I had an XFX video card with a proprietary fan/heatsync on it and the fan went bad after 1.5 years. I was expecting to have to send the card in to have the darn fan replaced under their lifetime warranty, but the tech asked me if I'd rather replace the fan myself with a new one.
I said "Sure!" and they sent out a new heatsync/fan assembly for free, and I had it in 3 days. My total downtime was 15 minutes.
Since then I've happily spec-ed out XFX display adapters to many clients, confident that when the fans go out (and they always do sooner or later, regardless of manufacturer) I can get a new one.
-Llama