According to the an article in the INQUIRER, it is very possible that all chips with the G84 and G86 architecture are faulty. The problem is said to be excessive heat cycling and when NVIDIA was questioned, they blamed their suppliers for the issue. Although NVIDIA is claiming that only a few chips that went to HP were affected, the INQUIRER points out that all the chips use the same ASIC across the board, which has not changed in the architecture’s lifetime. They also point out that Dell and ASUS are having the same issues.
The article then goes on to theorize why we have not seen more complaints. They say that failures of these type usually follow a bell curve distributed over the time domain and we are only on the initial up-slope. This is probably due to the different use patterns of the users. For example, people with laptops are turning their computers on and off more than desktop users, thus facilitating the heat cycling’s effect. They suggest the quick fix as more fanning, but eventually NVIDIA will have to do something about this.
[via Engadget]
This is yet another reason AMD continues to provide the better value…
@nicholas lombardy,
amd? hmm, ok… wtf? im sure you mean ati. and you are still wrong. funny how that works, isn’t it?
hahahaha! nicholas, you’re a hoot. have fun reading this on your “amd” video card.
AMD bought ATI. Flameage ill-considered.
@2, 3
amd bought ati almost 2 years ago, all recent ati cards are considered to be amd products. you lose.
amd/ati has been the standard means of referring to the graphics company (the artist formerly known as ati?) for quite a few months now.
l see some people are still out of the loop, but it is becoming standard practice to simply call them AMD graphics cards/chips now.
For $200 the 4850 looks to be a killer card, wish I could get one. I am waiting on software from iZ3d to allow my dual polarized stereoscopic LCD rig to work on cards other than legacy nVidia products for OpenGL and DirectX video games. If you don’t game in stereo vision, you might as well poke one of your eyes out. see mtbs3d.com for info and stereo screen caps from recent games.
@2,3: Better to hold your tongue and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and confirm it.
Dan’s Data just did a round-up of current-gen video cards, and he (like me) agrees with #6 about the 4850. That’s the go-to card for value right now. I just have to upgrade my ancient rig to a PCI-E motherboard — somehow I’m stil chugging along with a P4P800-E…