Of all the problems that plague PC gamers - driver glitches, excessive fan noise, buggy game patches, burned out OLEDs - I would not have put GPU backplate optical degradation in the top 100 potential problems.

But apparently it is, as two Reddit users (via Videocardz) have reported that light degradation has appeared on the backplates of different graphics cards. This discoloration closely matches the pattern one would expect to see on an adjacent set of memory modules with RGB lighting.

The presumption is that the RGB lighting in question reacted with the coating used on the back plate of the card. According to the report, this phenomenon does not appear to be affecting any particular card, as it has affected cards from MSI and Gigabyte (and later from Asus). Rather, it appears to be related to the RGB LEDs on the included memory kit.

Now, I am not a materials engineer, and even if I were, without specific knowledge of the LED emission spectrum and the materials used in the backplate itself, I would not want to speculate much. However, years of exposure to UV light might be one explanation.

That makes sense. If a shirt is left out in the sun, it will quickly fade from exposure to the sun's UV rays. Something similar seems to be happening here. Fortunately, this problem does not seem to be widespread. If it were, millions of PC owners with RGB lighting would be reporting similar problems.

My guess (you know the old cliché about assumptions) is that there are memory modules out there with low-quality or defective LEDs that are emitting light that they should not.

There is another aspect to consider. It is one thing to suffer external damage from years of use (perhaps 24/7), but it is another to look into a brightly lit RGB system at night and burn your retina with the suspicious light.

It will be interesting to see if this problem becomes more widely reported. We have not heard from users about specific memory kits or batches, but if there are defective batches of RGB LEDs used by memory manufacturers, we may see more problems like this in the future.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm about to check the RTX 4060 in my daily system to see if the G.Skill Royal DDR4 memory is causing any damage to the RTX 4060. Damn, these LEDs are bright!