I have 2 dell xps 1330's in the last 20 months have had 4 motherboards replaced due to gpu failure the last 3 months ago.
The Dell technician came again today so i asked him about it. He told me he is replacing 70-80 Motherboards a week.
So disbelievers wake up!

Many people last month have come in with broken graphics cards, far and above what normal failure rates should be. Nvidia 8800 and up have been failing a lot lately.

We generally reccommend ATI graphics to our customers whenever applicable. Which means about 50% of our customers have a Radeon card, and an AMD Processor.

We hardly ever get Radeon/AMD/Intel failures. Almost always Nvidia card .

Sounds like you and your friend need to do more reading before flopping a load of cash on the counter. Or is it just me who still researches their purchases first?

As someone who has just shifted to an ATI HD4870 after 10 years of only using Nvidia graphics cards, I feel that I am somewhat qualified to comment on the current state of drivers in both camps.

Nvidia=functional/few options/craptacular new interface
ATI=fully featured/richly optioned/better interface but not fantastic

After hearing years of FUD about ATI drivers I was shocked when working with Cat8.7 to find that none of that seemed to be true.

PLUS! Monthly updates. Be still my beating heart! I can't remember the last time Nvidia updated the drivers for my Geforce 7 generation card. Unless your Nvidia card is less than 6 months old or suffering a major defect (performance doesn't count) you can forget ever needing to update your Nvidia drivers

I was never an Nvidia fanboy, I just got used to buying what I knew and had good experiences with (I actually ordered a 512mb X1950Pro online but the card EOLed before it got filled), and in the past Nvidia products were always as good or better than the competition at the time of purchase (I missed out on the "joy" that came with an Geforce FX5xxx purchase!).

Now, I can't see myself going back any time soon. I've made the jump and I'm here to stay.
The 4870 is a bit warm, but it is cheap, fast, quiet and games like a monster at 1920x1200. 

And Cat8.8 has no issues for me.

Too bad they didn't googled
"Selecting the Appropriate Tg for Underfill"

70 C. degree Tg! You must be kidding. Is this chip requires fridge to operate?

Also too bad they didn't read the first google entry named

"Effect of Underfill Materials on Pb-Free Flip Chip Package"

Is it legal to sell a product to customers that you believe will go wrong?

The customer is believing the product is ok, NVidia are also reassuring customers that the products are ok even though NVidia know different. Is this legal?

Dell etc are also aware the products are below standard, should they also tell their customers?

The maker who puts their hands up and informs the customers and offers replacement/repair with a non-defective part, that is the maker that will stand out as the good guy in all of this. Most likely to get a new bunch of customers, and become known as the company "on our side".

Just sounds like common sense to me. If you know a material is not up to snuff and may cause problems (note the word may) you swap it out before it becomes a mess. Smart business.

Until I see a mass charge for desktop chips, or start to see mass failures of them, this is pure BS. Not much different than any company releasing a new spin of a product. 

Intel/AMD etc all release new spins constantly of old products. Reducing power, getting better yields etc. It's just common sense. If I know a material is passing, but I can replace it with something much better perhaps cutting failures from 5% to 2% (or whatever) why would I not do it? It's not costly. It's like changing cheese brands on a cheeseburger from McDonalds. Does the next rev of an Intel chip mean all others that came before it are faulty? Should AMD recall all Barcelona chips just because they can't figure out how to hit 2.7ghz? No you still sell them, but you have to mark them lower. Big deal.

Stupid business would be to ignore anything you can fix easily and cheaply.

There is another article here which is quite informative:
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/39045/135/

Nice to see another journalist doing some investigation. Nvidia really polarizes people into loving or hating them. I guess 10+ years of buying $500 graphic card induces a kind of "capture bonding". For the haters perhaps some kind of "fundamental attribution error" or "correspondence bias".

Likely wont be fixed till graphic cards become more a commodity ie cheaper. 

