NVIDIA GPU Reliability Plummets: Repair Costs for Warranty Services Have Increased Tenfold

GPU Reliability Issues

The reliability of NVIDIA graphics cards is under discussion, especially after the emergence of cases involving melted connectors. Some believe that only a few cases have made a lot of noise, while others argue it is a sign of a decline in reliability. Thanks to Warranty Week, we have objective data: the costs for NVIDIA's warranty support have literally skyrocketed to unprecedented levels.

In 2025, the company recorded $894 million in expenses related to warranty requests, compared to $81 million in 2024. This represents an increase of nearly ten times year-over-year, undeniably symptomatic of rising production costs, but also of technical issues that have undermined the quality of the company's GPUs.

The quarterly analysis shows an irregular trend but with a strong final acceleration. After $147 million in the first quarter, $80 million in the second, and $156 million in the third, the company had already exceeded nearly five times the expenses incurred the previous year. Naturally, the explosion in costs was evident in the fourth quarter, which recorded a peak of $511 million. This increase coincides with a phase of tension regarding the prices of components, particularly the cost of DRAM.

Among the main factors, as one might easily imagine, are problems related to the 16-pin 12VHPWR connector, introduced with the RTX 4000 series and also used in the more recent GPUs. The first damage cases were already reported in 2022 with the RTX 4090, but the phenomenon continued to manifest in 2025 with the new RTX 5090 and RTX 5080.

From the perspective of failure rates, NVIDIA reached 0.90% in the fourth quarter of 2025, compared to 0.17% in the first quarter of the same year. Again, this is a significantly increasing figure that forced the company to reassess its internal support organization. In fact, the company has increased its warranty reserves from $416 million to $2.59 billion, indicating it anticipates substantial costs in the near future.

AMD has also recorded growth, although significantly less pronounced despite the quadrupled cost of memory. Warranty expenses rose from $110 million in 2024 to $238 million in 2025, with the request rate increasing from 0.43% to 0.69%. The company's reserves increased from $310 million to $597 million.

In conclusion, there has been a shift in the reliability of GPUs, especially those from NVIDIA, primarily due to the infamous 12VHPWR connector, which was later updated to 12V-2x6. This issue is clear, even if the repair rate remains relatively contained compared to sales — at least within the scope of warranty — which is likely why no drastic measures will probably be taken on this front.