Hello folks.  Longtime EVGA customer, first time posting.  Kinda horrified that I finally took the plunge on a $700 video card and am now facing the possibility of having to conduct surgery on my card to apply the thermal pad fix.  I have a few questions:
 
1.) Is it confirmed that the EVGA GTX 1080 Superclocked edition is affected by the issue?  ie: lack of thermal pads on the VRM causing a hot spot and potential point of failure?  I'm not that technical, sorry if I'm using the wrong verbiage here.
 
2.) How complex is it to install the thermal pad kit (which I ordered)?  Is it just removing some screws and placing them or are we talking major surgery?
 
3.) If I RMA instead of risk messing up the thermal pad install, will EVGA send me a replacement before I send in my existing card?  I would expect something like this, considering it's a $700 graphics card and (in my eyes) deserves some level of premium service.
 
4.) Any chance EVGA would arrange for replacements through authorized retailers (like Fry's)?
 
Thanks in advance for your replies and thanks to EVGA in advance for your attention and responsiveness to this issue.  I think it goes without saying that how EVGA responds to this situation will go a long way towards helping or hurting customer loyalty.  Mistakes happen, but service recovery is a controllable thing.
 
--Alex

1 - 4% of FTW models. My own ACX 3.0 model (same PCB as your SC) is running just fine without any heatsinks under an AIO cooler and G10 bracket with just a fan cooling the VRAM and VREGs. No thermal pads, no heatsinks! They run in the 40C range which is quite cool, and that is while highly OCed. (edit - as measured with a wireless IR gun)
 
2 - Easy, and instructions will be given either in a print out or a guide online. It entails removing the backplate.
 
3 - Yes, if you provide CC collateral and request it.
 
4 - No chance of that unless you do a swap under the retailers rules.

Thanks!  There is just so much conflicting information out there right now, I hope EVGA puts out an official statement soon.

There is no lack of thermal pads on the VRM. the thermal pad actually works as an non-conductive surface between the heat spreader and the mosfets. If there was no thermal pad, the mosfets would fry instantly when they receive power as it would short out.

My thought process is that people are running their card at the stock fan speed (30%) which is jot forcing enough air through the cooler to dissipate hest from the heat spreader.

The reason I think that? I have a 1070 ftw... I set it to the slave bios, and it runs the fan at a stock 50% (slave bios has the same exact settings, with a more aggressive fan profile stock). My backplate and vrm section don't go over 50c, from what the ir heat gun I have shows, and my card runs a folding program (Folding at home) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Granted, F@H isn't extremely stressful like furmark, which is what was used to actually generate so much heat (it's not smart to use a black listed program known to kill graphics card, in case you weren't aware), but since the card runs stock fan speeds constantly and I have never seen so much as a hiccup, I decided to add my own thermal pads that I had lying around.. The results were the same before and after. The backplate and vrm section still run the same temps.


The thermal pads only take a few minutes to install. It is really easy and a commonly one thought process.

EVGA does an advanced RMA program in the US, where they will ship a card to you before you ship the old one back. This requires them to out a hold on your credit card for the fill price of the card, which gets released after your card is returned.

I don't know if eVga would be able to do a third party exchange process.

What would be the right temperatures for a gtx 1080 SC?  Mine seems to run 26c when idle, about 74c when gaming.

It all depends on ambient temp, fan speed, game being played, and air flow in your case.

alexjlopez
What would be the right temperatures for a gtx 1080 SC?  Mine seems to run 26c when idle, about 74c when gaming.

That's perfect.