Blizzard recently released a playable beta of Diablo IV. However, it appears that not everything is sunshine and rainbows in the Sanctuary, though. An alarming amount of user reports have emerged on Reddit and the Blizzard forums, claiming that the beta is bricking the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, one of the best graphics cards.
One Reddit user reported that his Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Vision OC 12G had perished after playing the game for only 20 minutes. According to the Redditor's recount, the cutscene in the chapel was the exact moment his GeForce RTX 3080 Ti went haywire. It didn't take long before other affected users started to pitch in. Another user claims the cutscene also bricked his Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Vision OC 12G. However, users have also experienced crashes during normal gameplay too.
The reported symptoms are identical among the different cases. The system immediately throws a black screen at the user, and the cooling fans on the graphics cards go crazy. Subsequently, no image comes from the graphics card even after a system or several system restarts. However, it's important to note that the issue doesn't affect everyone, though. Some Diablo IV players have reported that while they have suffered crashes from the beta, the graphics cards miraculously survived.
The user feedback on the original Reddit thread shows that most of the bricked GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics cards are from Gigabyte. There was also a good number of cases from unspecified vendors. However, one GeForce RTX 3080 Ti from EVGA reportedly bit the dust too. Sadly, the issue isn't limited to the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, either. One GeForce RTX 3080 owner and one Radeon RX 6900 XT also came forward, reporting their bricked graphics cards.
It's too soon to tell whether Gigabyte's GeForce RTX 3080 Ti or Diablo IV is the culprit behind the bricked graphics cards. However, another GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Vision OC 12G owner reported that Valheim bricked their graphics card. Gigabyte sent the user a replacement but didn't provide any details on what was wrong with the graphics card. So there is seemingly a precedent that something may be wrong with Gigabyte's GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics cards.
Neither Blizzard nor Gigabyte has spoken about the issue. As a stopgap solution, users are recommending their peers cap the frame rate for safe measures. Nvidia GeForce owners can limit the frame rates on their graphics cards through the Nvidia control panel. The "Max Frame Rate" option resides in the "Global Setting" tab right under the "Manage 3D settings" section.
This Diablo IV bricking graphics card issue certainly has that New World-killing GeForce RTX 3090 vibe. Initially, users blamed New World because the open beta didn't have a frame rate limiter, making the GeForce RTX 3090 render the game menu at unnecessary high frame rates until the graphics card ultimately died. However, EVGA later discovered that bad soldering around the graphics card's MOSFET circuits killed the GeForce RTX 3090s, not New World. So it's not impossible to think that a bad batch of GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics cards may have escaped the factory.
There's always a certain amount of risk when playing a beta version of an upcoming game. However, it shouldn't kill your graphics card - unless a defect exists that we don't know about, and Diablo IV exposes it.
