GPU failing in mid 2010 i7?

[lannim]

I have a 4 month old mid 2010 iMac i7 2.93 with a Radeon hd 5750. I play world of warcraft casually, never more than 3 hours a day a few days a week, and this is the most stress the system is ever under. Lately I have been getting ridiculous artifacting in WoW, even as soon as the login screen opens. I have tried all the troubleshooting on the client end, reinstalled, changed settings, all that, no fix. I ran 3 hours of AHT which came back clean.

Since then I have tried to play on a windows 7 partition, where the problem is much worse even than it is on osx. I also installed Everquest just to see if I had the same problem, and I got the flickering, flashing and artifacting as soon as the game opens. So I ask, is it really plausible that my gpu is already failing? If so, would it be better to take it to the closest apple certified repair center or just send it in? Obviously, it's still under warranty.

Also, I recently took the system to the apple store because my daughter shoved a kroger card in the disc drive. They removed it and it works fine, and I know that this could do absolutely nothing to the gpu, but still yet could it void my warranty? Thanks in advance for your wisdom

 

[bizzle]

Your optical drive will not validate the entire warranty of the machine.

 

[lannim]

Your optical drive will not validate the entire warranty of the machine.

if you mean that it wont invalidate it, thats a relief

 

[lannim]

Still looking for input on this if anyone has something to add : )

 

[P Mentior]

I would take it to a certified repair center/apple store if one isn't too far out of the way for you. It does sound like a GPU problem and if you aren't satisfied with how the machine works take it in.