That's why you don't buy amd.

[Packing an i5]

3 years strong with a radeon hd 6870 for me the first one they sent me died in 2 days grey lines appeared on the monitor, RMA'd it returned via fedex, fedex then lost the package and found it a week later heavily damaged. Eventually i got a working card... just cant go nvidia or intel with their prices.

- - - Updated - - -

It's kind of obvious but...
AMD doesn't make the graphics card (usually). They only make the GPU.
The GPU almost never breaks (lifespan of 15-20 years). Other stuff on the PCB breaks, like capacitors or memory, or the cooling, or the connectors. So blame Sapphire/MSI/ASUS/etc.

THIS sapphire was the culprit for me they made the most prone to fault 6870s on the market .

[tielknight]

That and Sapphires OC Versions of the 7870/7970 were pretty bad(~15% return rate).

OT:
Every time something fails or breaks or stops working, it is our nature to no longer want to purchase that item. The absurd bit comes when someone has a problem with one item(a GPU for example) and instantly starts going batshit crazy yelling OH MY GOD EVERYTHING THESE PEOPLE MAKE IS BAD NOW when that is just plain silly.

If my GPU decides to blow up does that mean Nvidia is garbage? No, it means my GPU was garbage, be it from defect or design or even my own stupidity that killed it.

[drdevious]

i had a msi 270x and a msi 280 twin frozr 3 that both died within one month. started artifacting and smoking. switched over to nvidia and got myself a gigabyte windforce oc 4gb 770. best decision ever. fantastic card with zero issues.