@broozar wow... really? that'd be an interesting article to read. I have had dual xfx 8500's for a while, i had one of there sli mobos, all the ratings I read were great, and i never had a hitch. I wonder if it might have just been that they recently (nvidia 8xxx series and newer) have been doing better, or as you have mentioned, maybe they just have a little higher quality factory in the US, or the shipping from the US might also affect the quality of the product as well.