Just got the new card this afternoon and thankfully the card was already flashed with the updated VBIOS. I'm happy to report that it runs like a CHAMP on my xps 8300. Thank you eVGA, you have quickly earned my respect for helping out the "little guy" and BIG thumbs down to Dell, they have eternally lost my support...never again will I buy a PC from those scumbags. eVGA has my support!
 
thanks,
Jeremy

What if you accidentally used the wrong firmware? I used the FTW LE on the FTW.

The firmware did well for me. I noticed a tad of performance loss but to a gain of stability. You should be okay Madogre essentially the 670 FTW LE architecture is the same as the KR version that I use. I'm not exactly sure what is different on the LE, I just saw they a were a few bucks cheaper than mine.
306.02 driver-
The 306.02 driver is garbage, if it was worthy, a WHQL version of the 306.02 beta would of already launched.... I play about 30 different Dx9/DX11 games and so far the 304.79 is the best yet. First game I played after installing the 306.02 driver (Test Drive 2 Unlimited) crashed within first 3 mins and prior to that I noticed stuttering. No problems with 304.79, although I would like to see some better SLI support or increase in SLI performance. 

I just checked my EVGA GTX 670 FTW video BIOS version in the Nvidia control panel system information and it says I have 80.04.4B.00.71 should I apply the firmware update or wait for a better update?

I would-

Will this solve the PCIe 3.0 x16 Issues on some Z77 boards!?
What about Warranty?

With all the posts about artifacting and black screens, I will wait for a more stable firmware update.  Nothing wrong with my card as is right now anyways.

How do you install this firmware update?
 
Ran the update for the 4GB card, the DOS screen shows 2 cards were found and available for update, pressed Y on each one and then I saw it say verifying and then the window closed.   Restarted and checked
Nvidia system properties and I'm still on 80.04.31.00.70, so ran the firmware update again using admin - same after reboot it the DOS window is closing as if it updated both cards but the version in system information is not changing.

crossbone

Just got my new 670 FTW, played everything well, except when i started something really demanding like crysis 2 on ultra or skyrim 2 with all eye candy. All of a sudden, some minutes into the game, the screen goes black. The game crashes but the sound goes on. I have to quit the game via task manager then.

Updated this BIOS and now i can play about one hour before this happens. The problem is still not completely gone though... any ideas? Do i have a defective unit?

 
The same thing is happening to one (or both) of my cards now too.  I flashed the firmware update last weekend and played a bit.  All seemed well.  Next time I boot it up and start playing BF3 it crashes to black screen, but the sounds and all other windows sounds goes on.  I can't even get to the task manager. 
 
The cards ran flawlessly until I flashed the firmware.  I was given a successful install on both.  Now this.  It only occurs in SLi.  When I run benchmarks in single card mode, no crash.  When I enable SLi it even crashes in a browser.  I've installed the newest beta drivers from Nvidia (306.02) same problem.  Not a driver issue.  It is a bad firmware install.

EVGA can you please advise?

SeanEJohan
The 306.02 driver is garbage, if it was worthy, a WHQL version of the 306.02 beta would of already launched.... I play about 30 different Dx9/DX11 games and so far the 304.79 is the best yet. First game I played after installing the 306.02 driver (Test Drive 2 Unlimited) crashed within first 3 mins and prior to that I noticed stuttering. No problems with 304.79, although I would like to see some better SLI support or increase in SLI performance. 

 
Actually, 306.02 is WHQL'd for the 660Ti for some strange reason (not sure why nVidia is still separating this model's driver), though I have no problems with the beta on my 670 FTW and was definitely better for me than 304.79 which kept crashing when I played either Diablo 3 or World of Tanks. I suspect it's just a random set of variables that cause drivers to be fine for one person and garbage for someone else.