I have been using this card by a week now (RTX 2080 Black Edition), and let me be clear that I’m not happy at all with the RMA card I got from EVGA.
I sended my GTX 1080Ti FTW3 which had the best features EVGA could offer on a card (except by the Kingpin version) in the previous gen.
Let me list some of the key specs from the 1080Ti FTW3:
- ICX technology;
- 9 Thermal Sensors;
- Assync. Fans;
- Triple Fan;
- Bigger PCB / Heatsink;
- Safe fuse;
- Better overclocking capability;
- 11Gb GDDR5X VRAM;
These, and others features were offered for the one of the most high price tags back there (Exclude Kingpin).

I have asked, even before the card to arrive to EVGA at USA, that the card they wanted to send to me doesn't have all the features my FTW3 had (yet, they said, basically, "this is what we have for you at the moment").
Now let me say again what they sended to me, even thought discussing this even before the RMA procedure start or even that I bought a top tier card from previou gen.
They sended to me a RTX 2080 BLACK EDITION.
This card, isn’t just the worst GPU in their line up because it’s not a blower card.
They claim they send a card with “equal” performance of my 1080Ti, but I can surely disagree with that (Raw performance in DX12, yes, but overall features, that's a big NO).
The card, in the original fan curve and all stock clocks / voltage, can hit easily 80ºC (and more if you let), which, previously with my 1080Ti FTW3, would never happen (Max temp would be 75ºC in worst case scenario).
“oh, but you can set a custom fan curve to avoid hitting that temp”, you would say. And yeah, I have done that, but the card is loud as hell because the fans must go to 70~85% of it’s use to keep the card in the house of the 70ºC (depending of the game of course).
Not to mention that they have sended to me a card with 8Gb of Vram (this alone is a downgrade, regardless if the card can be equal to performance with previous gen cards).

In DX11 applications (which I only use), it’s a big gap between the two cards. DX12, it's meh (Again, Raw performance in DX12 is pretty much the same). The 1080Ti is still better in most cases (not all, since the benchmarks will show that the RTX 2080 is slighly better at DX12 apps).
I’m leaving some of my benchmarks on firestrike (normal firestrike, Ultra and Extreme) and Time Spy as well, to show that in most of the cases, my 1080Ti would surpass the 2080 by a good amount (I have done 3 runs for each benchmark).
Firestrike
www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/20510319/fs/20510302/fs/20510282/fs/14214220

Firestrike Extreme
www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/20510377/fs/20510366/fs/20510354/fs/14155321

Firestrike Ultra
www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/20510428/fs/20510413/fs/20510395/fs/14136559

Time Spy
www.3dmark.com/compare/spy/8625108/spy/8625086/spy/8625066/spy/2770850

Time Spy Extreme
www.3dmark.com/compare/spy/8625339/spy/8625308/spy/8625272/spy/2770890
 
PS: Since I need 10 posts first, I can't post links yet, so, I'm sorry.

Not only by these bechmarks, but I have been playing Battlefield V (not so much a GPU seeker) and have been hitting 70ºC with 85% of my fans ramping up! I bet if I had my FTW3, I would be getting this same temp with stock fan curve at triple fans config.!
Another example, I was playing The Witcher 3 (a totally GPU bound game), and, even with the fans at 100% of it's use, the temps were at 80~85ºC. This is unacceptable when it comes to cooling performance (also, I was playing in 1080p, didn't even dare to put it on 1440p or higher).

In resume, not satisfied at all with the RMA process this time. And for sure I will never buy another EVGA card again (no point paying the higher price tag they have, to receive a "common" card afterwards, lacking all the advantages I considered when buying) Thanks for this 6 years of customer service and products, but I'm truly disappointed with the Customer Service and the RMA service from EVGA (the company must always take in count that the customer is buying a top tier card not only because of raw performance, but because of all the features it have, which, were taken alway from me in this case!).

aka_STEVE_b
At least you have done a good job of laying out your reasoning & detailing your complaint...
 
I am curious to see if you guys can work together on a resolution .  Good luck.

Thanks Steve.
I did my best (collecting informations and pointing out what bothers me) to show that this card is not even close a FTW3, when it comes in everything else (except performance, which is pretty much the same).
Wish you the best.

I bet they can probably source a GTX 1080 Ti if you want a direct replacement, just make sure to keep on them about it. I would consider this though... Those benchmarks you've linked... They show the GTX 1080 Ti score had a slightly faster CPU speed. One thing i'd recommend you trying is to overclock the video RAM on that RTX 2080... Just slide the bar to +600MHz and check out your 3DMark scores.

