UPDATE: NVIDIA Potentially Recalling All GTX 670, 680, 690 Kepler Video Cards Patrick Nosker

According to a leak from chip producer TSMC, NVIDIA may be recalling all of their newly released Kepler GTX 670, 680, and 690 graphics cards. After being released, serious supply issues have resulted in inflated prices and serious reduced stocking of parts. This news has come at the worst time with customers already with cards possibly needing to exchange for a new one.

According to the report, chips may be suffering from serious performance degradation over long periods of heavy load. This sounds a lot like Intel’s Sandy Bridge SATA controller issue last year with motherboards being recalled due to SATA controller performance degradation.

We will have more information as it comes.

Update 2:35 PM EST:

A few quick comments: our source has been accurate with some prior information but this is the first time we are citing something said about GPUs. Let’s just wait and see. Hopefully this isn’t true as my new computer coming in will feature dual GTX 680 cards along with a GTX 580. Additionally, it’s interesting reading the commentary throughout the web regarding this story. Firstly, I am not shorting this stock. I hold no interests in any tech companies. Some commentary has stated the lack of relation between this and Intel’s SATA snafu. I wasn’t suggesting the mechanism of failure was alike but rather that the problem and this one, if true, would be of similar magnitude shortly after release. Finally, some have stated that NVIDIA, Microsoft, and vendors all test rigorously. Yes, that should happen, but let’s look at EVGA’s announced recall of some of their GTX 670 cards due to failures. These cards were tested yet the screening failed to stop the cards from being released. We don’t have any specific details beyond “possible recall” so anything else is just speculation. For some more reading about some related occurrences read The Inquirer’s report of EVGA’s GTX 670 Superclocked recall and SemiAccurate’s account of NVIDIA’s Kepler supply issues. According to SemiAccurate, supply issues may be caused by poorly designed lithography and mask problems. Perhaps that’s what’s causing defective chips?

Update 3:28 PM EST:

NVIDIA has claimed that they will not recall any 600 series chips due to performance degradation over times of heavy usage. Let’s hope they stick to it! Of course, take both the leak and NVIDIA’s response with a grain of salt. Of course NVIDIA wouldn’t announce plans to recall before they are going to start it. Also, let’s not forget about NVIDIA’s often denied Bumpgate issue with their mobile chips a couple of years ago.

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