EVGA

LockedIs it safe to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW if you have thermal pads to put on VRMs?

Author
UmutC
New Member
  • Total Posts : 4
  • Reward points : 0
  • Joined: 10/16/2016
  • Status: offline
  • Ribbons : 0
Sunday, October 30, 2016 7:12 PM (permalink)
Hello,
I'm a watercooling enthusiast and I have some leftover thermal pads. I was thinking to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW ACX 3.0, but the recent news made me doubt it.
If I buy it, I can put thermal pads on VRMs and use the card like that. Is it safe to buy it despite the recent problems? Are there any problems other than the lack of VRM thermal pads?
Or should I forget about this card and go look for another brand? Thanks.
#1

18 Replies Related Threads

    kj6ythgfg
    iCX Member
    • Total Posts : 326
    • Reward points : 0
    • Joined: 1/7/2009
    • Status: offline
    • Ribbons : 1
    Re: Is it safe to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW if you have thermal pads to put on VRMs? Sunday, October 30, 2016 7:42 PM (permalink)
    I bought one without knowing about any of this. Now that I have educated myself on this issue it appears to me that catastrophic failure may have been due to bad MOSFETS. I think the statement EVGA has given about the card being perfectly fine to use even without the pads is true. So if you put pads on the heat will not be an issue. Also, the Micron memory issue affecting many brands of 1070/1080 models has been fixed in bios updates as far as I know. You should be safe to buy one. Also remember you are getting a 3 year warranty instead of 1 year with Founders Edition. (Although I know none of us enjoy doing an RMA)

    HeatWare: Markon101 
    My Rig Mobo:ASUS Z170-A CPU:Intel Core i7-6700K GPU:EVGA GTX 1080 FTW 

    #2
    bcavnaugh
    The Crunchinator
    • Total Posts : 38516
    • Reward points : 0
    • Joined: 9/19/2012
    • Location: USA Affiliate E5L3CTGE12 Associate 9E88QK5L7811G3H
    • Status: offline
    • Ribbons : 282
    Re: Is it safe to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW if you have thermal pads to put on VRMs? Sunday, October 30, 2016 9:28 PM (permalink)
    kj6ythgfg
    I bought one without knowing about any of this. Now that I have educated myself on this issue it appears to me that catastrophic failure may have been due to bad MOSFETS. I think the statement EVGA has given about the card being perfectly fine to use even without the pads is true. So if you put pads on the heat will not be an issue. Also, the Micron memory issue affecting many brands of 1070/1080 models has been fixed in bios updates as far as I know. You should be safe to buy one. Also remember you are getting a 3 year warranty instead of 1 year with Founders Edition. (Although I know none of us enjoy doing an RMA)


    EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FOUNDERS EDITION
    • 1607MHz Base Clock
    • 1733MHz Boost Clock
    • 257.1GT/s Texture Fill Rate
    • 8192MB GDDR5X Memory
    • 10000MHz Memory Clock
    • 320GB/s Memory Bandwidth
    Warranty: 3 Years

    Associate Code: 9E88QK5L7811G3H


     
    #3
    Salem13
    Superclocked Member
    • Total Posts : 179
    • Reward points : 0
    • Joined: 6/18/2016
    • Status: offline
    • Ribbons : 0
    Re: Is it safe to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW if you have thermal pads to put on VRMs? Sunday, October 30, 2016 10:15 PM (permalink)
    UmutC
    Hello,
    I'm a watercooling enthusiast and I have some leftover thermal pads. I was thinking to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW ACX 3.0, but the recent news made me doubt it.
    If I buy it, I can put thermal pads on VRMs and use the card like that. Is it safe to buy it despite the recent problems? Are there any problems other than the lack of VRM thermal pads?
    Or should I forget about this card and go look for another brand? Thanks.




    If you are going to water-cool I believe and quite frankly hope, you will be OK with a FTW water block.

    You will be having contact cooling across all of the heat effected areas. :D

    This issue, as I , a layman and enthusiast believe is involved in the cooling of the simple plate spreader?

