sethleigh
I run a 4k monitor and I've been trying for days to get an SC. I'm told that on Friday some SCs were available briefly on Newegg, but I missed them by a few minutes. I did see some EVGA FE in stock, and had one in my cart with my mouse finger hovering over the Place Order button, but I made myself be patient and hold off. I don't want to pay an extra $50 just to have instant gratification.

The longer it takes, in fact, the more I'm thinking of waiting for a stock 1080 GTX (the $609 version from EVGA) that looks like a FE but with a less fancy shroud. For the difference in price I could nearly pay for a EF water block, and then if I choose to do any OCing I'd probably get as good as most cards out there.

Anyhow, still hovering near my computer waiting for nowinstock.net to beep at me, still refreshing Newegg and EVGA's pages from time to time, etc. It'll happen, and I bet it happens soon. I've had to down-rez The Division to 1080p on my 4K monitor to keep it playable, and blowing each pixel up into 4 looks kinda crappy. Oh well, if that's the worse of my problems I live a blessed life.

You gotta be quick but it will happen. I was able to order a card 4 different times and then canceled afterward lol. If you waited this long go for FTW or the like. The base card and waterblock would be a good idea if you already have a loop but if I had a loop I would want the extra power pins and bios to really push the card.

I already run a Swiftech 220-X water loop in my system, so far on the cpu only, but it's easily a robust enough pump and whatnot to support adding in a gpu cooler.
 
I really did want to go for the FTW, but from everything I've read so far nobody, even the FTW guys, is getting all that much better OCs than anyone else. So I've set my sites on the SC, and if it takes long enough and they become available, I could see myself going for the plain Jane 1080 GTX or ACX 3.0.
 
Also I'm not a huge OCer. If I overclock at all I'll go for something well short of pushing the edge, and be content. I'm currently running my cpu and 960 SSC at stock speeds. I think I'll do just fine without the extra power connectors.

Yeah if you got everything but the water block and aren't going for super high OCs, get the cheapest card you can get.

You can push a watercooled ref. 1080 as far as a FTW currently. But without overclocking and factory clocks, cards like the FTW are faster.

Ok so putting DSR x4 maxing out the control panel and playing every game i got at 60 fps solid makes me not know what im talking about?
What is this high school where i gotta take pictures of the panel and in game to get a high five?

Dunno, are you trying to get a high five? For what?

I am running an EK Waterblock, so that most likely is helping, but I was able to get a stable (2 hours stress testing) clock of 2126MHz and Memory @ 5500MHz with my SC.  I only had it installed for a day to test it, as I am in the middle of a new build, but plan on playing with the voltage a bit more once completed to see if I can kick the clocks a tad bit higher.  Temps never got above 45C.
 
I have more info, pics, and benchmarks on this tread I started last week.
http://forums.evga.com/My-custom-Liquid-Hydro-Copper-1080-SC-EK-Water-Block-Initial-OC-Benchmarks-Temps-m2494207.aspx#2496678
 

Looks awesome.

Yeah that does look cool.

tubbing
Ok so putting DSR x4 maxing out the control panel and playing every game i got at 60 fps solid makes me not know what im talking about?
What is this high school where i gotta take pictures of the panel and in game to get a high five?

do you even realize what you are claiming? 5k is 14,745,600 pixels which makes it nearly TWICE as demanding as 4k which is 8,294,400 pixels. a 1080 cant even get 60 fps in all games maxed at 4k yet you claim to do that at 5k. so either you are playing some much older games that are not the least bit demanding or you are not even selecting 5120x2880 in the games.