Can a graphics card die without overheating?

[Kisby93]

Evening Lads.
So my PC crashed some time ago while i was ingame. After troubleshooting my pc, it was still able to boot windows sort off, but only to crash again, i came to the solution that it was my GPU there had died.
The thing is, i have always been super aware of owerheating, and my pc is clean and the thermal paste is fresh. The temperature of the card didnt go above 80c at anypoint, during gaming sessions it was mostly around 70ish and my pc never reported any heating issues.

Was it overheating or just old age that slayed my old GTX 780 card??

 

[Gam3r01]

Temperature is almost never the end of GPUs, most of the time its simply working the card with random chance of failure.

 

[rgd1101]

overheating or power.

 

[Eximo]

Temperature is only one factor.

Silicon degradation from voltage. Power spike from the power grid. Static shock. Physical damage. Dust bunnies getting in there and shorting something out. And as Gam3r01 stated, random chance. Any one of a few hundred components could have failed on the GPU. Capacitors, resistors, VRMs, one of the shunts (which control power limits), Memory chip, etc...

As a first troubleshooting step, take the card out and put it back in. You would be surprised how much a GPU will move in its slot with heating and cooling cycles. The chassis and the PCBs will grow and shrink at different rates. Sometimes just a matter of loosening the motherboard screws and slotting the GPU back in and then tightening it back up.

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

They can also die as a result of bad manufacturing, such as it has been with many of the 8800 series FCBGA graphics chip based devices.