Lets put it this way they didn't need to use screw to hold the cooler on it was glued.
 

 

MatthewAMEL
Yeah, nothing in any of those pictures looks bad to me.
 
Lots of folks re-pasting and getting nearly no change in temps.

Then your a lost cause mate lol, paste is meant to be soft and not dry out like cement.

I took the heasink off of my 3090 FTW3 Ultra to try and put it under AiO cooling with a NZXT Kraken G12. No go because of the rectangular pattern instead of square.

With that said, the paste application was every bit as dry looking as yours. When I repasted it with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut, I didn't get any better temperatures.

My guess is that with as hot as these cards can get, EVGA went with a TiM that could stand the larger heat loads for longer. Just a guess, mind you.