So two days ago (02/06/22), I booted up my computer, opened Firefox, and these artifacts started appearing on my screen. I neglected to take any photos/screenshots as I was near having a panic attack, and almost immediately clean installed my graphics drivers (497.29 to 511.65 I believe). Luckily this seems to have resolve the issue for now, but I'm still quite concerned about my card.
 
The artifacting as I remembered took the form of a few black squares and a couple tiny green squares around the middle of my monitor, something like this:

They appeared soon after I opened Firefox and persisted when going back to the desktop. They'd flicker at times, disappear sometimes if I hovered my mouse over them or held the drag select over them, and I believe I was able to put my mouse on top of one of them, so I don't think it's anything to do with my monitor. And at one point my entire screen started flickering black for a bit. The strangest thing that happened however was that the artifacting seemed to have distorted one of my browser tab's website image so it looked something like this (best I could do to recreate):
 
and even when closing and reopening the tab it still looked like that. I don't recall if that part fixed itself after reinstalling the latest drivers, but the artifacting did seem gone right after, and I then restarted my computer a few times to double check.
 
I looked online to find people with similar issues, but most artifacting incidents seemed more "major", as there were no horizontal or vertical lines or a mass abundance of rectangles or squares, although the black flickering part was still scary; no freezing or crashes either. Issues people had also seemed to have to do with dying gpus, overclocking, gpu risers, overheating, bad vram/ram, or corrupt drivers. Some people seemingly resolved their issue with driver downgrading/reinstalling, but would often resurface again at a later point which is why I'm still worried. I asked for advice in other places and most seemed to conclude it was due to corrupt drivers on my part. My card is an RTX 3080ti which I bought the day it went on sale, never did any overclocking, not using a gpu riser, highest temps I've seen were 73c like once, and I never really had any issues before, although this card was used on my old build while this build is 1 month old, and the only real "incident" was that I had my monitor seemingly lose signal and turn black like twice a few months back, which has not happened again recently and I still have no idea why. Of course after installing the card on this new build I did a clean install of drivers using GeForce Experience and not DDU, the former of which I did again after this artifacting incident. I couldn't find any error related to my graphics drivers in Event Viewer except two that happened as I was reinstalling the latest ones, which I assume was the cause. I am using an XMP profile to overclock my ram to 3200 mhz and am only using one monitor though DP if that helps at all.
 
I played some games to make sure everything was alright, stuff like Apex Legends, Final Fantasy XIV, and Genshin Impact, and no issues seemed to pop up. I am a worrywart when it comes to computer hardware so I avoid putting too much stress on my parts if I can, which makes it all the more baffling how I would start getting artifacting. I was playing games just fine the day before and don't recall downloading much of anything that could corrupt my drivers if that really was the issue, other than Final Fantasy XIV on 02/04/2022. I did play longer than usual the day before the incident (some 6+ hours straight at like 50c-65c), but I don't think light gaming like that would hurt my card. I use my card on average maybe 12 hours a day, and maybe game for 1-4 hours average a day so nothing too major.
 
I do have a 10 year warranty on the card since I'm such a worrywart, but I'd still like to avoid having to go through the RMA process and get possibly a defective/inferior card back (bad experience with RMA). So should I still possibly be concerned about my card being defective? Could this have been a freak one-time incident caused by corrupt drivers? How could drivers that were working fine for a month suddenly have this issue? Has anyone experienced anything similar? Any constructive/detailed advice would be well-appreciated right now as I don't know how long it'll take for my mind to ease up from this.
 
OS Version: Windows 10.0.19044 Build 19044
Build: 
 
*edited to include images since I can't seem to post links

I'm just using the DP cable that came with my monitor, haven't ever had issues with it to my knowledge. I'm guessing the times it turned black in the past were due to driver issues or possibly someone in the house using too much electricity. When my monitor flickered black this time around it kind of "dimmed" as it did so. And I don't think my monitor is the issue since the artifacts I had were interactable to an extent.

I had the same issue in Firefox a couple of days ago.  I panicked and backed off my overclock a bit and they went away.  I have had my card since release with zero problems.  3090 FTW certified DP cable.

It was little greenish squares randomly appearing that would go away with a refresh and then re appear in a new location maybe 15 to 20 squares at a time.  I did not notice them on my desktop only Firefox, but I did not even look.

aznsloverice
Sounds similar, but can't really say for sure it was the same issue. Thanks for the input though, it helps put my mind at ease at bit knowing it's hopefully not just me.

It could be software or hardware related but what you stated makes it more likely a software issue.

Glad to see you have extended warranty on the GPU as that will protect you for the long run no matter what.  Don't freak out, it's part of custom computer building.  Things happen, have no worries.  Been in the game for 20+ years, been there, done that. 

I would recommend in having back GPU in case one day you need to RMA your GPU.  Sorry to hear about your bad experience but again, it happens to some of us but majority of the time, things work as intended.

It's worth watching out for to see if it happens in future updates of the driver. I would also see if the same site running on Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome causes the same issue or if it's just Firefox. It could easily be just random one-time issue that the driver rollback fixed.
I do agree though that a good display port cable is always a good idea to test out. Normally the cables that come with a monitor work well enough but better options exist that are not much money. You could also make sure the monitor has the latest firmware.

aznsloverice
Hey all thanks for the feedback/suggestions! So far the issue hasn't hasn't resurfaced at all so for now I do believe I can count this as fixed. It's reassuring knowing that it's (hopefully) not my fault as an inexperienced pc builder and that my card isn't wonky, especially in these times of high gpu prices. Thanks again, and if anything does happen I'll post an update!

Glad to hear.