    That part of the ACX 3.0 is replaced entirely with the likes of the EK block... I do however question adding more pads between the card and back plate?
    #4
    Salem13
    Superclocked Member
    • Total Posts : 179
    • Reward points : 0
    • Joined: 6/18/2016
    • Status: offline
    • Ribbons : 0
    Re: Is it safe to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW if you have thermal pads to put on VRMs? Sunday, October 30, 2016 10:18 PM (permalink)
    Also, EVGA I have read is close to the full copper water block edition coming out, if you can bare to, waiting for that may be worthwhile.
    #5
    Sajin
    EVGA Forum Moderator
    • Total Posts : 49227
    • Reward points : 0
    • Joined: 6/8/2010
    • Location: Texas, USA.
    • Status: offline
    • Ribbons : 199
    Re: Is it safe to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW if you have thermal pads to put on VRMs? Monday, October 31, 2016 0:54 PM (permalink)
    The thermal pads aren't required. Yes, it's safe to buy.
    #6
    UmutC
    New Member
    • Total Posts : 4
    • Reward points : 0
    • Joined: 10/16/2016
    • Status: offline
    • Ribbons : 0
    Re: Is it safe to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW if you have thermal pads to put on VRMs? Monday, October 31, 2016 12:40 AM (permalink)
    Salem13
    UmutC
    Hello,
    I'm a watercooling enthusiast and I have some leftover thermal pads. I was thinking to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW ACX 3.0, but the recent news made me doubt it.
    If I buy it, I can put thermal pads on VRMs and use the card like that. Is it safe to buy it despite the recent problems? Are there any problems other than the lack of VRM thermal pads?
    Or should I forget about this card and go look for another brand? Thanks.




    If you are going to water-cool I believe and quite frankly hope, you will be OK with a FTW water block.

    You will be having contact cooling across all of the heat effected areas. :D

    This issue, as I , a layman and enthusiast believe is involved in the cooling of the simple plate spreader?

    That part of the ACX 3.0 is replaced entirely with the likes of the EK block... I do however question adding more pads between the card and back plate?




    I generally use my EK universal VGA blocks with my cards, because full-covers are hard to sell after the card gets outdated. I can use these VGA blocks forever.
    Evga cards have a full-cover plate heatsink above their pcb, and has an opening for the gpu. That makes it easier to use with an universal VGA block.
    I cool the heatsink plate with a seperate fan. I may consider a hydro copper version this time though. But do gtx 1080 hydro copper FTWs have the same problem?
    #7
    mikenogo
    New Member
    • Total Posts : 3
    • Reward points : 0
    • Joined: 2/2/2016
    • Status: offline
    • Ribbons : 0
    Re: Is it safe to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW if you have thermal pads to put on VRMs? Tuesday, November 01, 2016 5:26 PM (permalink)
    Sajin
    The thermal pads aren't required. Yes, it's safe to buy.




    Lies. Seriously if you think this is a proper answer to your question then by all means risk yourself to burning the rest of your pc and probably your house as well.
    #8
    HeavyHemi
    Omnipotent Enthusiast
    • Total Posts : 13887
    • Reward points : 0
    • Joined: 11/29/2008
    • Location: Western Washington
    • Status: offline
    • Ribbons : 135
    Re: Is it safe to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW if you have thermal pads to put on VRMs? Tuesday, November 01, 2016 5:31 PM (permalink)
    mikenogo
    Sajin
    The thermal pads aren't required. Yes, it's safe to buy.




    Lies. Seriously if you think this is a proper answer to your question then by all means risk yourself to burning the rest of your pc and probably your house as well.


    That a few instances of SMD components failing is not going to burn down your house. You can't find a single example of damage to a PC other than the GPU failing. As far as we know, the issue of the VRM/Memory area running a bit warmer than other models is not even related to the issue of a couple failing components on the back of the GPU.

    EVGA X99 FTWK / i7 6850K @ 4.5ghz / RTX 3080Ti FTW Ultra / 32GB Corsair LPX 3600mhz / Samsung 850Pro 256GB / Be Quiet BN516 Straight Power 12-1000w 80 Plus Platinum / Window 10 Pro
     
    #9
    brokencross
    New Member
    • Total Posts : 89
    • Reward points : 0
    • Joined: 10/4/2016
    • Status: offline
    • Ribbons : 0
    Re: Is it safe to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW if you have thermal pads to put on VRMs? Tuesday, November 01, 2016 5:38 PM (permalink)
    mikenogo
    Sajin
    The thermal pads aren't required. Yes, it's safe to buy.




    Lies. Seriously if you think this is a proper answer to your question then by all means risk yourself to burning the rest of your pc and probably your house as well.


