, but I'm just using it while I try to get a new GPU from the 3000 series... I don't think it is easy at all to damage a GPU, at all, unless you do something you shoudln't be doing to it.

I mean deaded, no way back, stick it in the oven and bake it, it still won't work. Complete irretrievable failure.

 

[Jacky60]

What have you been smoking?

If only

 

[Jacky60]

True.

They last as long as they last!

Mine last ages! Depends what you do with them I suppose.

Some clarity on 'ages' would be nice I mean gaming 3-4 hours a day.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

Some clarity on 'ages' would be nice I mean gaming 3-4 hours a day.

What's this school homework or something?

 

[Odirse]

I mean deaded, no way back stick it in the oven and bake it it still won't work. Complete irretrievable failure.

From my experience, the easier way of getting that is by using a very low quality PSU, or accidentally short it. It wouldn't be rare if your GPU fails because of the solderings I suposse, especially if the card was manufactured in the first years when lead stopped being used for that purpose. And then there is always the possibility of damaging it yourself by moving it, disconnecting it, pluggind and unplugging cables etc... Humidity doesn't generally do any good to electronic devices, and this is the UK after all, wouldn't be surprised of failing condensator or other components, or even rusty connectors after a few years...

I would say 5 years is the minimum I would expect a GPU to last, but, if used as it should, I'm sure it is one of these things which can last until you decide to replace it really. Many of us have 20 year old computers running without issues, the only GPU which I had problems with, was a laptop one and it was because the solderings related to one of its connectors. It failed after 8 years of very intense use, and I'm still using the laptop which is now 12 years old.

 

[danswan]

There's a 680 which is now in my daughter's PC. Previously was in my son's, then before that in mine. 8½ yrs old and not missed a beat.

Conversely I've had 2 AMD 580s die on me in the past year, neither more than a couple of years old I don't think.

I've also had cards slowly die after 3,4,5 years. And ones that just suddenly died with no warning.

There's no answer you'll get on here which is actually going to help you at all, unfortunately. An old card may be just about to give up the ghost, or it may keep going for ever.

 

[Raiden85]

I've been pretty lucky with GPU's, not had a failure many years. Last card that failed was an ATI 9800 Pro I think it was so that's going way back to around 2003, had artifacting issues within two weeks of owning it. Since then I've never had an actual card fail thankfully. Even my 2x 2080 Ti launch cards were fine. Did change one due to a dodgy LED logo from new but that doesn't count as the card itself was great.

My GPU's even when idle run 24/7 as my pc is never switched off. Just hope my Asus strix 3090 oc continues issue free, it should considering the insane prices they now charge for cards.

 

[Aretak]

Entirely depends on the card. My HD 4870 reference model died after four years of daily use, but then it also idled in the mid-to-high 70s by design. I doubt too many of those things are still alive.

 

[Jacky60]

What's this school homework or something?

I suspect he means homework for usage rather at 93%+ for at least an hour or two a day gaming.
The fact that I've only ever had one failure in tens of thousands of hours suggests they'll both die tomorrow or keep going until 2030.

 

[Jacky60]

I've been pretty lucky with GPU's, not had a failure many years. Last card that failed was an ATI 9800 Pro I think it was so that's going way back to around 2003, had artifacting issues within two weeks of owning it. Since then I've never had an actual card fail thankfully. Even my 2x 2080 Ti launch cards were fine. Did change one due to a dodgy LED logo from new but that doesn't count as the card itself was great.

My GPU's even when idle run 24/7 as my pc is never switched off. Just hope my Asus strix 3090 oc continues issue free, it should considering the insane prices they now charge for cards.

That's been my experience overall but these cards are the oldest I ever owned so hoping the trend continues.

 

[MasterOC]

never had a GPU die, some DOA, but never in my hands. CPUs on the other hand.... i like killing those.

 

[m4rmite]

Still have a 780 running on a daily basis from 2014.
Sold a 1080 from 2016 to a friend that's being used for gaming.
All the older cards got slung after the wife made me have a clear out

 

[drakulton]

I have a 780Ti which is now my main card, as my 1070 died minutes after the warranty ran out.

 

[evohicks]

I've just put together my old Athlon 64 3500+ CPU with a Radeon X850XT platinum edition on to a socket 939 motherboard, it runs fine and had its fair share of use over the years, just not recently. The Radeon was bought in late 2004 I think and I would imagine it's had at least 10 years of solid use.

 

[fs123]

Stuff like mining will shorten the lifespan of a gpu quite a bit since it is fully loading the VRAM 24/7 but generally gaming shouldn't give it any major stress. A gpu can last a long time unless you stress it by overclocking.

 

[Aretak]

I've just put together my old Athlon 64 3500+ CPU with a Radeon X850XT platinum edition on to a socket 939 motherboard, it runs fine and had its fair share of use over the years, just not recently. The Radeon was bought in late 2004 I think and I would imagine it's had at least 10 years of solid use.

Man, I wish I had one of those cards. The best classic Radeon I've got is a 9700 Pro (which is also a card notorious for just randomly dying).

 

[Poneros]

I think it depends a lot on how good the VRMs and the like on the cards are. Overbuilt cards last longer, and AMD usually did that for their cards hence my history. Currently have my old Sapphire R9 380 Nitro still going strong in someone else's computer (so 5+ years), I have my XFX RX 480 GTR which only recently got shelved and still gets put into various computers temporarily (so 4+ years), my Sapphire Vega 64 Nitro+ is also doing very well in another computer (so 3+ years), and if I hadn't killed my PowerColor 7950 PCS+ in shipping I bet that would've been working still. Heck, the oldest working GPU I have around is a Gainward GTS 250 (or 450, I always forget) and that's 10+ years old and still able to do basics + old games.

And I only really undervolted the Vega, rest were stock or OCed straight up, so it's not like that was helping. GPUs can last a long time imo, it's just that it's the component you'll want to switch out the most and upgrade so it doesn't really matter.

 

[dvinell]

So My Asus Radeon HD 7990 from 2013 is still in service, but only because my RTX 3080 order has been sitting in a queue for the past 5 months.
Things on the HD 7990 did fail, but I sorted out the issues as they happened.
e.g. a fan failed, so I replaced the duff fan.
It started to run hot, so I took the heatsink off, reapplied Arctic Silver and now it runs much cooler.

If you use a GPU for mining with no maintenance, its lifespan will be shorter than light gaming with TLC, excluding random failures which can happen any time.

 

[Screenbeat]

Some clarity on 'ages' would be nice I mean gaming 3-4 hours a day.

My 7950 is still going, think I bought it in 2013/14. Gets used daily although not so much for gaming theses days. My 1070 is coming up to It's 5th birthday, again used daily.

It seems I just never kill electrical kit.

 

[Kirby Wurm]

All my cards have lasted until I've sold them whe upgrading, typically after 2 to 3 years. The exceptions were an X1950 Pro and GTX 780 both of which were faulty from the start.