What's the life expectancy of a graphics card?

[ThePathOfBlood]

I have an AMD 290X (never overclocked) maintained nicely, now I know graphics cards can last decades figuratively but yes.

I'm just having artifacts and more. on one card, but not the other.

 

[Rroff]

I've had mixed results - some have started artefacting after ~3 years others have done a good 10 years before I've retired them without a hitch. No correlation so far with those overclocked and not-overclocked and any shortness of lifespan.

A lot seems to depend on the quality of the memory (VRAM) used + heat exposure - some of the cheaper stuff (VRAM module wise) if you are gaming for hours every day doesn't last more than ~3 years IMO.

 

[Armageus]

290X were always a fairly hot running card, so I wouldn't be surprised if almost 7 years after release you are now starting to get issues.

If run in well ventilated cases and cleaned regularly, there's no reason why most cards won't last 10 years or more.

 

[Randomface74]

Vram 70c+ = early death

 

[Tetras]

After 2-3 years most warranties have expired so I think that says something, though it's true CPUs last way beyond their warranty period.

In my experience it's usually the VRAM that dies first.

If it's not heavy usage then 3-5 years is not hard to achieve, even for the toasty ones. 5 - 10 years when well-designed and cared for.

 

[Vince]

They don't make them like they used to. My old 5850 mined it's entire life, found a block of BTC back in the day, was in service for at least 6 years and still works to this very day. In fact I have never had a card actually die on me. Ive had cards, MSI im looking at you that were broken from new at stock clocks but thats sort of what I expect from MSI these days.

 

[pp111]

Depends how hot it runs. The hotter it gets the less time it lasts. But it's really hard to be specific beyond that.

 

[Semple]

As above i think heat is a huge factor.

I had a 6950 i was running for probably a good 7 years.

Playing Killing Floor 2, the card would regularly run at 90C+, and it didn't take long for the card to eventually die.

I guess if i'd toned down the games so that the card didn't have to work so hard, it may have lasted a bit longer.

 

[m4rmite]

I've got a780gtx from 2013 that's still working in a daily run media centre and a 1080FE still playing games.
I've only had 1gpu die on me.
A gtx 295, the water pump died and cooked the gpu.

 

[justwondering]

Well, if you go the extra mile, say once every six months use some compressed air to remove the majority of the dust and then service the card once the warranty has expired, with new thermal pads and good thermal paste, the card could last a long time, relatively cheap to do and lots of YouTube videos on how to do it... Even just changing the thermal paste and removal of dust will help.

 

[BUDFORCE]

Only ever had 1 die on me, was a Nvidia 8800GTX reference, died after a year playing Eve Online of all games mostly.

Annoyingly, at the time I was unemployed, couldn't afford a replacement and just for whatever reason didn't think about the warranty which I'm pretty sure it would have still been in.....

Replaced that with I think an ATI 5770.

Still not bad considering my first GPU that iaI remember buying outside of any pre build machine was a Radeon 9000 Pro.

 

[DoneADougalOnSofa]

Might benefit from a re-paste. My old 390X's paste was dry powder when I opened it up.

Took 10c straight off load temps with some Thermal Grizzly. Obviously, your mileage may vary but if the card is otherwise causing problems, it might be worth a shot.

 

[Benass]

my ati hd7950m died after 6 years. was operating around70c throut its life time in my laptop. now im running gtx 980m around 60c max temps. my alianware is 7 years old still going strong. fingers crossed.

I bet it wont last long since now it has primary monitor 3440x1440 O-O

 

[Rroff]

Well, if you go the extra mile, say once every six months use some compressed air to remove the majority of the dust and then service the card once the warranty has expired, with new thermal pads and good thermal paste, the card could last a long time, relatively cheap to do and lots of YouTube videos on how to do it... Even just changing the thermal paste and removal of dust will help.

Dusting sure but personally I've not had a GPU that has needed a repaste - though there are the odd model that has a known issue of paste drying out usually due to poor design/seating on the memory cooling.

 

[MagicBoy]

My MSI 290 Twin Frozr didn't last more than 9 months before it started artifacting. Made it work for a living running triples screens in a sim rig. Replacement 390 was trouble free.

 

[Tealc]

Had an ATI 9500 pro that developed artifacts once many moons ago. I swapped the cooler out for a Zalman half copper half aluminium cooler and the problem went away so extended its life for a couple of years. Apart from this I've never had a failure and have run cards until they are well out of date, and beyond.

 

[Saul Farrell]

I have an AMD 290X (never overclocked) maintained nicely, now I know graphics cards can last decades figuratively but yes.

I'm just having artifacts and more. on one card, but not the other.

It's just the quality of some of the components, it really is just a lucky dip as to whether you get a good batch or not...

 

[ttaskmaster]

I've got a780gtx from 2013 that's still working

I had one of them, too. 780 Lightning, in fact.
I overclocked the crap out of it, before donating it to someone else who overclocked the crap out of it, before passing it on, and on, and on and now I believe it's back with the original second owner who overclocked the crap out of it, and is about to be re-donated.
It's been dropped at least four times by various people and the extra PCB on top with the blue LEDs is a bit finnicky, but it still performs as good as ever.