    They're not really lies. As far as we know, the cards to run fine without thermal pads.
    Do they run hotter than the competition? Yes. 
    Is it correlated with some cards failing? We don't know. Probably not.
     
    Just as an example, the VRMs on Zotac cards run even hotter and nobody is hearing about their cards going up in flames. So that just makes us believe the cards that did fail had some flawed components.

    Intel i5 4690K@4.4Ghz | MSI Z97 Gaming 5 | EVGA GTX1070 FTW replaced by a MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X | G.Skill RipJawsX 8GB 1866Mhz | Corsair CS650M | Thermalright Macho | NZXT S340
    #10
    the_Scarlet_one
    formerly Scarlet-tech
    • Total Posts : 24080
    • Reward points : 0
    • Joined: 11/13/2013
    • Location: East Coast
    • Status: offline
    • Ribbons : 79
    Re: Is it safe to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW if you have thermal pads to put on VRMs? Tuesday, November 01, 2016 6:04 PM (permalink)
    mikenogo
    Lies. Seriously if you think this is a proper answer to your question then by all means risk yourself to burning the rest of your pc and probably your house as well.


    My 1070 ftw has been running nonstop, even while I am out of town, for 3 full months now. Purchase date 27 July 2016.

    I only check it twice a week to make sure it is still working at full load nonstop.
    #11
    Akwrath
    New Member
    • Total Posts : 13
    • Reward points : 0
    • Joined: 4/14/2011
    • Status: offline
    • Ribbons : 0
    Re: Is it safe to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW if you have thermal pads to put on VRMs? Tuesday, November 01, 2016 6:51 PM (permalink)
    After a few hours of reading all of this. It seems like a few "rare" circumstances are causing every EVGA owner to flood to the forums and want a thermal mod or new card.
     
    I requested my thermal mod and have not had the card long enough to have known of issues. As of like a week ago, all i read was amazing reviews on the 1080 GTX FTW edition so i bought it.
     
    Now that there is this problem with VRM after running an insane program for hours - here we are.
     
    I gave it thought - submitted a ticket to see if EVGA will do me a favor and ship me a new card and I return my old. We will see what happens.
     
    #12
    arestavo
    CLASSIFIED ULTRA Member
    • Total Posts : 6806
    • Reward points : 0
    • Joined: 2/6/2008
    • Location: Through the Scary Door
    • Status: offline
    • Ribbons : 77
    Re: Is it safe to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW if you have thermal pads to put on VRMs? Tuesday, November 01, 2016 7:03 PM (permalink)
    Akwrath
    After a few hours of reading all of this. It seems like a few "rare" circumstances are causing every EVGA owner to flood to the forums and want a thermal mod or new card.
     
    I requested my thermal mod and have not had the card long enough to have known of issues. As of like a week ago, all i read was amazing reviews on the 1080 GTX FTW edition so i bought it.
     
    Now that there is this problem with VRM after running an insane program for hours - here we are.
     
    I gave it thought - submitted a ticket to see if EVGA will do me a favor and ship me a new card and I return my old. We will see what happens.
     




    If your card was sent out from EVGA prior to Sept. 1st (I forget the exact date, somewhere around 31 Aug) then it can be RMAd for one that has the thermal pads already applied - or you can request the thermal pads from EVGA and add them yourself if you want to save time.
     
    http://www.evga.com/thermalmod/
     
    Edit: And yes, there is a reason why Furmark is blacklisted within Nvidia drivers - it's an unrealistic load, and running it for extended periods really is stupid.
    post edited by arestavo - Tuesday, November 01, 2016 7:05 PM
    #13
    Akwrath
    New Member
    • Total Posts : 13
    • Reward points : 0
    • Joined: 4/14/2011
    • Status: offline
    • Ribbons : 0
    Re: Is it safe to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW if you have thermal pads to put on VRMs? Tuesday, November 01, 2016 7:09 PM (permalink)
    arestavo
     
     
    If your card was sent out from EVGA prior to Sept. 1st (I forget the exact date, somewhere around 31 Aug) then it can be RMAd for one that has the thermal pads already applied - or you can request the thermal pads from EVGA and add them yourself if you want to save time.
     
    http://www.evga.com/thermalmod/
     
    Edit: And yes, there is a reason why Furmark is blacklisted within Nvidia drivers - it's an unrealistic load, and running it for extended periods really is stupid.




