GPU lifespan?

[CoW]8(0)]

An interesting BillR brought up here

Were GPU's made to run 24/7/365? Can they handle 24/7/365?

 

[Wixard]

A lot of newer cards havent been around long enough in my opinion to determine that.

However, I've seen tons, and tons, and tons, (and more tons) of TNT2 cards that still puttered along after being run 24/7 365 for years without issue. In nearly every case ive seen, they all worked fine. Same with voodoo 3's.

 

[banGerprawN]

I have a Pentium 133 with an S3 Trio 8MB that's been running as a Linux firewall for about 2 years for me, and was also used as a small business internet gateway/VPN anchor since it was made (1998?), and I can count the number of hours it's been turned off in those 7 years on one hand. I do have six fingers, though, so that is debateable.
Anywhoo.
It still works fine for me!

 

[CoW]8(0)]

I meant running 24/7 full load...

 

[Flo]

And the practical application of that would be...?

 

[banGerprawN]

And the practical application of that would be...?

Probably something to do with ATi's new GPUs apparently being able to function like a general purpose processor if called for. For example, when folding. Only sitting at the desktop, all those cycles going to waste.