Dell / Alienware Forum Post - Be Aware - FurMark GPU and Performance Degradation

Saw this in the Dell forum just now, dated from Sep 2 2010. Link and cut and paste provided.

FurMark GPU and Performance Degradation - Alienware Forum - Alienware Club - Dell Community

Problem: Owners of Alienware systems may experience performance degradation issues while running the FurMark GPU benchmarking application.

Discussion: The Furmark application is a very intensive GPU benchmark that uses fur rendering algorithms to stress test the graphics card in your computer. The program is purposely designed to overheat the GPU by creating power draw above and beyond the design specifications. Using this program is likely to result in noticeable GPU performance degradation on your computer. If the GPU is pushed to the extreme, using this program could even result in thermal shutdown of your computer.

Solution: Alienware and our GPU partners do not recommend using the Furmark application as a GPU burn in tool. Although Alienware systems have thermal protection mechanisms built in, running programs such as Furmark could lead to potential system damage. Alienware owners should use extreme caution when using benchmarking tools such as Furmark.

Official statement from NVIDIA:
“FurMark is an application designed to maximize power utilization from the graphics card. Running FurMark on your GeForce-based PC can create power draw well above the design specifications of the graphics card and thermal solution. In some cases, this could lead to slowdown of the graphics card or even shutdown of the PC. While the slowdown and shutdown features are designed on the GeForce graphics cards as protection mechanisms for the hardware, running Stress Tests such as FurMark may still have the potential to damage the graphics card and should thus be used with great caution.”.