As long as you put the card back to stock before an rma, and do not do any physical damage to your gpu, evga will honor your warranty.

Theg include a new tamper stick just to show them if they need to do a more thorough check on the gpu once it returns.

Be careful with the small heatsinks that are glued onto the ram/vrm, I think that'll void your warranty. The Accelero Xtreme IV states "Installation Without Thermal Glue - Graphics card can be returned to its original condition". I'd recommend evga's hybrid cooler if you absolutely can't stand the stock heatsink, it'll cost abit more but I think in the end you would have better results. The universal stuff just scares me personally.

demonchaos
I decided not to risk it. Seems like there is a lot of potential for things to go wrong. I will probably step up to FTW3. Just hope EVGA will have enough in stock sometime within next 84 days. Maybe classified, or even Kingpin versions will be out by then?

FTW3, Classified, and K|ngp|n will not be on the step up list. Only during extreme situations will they put a card like that on the list. The Founders is on the list, and the Black or Black SC may go on the list later.

A good example of an extreme circumstance is the 970ftw not supporting lighted LED sli bridges. The put the 970ftw+ on the list, which was a complete overhaul for the ftw to enable the lighting on the bridges. I dont recall any other time that a custom pcb board was on the list.

Www.evga.com/support/stepup. Get friendly with that page and read about the program. Its meant to get you to the newest gpu model, not the best model out there. The founders edition performs awesome and is my first reference gpu in the x80 line up. I have always owned classified and ftw style cards previously, but the extra costs and wait are things I cant get behind anymore. I want them now, and want to enjoy them, lol.

I think I'll keep it after all. This is my first FE card, and I'm hoping it'll have better aftermarket air cooling options in the future.

Update:
 
I've purchased Evga Hybrid cooler kit for 1080 Ti four months ago. It's been running superbly since. Idles at around 25c, full load (playing any current games at full settings, benchmarks) never gets above 50. 
 
It was sinful of Nvidia to bundle their top card with quite possibly the worst active cooler relative to part power in GPU history.

Valtrius Malleus

demonchaos
Update:
 
I've purchased Evga Hybrid cooler kit for 1080 Ti four months ago. It's been running superbly since. Idles at around 25c, full load (playing any current games at full settings, benchmarks) never gets above 50. 
 
It was sinful of Nvidia to bundle their top card with quite possibly the worst active cooler relative to part power in GPU history.

It's not a fair comparison. One is an AIO while the other is air cooled. The FE is still adaquate and has a use case, being inside small cases where the blower fan can expel hot air.

I suppose expulsion of hot air is a valid point. Otherwise, it's meh.