Hi Tormirez,
I can't believe my eyes.. I actually was afraid this might happen.
Since I've been following the 2011 MBP forum after i had my MBP repaired (reflow by someone near Antwerp, Belgium), I've been learning some specific things about the very likely nature of these GPU issues.
All these issues seem to be related to the replacement of leaded solder by nearly pure tin solder + not soldering according to the best profile (temperature vs time).
The factor of time saving = money saving may very well play a role here.
When you consider the nature of that leaded solder problem versus the soldering profiles, it's not hard to imagine that the problem isn't just in the 2011 model range, but may actually have started FROM that range...! I've already heard that some 2012 models also failed in a similar way.
It may all be quite logical; tin solder needs a roughly 60ºC higher temperature to get into full liquid state then leaded solder.
As the cheapest way to produce boards is probably rolling entire boards through ovens, melting the parts on it, it would require very precise monitoring of temperatures UNDER the CPU and GPU, to be SURE you have a full flow going on.
But, at the same time, as you're cooking ALL components around 240ºC, they may have chosen not to stay at this temperature long enough. Or, maybe they stop at 240ºC, while 242ºC might be the minimum required temperature to guarantee full flow.
Etc.. It's a very complicated mix of factors that determines if small or large batches of board could contain errors at all or not.
But it may at least be called "bizarre" that these solder errors are found in tens of thousands 2011 MBPs, but also in 2012 models, and in the PS4 and also other brand Windows PCs!!
If you want to test your GPU hard, download GpuTest OSX x64 0.7.0 from ( geeks3d . com / gputest ) and run the FurMark based stress test on HD resolution for 30-60 mins straight, then turn your machine off completely for 15-30 mins (until it's really cold, put it down on some cold stone floor might help), then repeat several times.
If the same problem would be hidden in there as in the 2011 models, this is the way to get it triggered soon.
If you ask me, this might be the first report of the same problem in the 2013 series.....
Question; do you game a lot? If you answer yes, then it would pretty much make a connection to this similar problem I think!
I'm curious about the results of the stress test!