About a month or so ago my card just stopped doing what it used to do. I could play Skyrim on ultra setting with no AA or ENB's installed and it looked beautiful at a constant 60fps. Now I get 40ish and it is very choppy. Fired up my NASCAR 14 and that was running the same 60fps and now it gets 24 with a choppy screen. I had to completely shut off Physyx or it dropped down to 11fps. It is the same scenario in most games that I play now.
 
I know there have been two Nvidia drivers released since this started but I tried going back to a previous version with no changes. I have even formatted my computer a couple of times and no change. Is this a sign of my card committing suicide? It's not really that old and has an Accelero cooler on it so it rarely even gets to 45c.
 
I5 2500k 4.4ghz (water cooled)  Corsair 750TX PSU  840 EVO 120gb SSD running Win 8.1   No hardware change in almost 2 years

Who knows. Win 8.1 has never given me issues that I know of before. At least that I was aware of.

I have actually tried all of that with only the noticeable performance changes you would expect. My system runs really cool. CPU or GPU rarely gets above 45c under load and barely over 50c when stress testing. As I had said in the OP, there hasn't been any hardware change before this started. All I have done after was to swap tubing in my loop, clean all of the parts and reinsert everything but that would have no impact on the video card. I get great airflow in mt ATCS 840 full tower case.
 
I do have an old copy of Windows 7 that I could try out. All I pretty much do on my computer is game and use itunes.

I have tried it at stock and a slight bump to 1071 & 6000 which I have been running at with no issues since I got the card. Pretty much I just took the stock clock and bumped it to the SSC spec.
 
 
One more odd thing. My FPS seems to be locked at 60fps like vsync is permanently on yet in the Nvidia control panel it is not.

After formatting and trying win7 i have the same issues, it is either the card or nvidia drivers hate me.

Hello mercyflush64, 
 
I do apologize for any issues you are having. Judging by the results of your testing it appears that the card is showing signs of premature failure. Please contact our support team directly via support ticket or by phone 24/7 at 888-881-3842 so we can assist you with starting a RMA process for your card. If you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact us at any time of the day or night. 
 
Regards,
EVGA

That is a shame to hear.
Unfortunately the product does need to be in its original factory condition when requesting warranty services. I would not be able to provide any advice in removing those memory heat sinks without any possible damage to the memory itself. I would suggest trying to contact the manufacturer once again to get full confirmation if the adhesive they had sent is indeed permanent or not.  

mercyflush64
I ended up just going with a gtx960 FTW 4gb card. When I installed it I got no video at all and the motherboard made the no gpu beeped. I lowered it to the second slot and everything worked fine. Strange how my 650ti worked in the upper slot but at reduced performance. I can't afford a new m/g for a couple of months and I don't want to bother with an RMA from Gigabyte even though it is still under warranty. How bad will my performance be in the 8x lane?

This video will answer your question.