If you are familiar with Nvidia cards, they are prone to artifacts when they gets old, unless u are not intend to use it for a very very long term. The longevity of the card depends on its power design (Voltage regulator module), quality of the component used (capacitor, chokes, MOSFETS). If u look back the Sapphire HD7xxx series, a lot of the card has SMD capacitor burned, those are not your typical electrolytic caps, they don't bloat, when they burn, they burned a hole through your card, rendering your card useless. This is an example of cheapskating on quality of component. So... this is a manufacture to manufacture differences.