Managed to get a little extra time (& therefore $$$) on this paycheck & together with my previously saved up EVGA bucks, I placed my order for a new GPU!  So I'll have both my current 660Ti & the 970 available to fold on  & I should finally be able to play my favorite games at my monitors native 2560x1600 resolution  Of course, most of the time, it'll just be the 970 folding (after it arrives next week), with the 660Ti being a backup in the event of problems with the 970.
 
Just curious, the card will be installed in a vertical orientation (instead of horizontal like the majority of modern installations), so is there any real benefit to buying and installing the optional backplate ???

Card does have memory chips on the backside, but for every-day gaming and F @ H use, I cannot see spending $20+ for a backplate when most games & F @ H don't really stress the GPU RAM, or gain much if any performance from overclocking it.  Now if I were only going for highest possible benchmark scores, it might help achieve that, but not my cup of tea. 
 
I must say that as far as performance goes, I'm blown away!!!   So far it has handled all my games at 2560x1600 with maxed out quality settings.  I haven't seen a frame rate below 38fps (Tomb Raider with the ATI TressFX hair thingy turned on), but I haven't reinstalled Metro 2033 yet which should finish downloading from Steam any minute now.
 
Quite pleased with folding performance as well, using only 20W more power than my old 660Ti, this card is putting out more than double the PPD.  Where the 660Ti topped out around 101,000 PPD,  this card gets between 220,000 and 320,000 PPD depending on WU.
 
Still, I almost returned this card for refund.  This was the first time in over 5 years that I could hear my computer (which is in the living room), from my bedroom.  Not just hear it though, it actually kept me from sleeping very well on night #1.    This friggin card was just plain LOUD.
 
I had considered water cooling the card, but the voltage regulators are in a very bad location & would not receive ANY cooling from the water cooling adapter   Luckily I figured out that it was PrecisionX that was the root of that loudness problem.  Even at default setting, it was keeping the card at about 62C, but in order to do that, it had to push the fans to 78 - 80% fan speed, or about 3,300 - 3,400RPM.  PrecisionX was causing FarCry4 to crash every time as it tried to load, so I ended up removing PrecisionX & instantly, the hair-dryer on steroids turned into a quiet hum.  Down-side, GPU folds around 72C, but with fan speed around 27% or about 1,200RPM, it is no longer headache inducing loud.  I hate a loud PC which is actually why my last 3 video cards were all from Gigabyte, huge fans that never got loud (even at 100% fan speed) & cooled very well, untill they stopped working...
 
I do hate that this card runs at about 72C when folding, but as long as it remains quiet, I'll just live with it & watch the finished WU's pile up

Got around to watercooling this card!
 
After pulling the stock heatsink off, I realized that the VRM's are only cooled by fan on this card, where as on my old Gigabyte 660Ti, the VRM's were cooled through direct contact with the heatsink as well as being cooled by the fans.
 
Still, I don't like the VRM's to be without cooling, so after some research, I decided an Enzotech MST-66 MOSFET heatsink for at least passive cooling.  It's a single piece C1100 forged copper heatsink & is small enough to that it doesn't even need to be trimmed to fit on the card.   I also picked up some Enzotech BMR-C1 RAM sinks to add cooling to the GPU RAM. 
 

 
Unfortunately, I did not realize that the Fujipoly GR-d thermal "tape" didn't have any "real" adhesive properties... sure it's mildly sticky but not enough to hold the heatsink in place.  Didn't realize too that the RAM sinks are to tall to be used with the Kraken G10 bracket, by about 1mm, & had to be removed.  I also figured out that I need a shim to go between the GPU core & the waterblock to get effective cooling happening 
 
Sure it cools as is, with idle temps at about 31 - 33C, but as soon as I start gaming or running Folding @ Home, temps shoot up to 65 - 70C range, occasionally creeping higher.  Yet the liquid temp in my Kraken X60 never tops 35C, even after hours of folding, which indicates poor transfer between the waterblock & GPU. 
 
I've re-applied thermal paste 4 times using 2 different diamond pastes as well as AS5, & results are the same each time.  The thumb screws that secure the G10 to the card are bottomed out, so they cannot be tightened any further. 
 
So, until I get a shim, I'm taking it easy with this card.