relevance
well, while installing the thermal pad that EVGA provided, I decided to check the VRAM contact on thermal pads with mid-plate. and all VRAMs are firmly marking indentation on each pads so I'm happy with it. also updated the bios for more aggressive fan control, now fans seem to be ON the whole time @ minimum of 30%. good news is my core temp went from 42C to 34C. I couldn't really tell the noise differences. overall I'm very happy with the mod. just waiting for hydro copper kit for my FTW now..
 
 

if your case is in firmly indentation then it is good.
but i see someone pic showing it is only marginal indentation.
indentation needs to be deep to ensure there is perfect contact, if the stock pads only make contact with the surface of the vram chips and the stock pads seem to be no downward pressure at all then it is problematic.

Does anyone have the actual measurements of the memory chips themselves? I want to make sure I'm getting the correct amount of thermal pad if I end up needing to replace all of them.
 
 
14mm x 14mm x 9mm maybe?

wait hold on a sec.
 
OP modded the plate completely out of spec, and is now complaining that the pads don't work? and i thought i've seen it all. of course they don't work anymore, you ground out new holes in the plate and likely changed the way the plate secures to the PCB! you likely warped the plate as well! 
 
and i entirely suspect the other two posters dogpiling on the OP are not real either.
 
EVGA has a warranty and exchange process. and a good one. 
 
i swear, no wonder JayTwoCentz was pissed, so much baseless whining.

fightinfilipino
wait hold on a sec.
 
OP modded the plate completely out of spec, and is now complaining that the pads don't work? and i thought i've seen it all. of course they don't work anymore, you ground out new holes in the plate and likely changed the way the plate secures to the PCB! you likely warped the plate as well! 
 
and i entirely suspect the other two posters dogpiling on the OP are not real either.
 
ffs EVGA has a warranty and exchange process. and a good one. 
 
i swear, no wonder JayTwoCentz was pissed, so much baseless whining.

 This Alone Killed the Warranty.

TPI_The_Axeman
I've just pulled apart my replacement FTW 1080 and taken some photos, as i thought I saw a gap between memory chip and thermal pad.
 
Here it is, thermal pads are clean and unblemished by chip indents. 
 
Looks like I'll be submitting another RMA....
 

It also looks like when you pulled off the Mid Plate the suction pulling of that bottom Left vRam sucked off any indentation and pulled the Thermal Pad upwards and that is why you see no indentation on that Thermal Pad.
This Plate also looks too clean as if it sat out for a while in the sun or very warm place.
The Height or thickness of that Thermal Pad looks 2 times that of the other ones.
 
Both TPI_The_Axeman and the OP Should have Posted Photos of the Card showing the vRam.
This way we could all see what markings that were on them before you cleaned then up.

like i said before, i could have hidden my mod and post the gap photo only. 
not just me saying there are gaps between stock pads and vram chips. and i am not the first one at this forums to report this with photo.
 
this photo is interesting. the middle one has a gap. but the rest seems contacted. but this type of contact is not enough. it is marginal contact. without seriously downward pressure from the pad to the vram chip, i highly doubt there is perfect contact and the cooling performance. unless evga is using some kind of new and unique pads which are much more powerful than other pads that have remarkable indentation to show pads are perfectly contacted with vram and vrm.
 
http://forums.evga.com/Up...date-m2573491-p14.aspx
 
 
 
if this problem affects only few ppl, evga should have offered a brand new card for rma.
because this problem is 100% evga qc fault.
of course i have modded the plate, you can blame this problem to me, and evga can simply cancel my warranty.  evga, just please take a good look to other's report and pics to this bad contact problem, find the root cause and fix this whole mess, with little respect to these victims.
 
 
 
i am already tired to this contact problem.
 

I'm sure it doesn't help that your GPU is smashed up against your PSU ventilation

Enosoma
I'm sure it doesn't help that your GPU is smashed up against your PSU ventilation

Where is this Photo at?

It is odd that some people have "gaps" and others don't with the same model card. I can only conclude that there is some variation in the parts.... Either different thickness thermal pads, or different thickness VRAMs, or different length standoffs resulting in a "mixed" part supply at the factories, so some cards are fine and others have gaps.

I just took a photo of my 1080FTW. This card is about 6 weeks old, and has never been disassembled. There are clearly gaps between the VRAM and the thermal pads. No problems so far, but obviously those thermal pads aren't doing their job when they aren't touching the VRAMs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHemB3_thFc
here is a video of jayztwocents showing his card about few ppl and my claim to the contact probem, started from 8:24 and you can jump to 15:00 to see the result.
 
 
one thing i want to point out, according to micron data sheet about the gddr5 vram chip, temp of vram up to 95c is fine. so passive cooling for vram is fine. but if there is a gap between the vram and the stock pad, this mean most of the airflow are blocked by the cooling plate and it is even harder for vram to be passively cooled. if serious overclocking on vram, during gaming or even benchmarking once the vrams reach 95c then it will fail.