Thanks gents, you bring up some good points to consider.  I think its a big deal that I wont be loosing a third, and forth PCIe slot by going with the FTW3.. If I end up going with any of the other cards I would have a single PCIe slot left, the FTW3 would give me 3 available. I'm running sli now with 1080s, from different brands and one is blower style which is the bottom card.  The other is the 3xfan which never gets above 72c while the blower is kept at 84C under load.  I kinda expect both FTW3's to run between 70c-80c OC'd under load but not sure what I'm drawing my conclusion from about the temps. The air flow in my case is like the Earth's jet stream so I think I wont have much trouble getting the hot air out, but will focus on the upper card.
 
The 9 temp sensors is nice on paper.. I think if I own it I will become very fond of it as well.  Having a sense of how the workload is spreading over the PCB will reshape my thoughts on OCing a bit, I believe. Which I would consider an added benefit to the FTW3 as well. Based on what I've read on the interwebs I have heard about long return shipping for RMAs on GPUs from various manufactures while consistent hearing positive experiences from EVGA and dealing with RMAs - I myself had an RMA get damaged in shipping a few years back and EVGA were extremely helpful, dealing with the post office so I could file an insurance claim(anyone willing to deal with the post office should be worthy of repeat business). I suppose my CC extends the warranty by an additional year.. and in 4 years we'll be playing on 8K displays with cards 3x as powerful so.. I guess that 4th year is moot.   I think I'm underestimating the asynchronous fans on the FTW3. It seems like all 3 fans spinning at lower RPM would prevent any 1 fan from spinning at a much higher RPM and that could be considered more efficient depending on what metric of efficiency you're measuring against (noise, power, life of fan, temp).
 
I honestly don't plan to get to the top of Mt Everest with the overclock so I'm not too worried about the binning of the silicon and and mainly just want to be to push to slightly above average OC while maintaining low temps with 100% stability. Its crazy to fathom I wont have the cards for another 40 days though after passing on 2 MSI Gaming X Ti's last night.. I'm purposely slow-moing through ME Andromeda right now but for 40 more days.. maybe I should take up the art of Bonsai.

I had the following setup.
1080 FTW above a 970 SC. Keep on mind that the FTW is larger than the 970 and would allow it better airflow. The 970 kept a low temperature in the high 60s. The FTW ended up in the mid 70s, but was much quieter at max fan speeds. I could keep it down in the 60s if I maxed the fan speeds.
The 970 fans sounded like a turbine at full speed.

zicr0
Why is EVGA releasing their cards a month after other brands?

Because EVGA does final checks and packaging in Brea California. You could also argue that EVGA takes their time to make sure the cards they design and sell are high quality. Other brands have facilities in Asia to do that work so they can ship to retailers direct from Asia.

rjohnson11

ipkha

zicr0
Why is EVGA releasing their cards a month after other brands?

Because EVGA does final checks and packaging in Brea California. You could also argue that EVGA takes their time to make sure the cards they design and sell are high quality. Other brands have facilities in Asia to do that work so they can ship to retailers direct from Asia.

Quality is a major standard of EVGA and if that requires a little more time then that is what is best for the consumer.

agreed. worth the wait.

valzero
I have been with EVGA since the 400's, upgrading every year. My only reason to stay is advanced RMA.

My  1080ti FTW sli was a failure. I exchanged cards twice, first it was still lacking vram cooling, the second card I received was just a used DOA card. Does anyone know of a manufacturer that doesn't replace their defective GPU's with used ones as an RMA?

Everyone does that. You send in a used product you get back a used product. EVGA will replace it with a new one within 30 days of purchase or they use to. 

valzero
I have been with EVGA since the 400's, upgrading every year. My only reason to stay is advanced RMA.

My  1080ti FTW sli was a failure. I exchanged cards twice, first it was still lacking vram cooling, the second card I received was just a used DOA card. Does anyone know of a manufacturer that doesn't replace their defective GPU's with used ones as an RMA?

I think you meant 1080 ftw, not 1080ti, since the ti ftw3 hasnt been released.

All companies either send back the same or refurbished cards after an RMA, or everyone would RMA just to get new cards.

I always use EVGA for all my cards.. I once had an old 8800gt that was acting up after years of use and they even RMA'd that card... All my previous cards were sli'd and I never had any issue with them..that alone is worth staying with them.. Quality, customer service and owning their faults if there is one is a hard thing to find these days..just my opinion...

I haven't posted here in awhile but I'll add my $.02.
 
#1. It has 3 display ports. I am running triple monitors and I am disappointed MSI and ASUS decided to go with 2 DP and 2 HDMI ports on their custom cards. I know VR is the new thing but I like having three native display ports without needing adapters or conversion cables.
#2. Being able to monitor so many different temps is awesome and very helpful. I plan on adding an EK waterblock as soon as they are available. Being able to monitor every temp that is important is a very nice feature even for a custom water cooled loop. 
#3. EVGA customer service is excellent!
 
Those are my reasons.