Just going to put this out there in case anyone else is having similar issues and doubting themselves. Might save you some money.
My original 1080ti FTW was 5 months old when it stopped providing any sort of video output. I RMA'd it and it was replaced by EVGA. It's worth noting that the rest of the computer was less than a year old when the 1080 was first installed.
After the replacement was installed I instantly started getting driver crashes and microfreezes before even logging into windows. My first thought was that maybe something else had been damaged at the same time so I took everything out and started from the bottom. Bought a new EVGA Supernova 650 PSU to cross that off the list at this point.
No issue was present using integrated gfx.
On the breadboard: Fresh Windows install on a new Samsung EVO ssd, tried both PCI slots on the mobo, tried each ram stick individually; problem still occurred. The only other card I had to try was a 960GTX..it didn't have any issues although not really a good comparison.
Sent the 1080ti back to the supplier a second time; they 'tested' it and said there was nothing wrong with it and sent it back. I obviously still had exactly the same issues but had no reason to mistrust the supplier so I replaced the mobo and CPU. Problem persisted.
A friend had just completed his build at this point so I took the 1080 round to his place and tried it on his machine. Didn't get the driver crashes as frequently but the microfreezing was obvious and the fps when he started up a game was atrocious.
At this point I sent the card back to the supplier for the third time and insisted they send it on to EVGA. I was informed that EVGA have replaced it yesterday.
So after owning what was the most expensive card in the shop for 8 months, I've had five months use out of it, two duds in a row and spent a fair bit of money and time trying to chase a ghost. Moral of the story? Just RMA it.
post edited by Wolfenschrekker - 2018/12/18 18:33:14