RainStryke
I bet they can probably source a GTX 1080 Ti if you want a direct replacement, just make sure to keep on them about it. I would consider this though... Those benchmarks you've linked... They show the GTX 1080 Ti score had a slightly faster CPU speed. One thing i'd recommend you trying is to overclock the video RAM on that RTX 2080... Just slide the bar to +600MHz and check out your 3DMark scores.

Both of those scores were from the stock cards (out of the box performance). That's the reason I'm posting it. EVGA claims the 2080 is better than the 1080ti, and yes, in raw performance they might be correct, but in everything else (not limited from the features offered on the FTW3 card, but as the build quality and memory used as well) the 1080ti is better.

Also, as I mentioned in the original post, I have tried talking with the staff from EVGA, and the best (what was available from the previous gen) was a 1080ti FTW3 DT (no guarantees that I was going to be able to O.C. this card to 2000mhz, like my old FTW3 did out of the box).

Also thanks for taking time to read and reply RainStryke (thanks for the tip on the memory O.C. as well).

If you had a 2000MHz stock boost clock on your previous GTX 1080Ti, then you had a very rare card... any direct replacement they find isn't going to square up to that, especially a DT model that has a slower clock speed. That's the one really crappy part about when a golden chip needs to go through an RMA.


Yeah, you lost out on RAM capacity, but the RAM on the RTX 2080 is much higher quality per module... It's around 22% faster, even more when you push it with an overclock and it's easy to get 600MHz on just about any RTX card out there... even my RTX 2060 Super will do a +670MHz OC on the RAM. 
https://www.3dmark.com/spy/8709782

RainStryke
I bet they can probably source a GTX 1080 Ti if you want a direct replacement, just make sure to keep on them about it.

+1

EVGATech_JoseC
Hello,

Sorry to hear that you are not happy with your RMA replacement. I'll be sending you an email shortly!
 
-Jose C.

Thanks for the contact Jose.
EVGA Latam is already in touch with me as well.

I will post later whatever is the result of this.

Well, why did you RMA in the first place?
All the 1080ti's that would come back at this point in time are refurbished units.
 
I'm about to receive my 3rd 2nd RMA, and I hope that it at least doesn't have any major issues.
My previous 2 have had terrible crashing issues when the temps hit anywhere near 73c. 
 
At this point I'd gladly take a 2080, but they are sending me another 1080ti. Fingers crossed, I guess.

When posting on the forums please do not make your fonts too big and dark otherwise this might be interpreted to be shouting. 

Hello Everybody.
Sorry for not posting any status yet.

So, the EVGA reps got in contact with me saying they manage to found some 1080ti's on their invetory, so I went ahead and sended the 2080 back to them (altought I'm not happy in paying around $45.00 in shipping + secure, I did it anyway).
I'm still waiting for EVGA to ship back the 1080ti (Since I live in Brazil, I don't know if they are going to send by UPS/FEDEX or via another private carrier).
I still need to see if the recertified GPU will be any good as well (if performance is within spec, which should be, and if the GPU itself will be in good state, which, this is what I'm most afraid from).

Now to the comments,

AtomoVerdee
What happened to your 1080TI? :( is sad to hear you are not satisfied with your replacement, i wouldn't mind to much, but that's me, in fact I would be all excited messing around with the ray tracing mods for emulators and games, haha.   I feel other companies don't put that much amount of effort into their customers as EVGA seems to do, you are right about the temps, I recently send my 1080ti ftw3 and I missed a lot that GPU, it was super quiet, and cold.  my old 960 which is replacing the 1080ti in  my RIG at the moment, screams like hell and even though it is a lower TDP GPU it gets pretty toasty,  in your case, because TURING architecture uses bigger chips, you know,  70°C is a pretty respectable  temp, but i understand your frustration. I paid $1,014.52 USD for that GPU (GTX 1080TI FTW3)  here in Mexico which is an enormous amount of money, I spent 7 months gathering that amount,  some family members see that like a crazy thing to do, and judge me,  it's a healthy hobby I tell to them. Im 19 . and i was so happy to finally being able to get  that incredible performance.  OK I lost a little, haha, in conclusion I hope you get a solution that makes you happy  bro,  I also recommend you trying out those RTX features and don't worrying that much about it, I know is stupid to compare but a friend of mine, got a faulty Aourus card and tried to RMA that card with Gigabyte and they just denied it making it a complete loss. 

