jlp209
Everyone always points to that same photo of that burned card, lol. I haven't seen "hundreds of cards blowing up." I've seen hundreds of useless posts about cards blowing up. I'd be miffed if I had to apply thermal pads to my card, but it isn't the end of the world. You may learn something new by taking apart your card and applying the pads, and re-apply thermal paste to boot. Or, send it to EVGA and they'll take care of it. The more people who stop buying from EVGA, the quicker I'll receive my next card(s) from fewer people ordering ahead of me. Score. 

Yeah this is ridiculous, anyone can tell a story or post a photo.  I asked a simple question, got a straightforward answer and EVGA posted results of a test that showed the card performed as designed.  Now that I've had a look at some more discussions about it, it's pretty clear to me if it was a real issue EVGA would have it handled appropriately.  Plus if it was a real issue, I'm sure the likes of LTT, Paul's Hardware, etc. would have a field day.  

Jeff_ M
 
 
I didn't intend to start anything, but obviously it's a hot topic right now.  I got the answers I came for, this thread can be deleted as far as I'm concerned.

I see what you did there

Jeff_ M
.  I asked a simple question, got a straightforward answer and EVGA posted results of a test that showed the card performed as designed. 

I missed the results post - i did see a statment saying that it was all ok.
 
While it's not clear to me that there is a over-heating issue with normal use, the published test results do show that ACR 3.0 is one of the poorer cooling solutions for your 1070/1080 card.

For the moment, it's always the same picture... in fact there is really 2/3 graphics cards on several thousands... it's really nothing ! 

Can someone tell me where is this thermal pad missing from our cards. When I looked at mine it looks like there is a long narrow piece going across the board for the vrm and then small pieces on all the memory chips. They look like they are touching and no gaps in between them. 
 
So where is the problem laying with all this going on. Pictures would be great. 
So are we missing a strip on the back side of the board where the vrm chips are?

alhazen
Can someone tell me where is this thermal pad missing from our cards. When I looked at mine it looks like there is a long narrow piece going across the board for the vrm and then small pieces on all the memory chips. They look like they are touching and no gaps in between them. 
 
So where is the problem laying with all this going on. Pictures would be great. 
So are we missing a strip on the back side of the board where the vrm chips are?

 
There is no missing thermal pads.  If there is, the Mosfet has the potential to short out on the heat spreader. Folks are saying there is a missing pad, because they assume there was supposed to be one between the spreader and heatsink, but there has never been one there before with previous generation cards.
 
The thermal pads being sent out are supplementary pads that go on the other side of the heat spreader in hopes of dissipating more heat. 
 
http://forums.evga.com/Ho...80-Cards-m2573413.aspx

Please see for the update here http://forums.evga.com/EVGA-GeForce-GTX-10801070-PWM-Operating-Temperature-Update-m2573491.aspx