    My card was shipped out 9/21/16. Does that mean the thermal pad has been applied? I would love to see what it looks like so i can check my GPU after work.
    #14
    Sajin
    EVGA Forum Moderator
    • Total Posts : 49227
    • Reward points : 0
    • Joined: 6/8/2010
    • Location: Texas, USA.
    • Status: offline
    • Ribbons : 199
    Re: Is it safe to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW if you have thermal pads to put on VRMs? Tuesday, November 01, 2016 7:16 PM (permalink)
    Akwrath
    arestavo
     
     
    If your card was sent out from EVGA prior to Sept. 1st (I forget the exact date, somewhere around 31 Aug) then it can be RMAd for one that has the thermal pads already applied - or you can request the thermal pads from EVGA and add them yourself if you want to save time.
     
    http://www.evga.com/thermalmod/
     
    Edit: And yes, there is a reason why Furmark is blacklisted within Nvidia drivers - it's an unrealistic load, and running it for extended periods really is stupid.




    My card was shipped out 9/21/16. Does that mean the thermal pad has been applied? I would love to see what it looks like so i can check my GPU after work.


    It won't have the pads. http://forums.evga.com/FindPost/2573253


    #15
    arestavo
    CLASSIFIED ULTRA Member
    • Total Posts : 6806
    • Reward points : 0
    • Joined: 2/6/2008
    • Location: Through the Scary Door
    • Status: offline
    • Ribbons : 77
    Re: Is it safe to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW if you have thermal pads to put on VRMs? Tuesday, November 01, 2016 7:37 PM (permalink)
    Oh whoops - mixed up the issues. So the 31 Aug date is for the FTW issue that was resolved and reportedly only affected 4% of the cards.
     
    The thermal pads are for those who would like to see reduced temperatures on the backside of the cards as they run hotter than the competition.
    #16
    rjohnson11
    EVGA Forum Moderator
    • Total Posts : 85038
    • Reward points : 0
    • Joined: 10/5/2004
    • Location: Netherlands
    • Status: offline
    • Ribbons : 86
    Re: Is it safe to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW if you have thermal pads to put on VRMs? Tuesday, November 01, 2016 7:42 PM (permalink)
    I've been with EVGA for a very long time and no other company helps its customers above and beyond what EVGA does. EVGA is very quick about solving issues in the best, safest, and most expedient method.

    AMD Ryzen 9 7950X,  Corsair Mp700 Pro M.2, 64GB Corsair Dominator Titanium DDR5  X670E Steel Legend, MSI RTX 4090 Associate Code: H5U80QBH6BH0AXF. I am NOT an employee of EVGA

    #17
    mikenogo
    New Member
    • Total Posts : 3
    • Reward points : 0
    • Joined: 2/2/2016
    • Status: offline
    • Ribbons : 0
    Re: Is it safe to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW if you have thermal pads to put on VRMs? Tuesday, November 01, 2016 9:54 PM (permalink)
    HeavyHemi
    mikenogo
    Sajin
    The thermal pads aren't required. Yes, it's safe to buy.




    Lies. Seriously if you think this is a proper answer to your question then by all means risk yourself to burning the rest of your pc and probably your house as well.


    That a few instances of SMD components failing is not going to burn down your house. You can't find a single example of damage to a PC other than the GPU failing. As far as we know, the issue of the VRM/Memory area running a bit warmer than other models is not even related to the issue of a couple failing components on the back of the GPU.




    Doesn't matter, the fact is that there is fire and smoke coming out of these gpus. Don't downplay as if this is normal, a FEW is way too many, it shouldn't even be happening AT ALL. ONLY EVGA products are affected. By the looks of it, this is happening ENOUGH to warrant a safety hazard of this product and it's laughable how EVGA is handling this by denying the problem.
     
    I have purchased many EVGA products, service is unquestionable, but you know what they say it only takes one major screw up to ruin everything. 
    post edited by mikenogo - Tuesday, November 01, 2016 9:58 PM
    #18
    EVGA_JacobF
    EVGA Alumni
    • Total Posts : 11559
    • Reward points : 0
    • Joined: 1/17/2006
    • Location: Brea, CA
    • Status: offline
    • Ribbons : 26
    Re: Is it safe to buy EVGA GTX 1080 FTW if you have thermal pads to put on VRMs? Wednesday, November 02, 2016 0:41 PM (permalink)


    #19
    Jump to: