Update: The Diablo 4 team is investigating reports of RTX 3080 Ti graphics cards crashing or dying while playing the game's closed beta. According to customer support, Blizzard is "working closely with Nvidia to identify affected hardware configurations and collecting as much data as possible to assist in the investigation."

For affected users, the team offers the following advice in a forum thread (open in new tab):

If the card still does not work, try these troubleshooting steps:

Original post According to new reports, Some RTX 3080 Ti (opens in new tab) graphics cards seem to run horribly or even die while playing the Diablo 4 closed beta over the weekend.

Seemingly very similar to the problems Amazon's MMO "New World" had with bricking RTX 3090 GPUs (opens in new tab), the "Diablo 4" beta seems to have exposed a fatal flaw in some high-end Nvidia GPUs. Reports have been coming in from Reddit (opens in new tab) and Blizzard's forums (opens in new tab) that the monitor goes black during the beta, the GPU fan spins at full speed, and the system reboots. These symptoms, not every time, are sometimes accompanied by an error code or the death of the GPU.

Most of the users affected by this issue appear to be using Gigabyte RTX 3080 Ti graphics cards, but the magnitude of the problem is not yet known.

YouTuber Mortismal Gaming (opens in new tab) also reported experiencing the same problem while playing games with a Gigabyte RTX 3080 Ti graphics card.

It is unlikely that Diablo 4 was the cause of the problem itself, but rather may have been the catalyst that exposed a weakness that may have already existed in the affected card. This was the case with New World, where EVGA noticed that a batch of their cards had a soldering defect (open in new tab) that led to failure when running at extremely high frame rates and load spikes (in this case, when playing New World).

If the same thing happens while playing Diablo 4, it may be Gigabyte's responsibility, not Blizzard's, to address this issue, as Blizzard also does not want to expose players to possible hardware issues, may choose to limit Diablo 4's maximum frame rate.

You may be able to protect yourself from these problems, but keep in mind that without all the information, it is not very certain how effective these measures will be. Still, it is nice to feel like there is some sort of safety net for RTX 3080 Ti owners as we head into Diablo 4's open beta weekend.

You can limit the frame rate in the game's options settings to reduce the load on the GPU, but it's worth considering doing so from Nvidia's settings to be completely sure your GPU isn't running on the edge.

Those affected by this issue have requested a return via the manufacturer, in this case Gigabyte. It is not yet clear how the return process will work or whether Gigabyte will replace these cards free of charge, but it will be necessary for these problems to be officially reported first.

We have been told that Gigabyte headquarters is aware of the report and takes it seriously, but the company has not issued a formal statement to us.