If fan failures are still common these days,
what's the best preventative measure to take with new video cards?
Keep the case open and aim an external fan at the video card?
I ask because I'm about to put together a new build and
I don't want fan failure to damage another video card.
Something that helps is to choose a model of video card where
the hot air from the card is exhausted outside the computer's
case rather than inside it. This keeps the insides of the
computer cooler, and therefore allows more time to detect the
problem.
Some computers (such as my laptop) now have a device for measuring
the temperature of the CPU and also one for the graphics chip, and
will quickly shut down the computer if either reaches a certain
limit (100 C on my laptop, and apparently not settable).