Could higher than normal demand equal higher failure rates? 
Nice to see that EVGA is on top of the situation.

Glad this worked out for you!

Same place mine burned but it looks like yours was much worse, sorry to see yours go up as well.  :(  
 
RMA took 1 business day once they received the old card, then 3 days shipping. 

seems like something is causing a short on the card... i wouldn't be surprised if all those Red LED DOA cards have that same burnt spots if people actually inspected their cards...

There was nothing in my RMA other than card replaced under warranty.  

RakwaXD
There was nothing in my RMA other than card replaced under warranty.  

What does the RMA card serial number start at ?  201X ??

dinamo26

RakwaXD
btw with my new card I have the fans always running at 30%, by default the fans were spinning and stopping constantly and each fan at random speeds. It was a little odd to see a fan spin 2 or 3 times and stop.  

I've just got a new FTW3 card today and noticed the same thing FAN1 and FAN2 are spinning always at appr.35% and the minimum manual setting on them always says 36 .
May be they've  just disabled automatic IDLE control because of those issues . But man , those problems shouldn't exist on the premium product .

Normally I am not an early adapter of a new GPU due to driver issues early on but my old card was 4 years old and I was having a hard time running anything.  I am in queue for a 3080 step up, I do not have a lot of confidence in the 3070. 
 
I agree there shouldn't be issues like this with their top 3070 card.  

dinamo26

RakwaXD
My new RMA replacement card starts with 2114.

Thanks , I've got the same  ...whew

Sadly my original card was in that series of numbers as well.  

I have them manually set to 30% because I don't trust the fans spinning at weird intervals and spinning 2 or 3 times and  then stopping.  

Did the new one come with a mini fire extinguisher?

GTXJackBauer

RakwaXD
Made it past the 24 hour mark with the replacement card!  Things are going great so far!  :)
 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Llk1ip4I5pJos6HABdfTs-ksSBFZ81Rh/view?usp=sharing
 

Glad to hear.  
 

RakwaXD
I have them manually set to 30% because I don't trust the fans spinning at weird intervals and spinning 2 or 3 times and  then stopping.  

The fans spin at their own discretion because of the sensors built into the FTW3 cards (iCX).  They only use the amount of cooling that is needed for that section of the PCB.  It's not how they used to be where all the fans ran at the same speed.  I would be careful when using the manual settings otherwise your GPU could be stuck at a low fan speed while there's a considerable amount of load unless you've adjusted it via a fan curve to make sure there's always a good amount of cooling being done.

Thank you for the link, and explanation. Since my first card fried I have been watching my GPU much more closely and normally under load the card is not going past 48c so far.  Normally it stays 40 to 42c running the games and videos I normally put it through.  
 
I need to figure out how to make a custom curve for when it does get hotter.  

RakwaXD
These were the best I can do I don't want to take the heatsink off to show the damage to take a chance in voiding my warranty.



 
 

It looks like the MOSFET transistor was completely melted, as to my knowledge it's supposed to be the heavy duty one and help VRMs to regulate the voltage and keep it within strict operating voltages .
 
It had to be an actual "short " , possibly via PCIe pins ,  something like current conductive residue from the factory  but again it's just a guess.
 

I just had this happen on Saturday as well. Plugged it in... NO custom settings at all. wife noticed a burney smell from the room and I though it was another part. so I removed what I thought was going bad and causing that smell ( which was the thing right next to this card ) and powered back up. soon as I powered on, Fire shot out the side of it and a friend ran I'm the room asking if he just heard electrical sparks from around the corner from the room. which... yes he did. Pics can be seen here uckily it happened right in front of me so I was quick to react and managed to not get burned in the process ... so far other than some scorch marks on stuff and a new pair of underpants no other major damage. the riser cable still works although ive opted to replace it cause... you know... burned and scorchy but otherwise system boots up fine with a different card in it... 
 
Lesson learned: make sure fire extinguishers are up to date before installing video cards. 
 
( 21 year technology professional here ) 
 
EDIT:: Oh I see my story has already landed pics in here already... 
 
We will be discussing this incident with viewers later this week on YouTube as more than one in a couple weeks is more than a little concerning. 

Well mine genuinely had a flame large enough that there is blackening on the bottom near the PCIE slot and at the top... there was no shortage of flame... I wasn’t the only one that got to see it... 
 
as i said this will be on a live stream on the YT channel coming up soon I have a bunch of people that want to discuss this. 

following this thread, as I have 2 3070 XC Ultra, installed 3 weeks ago.
btw,  how much time it took to get the cards failed?