Hello Atomo, thanks for taking the time to read the thread.
I know I will be losing the RTX technology (which I'm not very much interested to be quite frank), but I will be getting back my Triple Fan heatsink + all the features a FTW3 card have, not to mention that I have a spare Hybrid kit for the 1080ti FTW3 (so, no reason at all for me to get a RTX card at this point).
True that the EVGA Customer Support is one of the best out there, and for no reason I would like to stop getting their products, but once again, sending a top tier card, with every feature they can offer, to receive a "entry level" card is unnacceptable for me.
I feel your pain when it comes to buy imported products in a different region (Brazil is not so different after all), and I have worked a lot gathering money as well to buy the best EVGA could offer by the time (before the Kingpin and Elite cards).
 

dudenoway
Well, why did you RMA in the first place?
All the 1080ti's that would come back at this point in time are refurbished units.
 
I'm about to receive my 3rd 2nd RMA, and I hope that it at least doesn't have any major issues.
My previous 2 have had terrible crashing issues when the temps hit anywhere near 73c. 
 
At this point I'd gladly take a 2080, but they are sending me another 1080ti. Fingers crossed, I guess.

Sorry to hear that you're passing by this inconvenient.
Here's a little bit of the background of the reason I have RMAed my original 1080ti.
I, as like many others in this forum, bought the stand alone Hybrid Kit for the FTW3 model, but, because of some issue on the water pump, or the shroud layout, the Hybrid kit was damaging the pottencial of Auto Boost of the cards (people would get the clocks stock at 1569mhz).
In my case, the Hybrid kit didn't damage the Auto Boost controller on my card, but it damage something related on the power usage of it (Clocks would go all the way to 2000mhz, but the GPU usage wouldn't past of the 58%, so performance was like a 1060/1070). Not only that, but I was starting to get some serious hickups and stuttering on my gameplays.
I manage to use the card where I could, but gameplay was getting very bad, so I started the RMA process.

Also, It's not my first RMA, and I know how PIA it is to send a card from Brazil to USA (shipping + secure is crazy nuts). That's why I contacted EVGA even before the card leaving Brazil, to ask them to send me a FTW3 instead of the RTX Black Edition they sended to me. If they would listened to me before, I would't be needing to create this topic, pointing all the issues with the Black Edition card, nor I would need to spend twice the money with shipping (Us$45.00 each time to send a card is crazy expensive around here).
All if this could be avoided if EVGA had listened and tried to provide to me with a card with the same features that the FTW3 have.



Sorry for the long post everybody, when I have the card in my hands, I will try to put some photos here (as well bechmarks to see the out of the box performance), and see if the condition is good.
 

Well
Let me update this thread again, saying that the card arrived yesterday (10/31/2019).
So far, the card's performance is okay (I will be running the benchmarks again to see "out of the box" performance and compare to my old 1080ti).
Only issue, uppon inspection, was a bent fin from the heatsink (see in picture).
Also, compared to others RMAs I had, this card came without the dust ports protection on the back, as well the rubber that protects the PCI contacts.
Overall, I'm okay now with the RMA, but I will tell you guys of the forum, if you have a ICX card, or a Kingpin card, don't accept nothing less for what you paid for. It's unfair, despite they offer you a entry level new gen card.
 
And for you, EVGA, you should care more about the clients that buy these premium cards. I needed to spend almost Us$100,00 in shipping fees, because of something that could be solved even before the first card leave my country. This is annoying, and drove me mad with you guys. Very mad.

Pics:
Package:

 
Bent Fin:

 
Bent Fin Close Up:

EVGATech_DanielM
Hey Pedro. Glad to see you got the card. The fin is something you can merely bend back and in no way affects the performance of the unit. We understand this is frustrating but the RMA process clearly states that recertified units will sometimes have a blemish. This could very well have happened in shipping as we do inspect the cards before putting them into a box and this appears to be the case based on the box you received as that is the new RMA style boxes we have. 

Hello Daniel.
I just wanted to state that the bent fin was the only "issue" I found so far on the card, and as you said, it will not affect at all it being bent or not. Again, just wanted to state in the topic.
I was more worried in having scratches around the PCB, or close of the gold plated connectores on PCI, or even some kind of rust on the I/O shield.
I will see to post some benchmarks by this week.