Welcome to corporatism the new fascism here in America (and the entire west for that matter), where corporations have more power and rights than individuals. Guess who gets screwed.

That's alright for now though because what they haven't thought of is where they're going to run when the lynch mob is chasing them down the street.

I have had 3 notebooks (company and personal) affected by this nvidia junk. surprisingly enough, consumer laws don't really protect the consumer against this type of BS except that companies like HP will offer 'incentives' like a 10% discount on the next HP / nVidia POS you buy from them which defeats the point of the consumer being in control. Look at the whole creative MP3 player megabyte lawsuit, what kind of resolution is it for the same company to walk away from justice just by offering consumers to upgrade at a discount from their next [expletive deleted] product?
HP is retarded, nvidia is retarded and make no mistake, most OEM/ODMs are absolutely idiotic and lie through their teeth at every opportunity, i've worked for enough of them to know the truth.

if you dont get a faulty chip, at least nvidia provides decent working drivers. 

ati drivers are horrible in my experience, only bested by their customer support; forever their response to me was "we think you have a problem......somewhere...."

my x1950pro was a fiasco: each new driver release yielded worse and buggier performance. also my video card's documentation was horrible. after a year of owning the card a little birdy told me you needed at least some 20a or so on a 12v rail. youve been nice to know this prior.

my friend gets better fps using only one of the two 3870s he bought.

nvidia with me is the less of the two evils, at least regarding the end user.

At least fill is being changed to Hitachi. Is Hitachi better?So there NOT same!?
STeWie drashek

The G86 (used in the desktop 8400 GS) went out of production late last year and was replaced with the G98 in January. Actual products may not have arrived in stores before april - may? I bought mine 12:th of July.

it seems to make the case that nvidia's manufacturing partner is the guilty party...

More of the dirt continues to surface. I'm going ATI all the way. In fact, I feel so strongly about this that, rather than buy a Macbook Pro and get an NV GPU, I'm going with a pre owned Powerbook G4 that is equipped with an ATI GPU. No thanks NV. I need GPU's that work!!

all this playing around and bs explanations from nvidia worth nothing.They will have to take the responsibility of their defective chips.
I myself have been using ATI cards for 3 years and im more than happy wth them.
i will never ever buy a nvidia product as long as im alive or mentally healthy.

That's why I bought my HD 2600 XT. Nvidia has never respected their consumers, they lie about everything...
And they also lower the price of graphic cards in the launch day so that reviewers can say that Nvidia has a good cost x benefit mark, telling that that card is the best for the given price... And when you look for it in the next few weeks, the price is damn high.
Company of liars...

as opposed to being honest liars?

most people who are angry with nvidia is not because they have the defective product... but it's because they're skeptical for having defective product thanks to the news like these...

have you ever wondered? what IF nvidia is telling the truth but the media telling otherwise? would you believe nvidia or the media?

I'm sorry... but I guess I rather believe nvidia with their small percentage defective product... unless they can prove that the return rate of such laptops because of chipset defect is more than what nvidia claims... I never be a fan of conspiracy theory...

it's all the same problem when DELL having exploding laptop problem, Xbox 360 with 3 RROD, Ipod with over heating battery, etc etc... 

If you can run a company without having a problem... wow... maybe you're a god...

My G84 part (nVidia 8600GTS) only runs stable if I under clock the thing?


It's a non-event Charlie, give it up already. You clearly know nothing about semiconductor manufacturing and reliability, and it's a crime that you try and pass yourself off as knowledgeable. For all your sky-is-falling, anyone-who-owns-one-of-these-ought-to-be-shoving-it-up-nvidia's-arse crap, there is little end user impact. That axe you're grinding has got to be getting close to nub size.

Well, until they prove to me that they have their manufacturing processes and materials under control, I and my company will NOT be purchasing any more NVidia parts, either as part of a system, or as individual parts.

Screw you, NVidia, for being such a bunch of dishonest liars!