Funky artifacting: software or hardware at fault?

Hi all,

I recently purchased a new laptop that is presenting me with some
strange artifacting.  I'm trying to determine if this is caused by
software or hardware so I know if I should return/exchange the
hardware.

The laptop, a Clevo P150SM variant with Intel HD 4600/AMD Radeon HD
8970M intended for hybrid graphics (so, the display is attached to the
Intel card; e.g. the Intel driver might be in question here), is
running an up to date Debian Sid installation and therefor it's using
very recent builds of all of the stack.

I have three images that demonstrate the artifacting.  First is an
image to show the setup and what seems to correlate with the
artifacting; I simply setup a text file with increasing density of
characters on each line, with multiple characters for variety:

http://oi59.tinypic.com/anlslk.jpg

Second and third are shots of the artifacting itself, which is present
on both sides.  It seems as though heavy contrast, especially periodic
horizontal contrast, causes a sort of "halo"/"ghost" artifacting:

http://oi61.tinypic.com/2qm2bli.jpg
http://oi61.tinypic.com/zmgxnq.jpg

If I move the window up and down, the artifacting follows as you would
expect.  There appears to be no vertical effect, and I assume all
contrast changes (or whatever is actually the underlaying issue) cause
this uniformly across the screen and not just on text, but rather
monospace text is definitely very periodic.

It should be noted I see this artifacting in Grub (the bootloader) as
well, and perhaps even the BIOS/UEFI setup (I don't remember; I will
look and reply when I have a chance).  I want to try Windows or an OS
with a different stack to see if it persists, but I would rather not
go through the hassle of installing Windows side-by-side, and I don't
know of any other alternative.

What do you all think?  Is this a software issue, or is my machine
faulty and I need to take it up with the vendor?

Thanks for your help!

--
Nate