EVGA to replace RTX 3090 GPUs bricked by Amazon MMO New World

[Update – July 23 @ 12:32 PM ET]: EVGA has responded to the concerns of the player base, and says it will cover all graphics cards impacted. After releasing an update to the game to reduce GPU load by capping framerate, a spokesperson for the company told PC Gamer, “Yes, all failed 3090’s are being replaced.”

The original story, published July 21, is as follows.

There’s no smooth sailing for New World players that decided to spend good money on a top-of-the-line GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card. According to multiple reports from players, Amazon’s MMO — which was released into beta on July 20 — is causing major issues with Nvidia’s high-end GPU to that point that the graphics cards are bricking and subsequently failing.

The reports started coming in via Reddit and other social media posts, with a pattern quickly emerging. EVGA cards appear to have the most problems. One popular streamer, Gladd, even came out to say that playing the game “fried” his graphics card.

How are companies responding to New World players?

If you don’t know what bricking is in regards to a GPU, here’s the gist of it. Bricking is when the BIOS of a GPU has an error during a flash or update or even heavy usage and temperatures. This leads to the card not being able to be restored back to its original state, basically leaving the user with an expensive paperweight or brick.

In response to the bricking reports, Amazon insisted that its game is not the cause despite confirmation that New World can cause 100% GPU usage on the EVGA RTX 3090 graphics card. Instead, the company pointed to “driver settings and frame rate limiters” as the culprits. As far as possible fixes, the rep suggested disabling overrides in the driver settings and capping the frames per second (FPS). After making the changes, players should restart the game client for them to take effect.

ATTENTION:

Playing the New World beta on my EVGA 3090 has fried my graphics card completely. There are many accounts of this same thing happening with the same card with the same game.@TEAMEVGA @playnewworld @EVGA_JacobF

I just want to make sure this doesn't happen to others

— Gladd (@Gladd) July 21, 2021

“This will help prevent issues with the GPU’s utilization,” the rep stated.

Even with those suggestions, players are still reporting problems on the New World subreddit. Fortunately, Amazon will patch the game to cap FPS within the menu screen.

“The New World Closed Beta is safe to play,” an Amazon spokesperson said when contacted via email. “We’re grateful for the support New World is receiving from players around the world, and will keep listening to their feedback throughout Beta and beyond.”

PC Invasion did reach out to both Nvidia and EVGA for a response on the bricking concerns. As of writing, however, no response has been received from either party.