NVIDIA 196.75 Drivers may burn your card

For those who own Nvidia based GPUs, DO NOT UPDATE YOUR DRIVERS TO 196.75. There are cases all over the internet where overheating causes the GPU to completely burn out because the software controlling the cooling fan is messed up. It is never really advisable to update drivers without waiting for followups and further public testing ESPECIALLY since this is not the first time for Nvidia. Sadly some of you already got hit by this issue and will have to RMA your card to the company your video card belongs to. Remember the saying, if it ain’t broke, don’t fucking touch it.

Taken from Zdnet (source)
The problem seems to be related to the fan controller, causing the fans to slow down, and even stop. This happening while the card is in use is a very bad thing indeed, and can cause poor performance (as the GPU tries to cool itself down by reducing power) and possibly even overheat your GPU to the point where the card stops working.

EVGA • BFG • XFX