Got a 65nm G200? Getting SC2? Might want to upgrade.

[ViRGE]

I am wondering if the high fps is stressing out other components on the card, such as the capacitors (which is likely responsible for the whine noise) Those fractures may be the result of overheating of certain components or maybe the high frequency vibrations generated by those components? Not having a EE or any other engineering background, this is just a idle theory.

The noise would be generated by the chokes, not the caps. And even then it's only on cards with regular chokes, as opposed to solid state chokes.

 

[v8envy]

I am wondering if the high fps is stressing out other components on the card, such as the capacitors (which is likely responsible for the whine noise) Those fractures may be the result of overheating of certain components or maybe the high frequency vibrations generated by those components? Not having a EE or any other engineering background, this is just a idle theory.

I doubt the vibration is nearly as detrimental as a more pronounced thermal cycle. The thermal expansion of solids like silicon, epoxy resin and copper is linear at temperature ranges we're talking about. However, the coefficients of expansion for all those materials are different.

The bigger the temperature delta from wherever it was those components were designed to match up the larger their difference in size. The larger the size difference the more mechanical stress.