DaveLessnau
I'm thinking of removing the plastic casing (deshroud?) from my EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW2 w/ iCX (08G-P4-6686-KR) and trying to cool it more quietly with 3rd party fans.  Surprisingly, I can't seem to find any videos on how to do this (specifically on the deshrouding).  Does anyone know of such a video?

https://forums.evga.com/H...80-Cards-m2573413.aspx

DaveLessnau
I was hoping there were just some screws on the fan side to remove and that would be that.  Oh, well.  That post seems to say that I don't have to remove the four spring screws.  But, it looks like I'd still need to do that to get access to the fan header.  Now that I know it will take nearly a full disassembly, I'll take a look at some of the thermal pad replacement videos on Youtube.  Thanks.

Couple of questions. What model case do you have and what is your fan layout (basic how many and where) and what are you cooling the CPU with?

In case anyone's interested, the fans that were in my GeForce GTX 1080 FTW2 w/ iCX (08G-P4-6686-KR) are:
 
Power Logic
DC Brushless Fan (there's a subscripted EP below that line)
Model PLD10015B12H
2 ball bearing
DC 12V 0.55A
 

 
I replaced them with 2 Noctua NF-A9 PWM fans each connected to the graphics card with a CRJ 4-Pin PWM GPU Fan Adapter Cable (a total of 2) and zip tied everything back on the radiator.  I worry about the current draw that the Noctuas might need in comparison to the Power Logics, but it seems to work fine.
 

Sorry.  No.  No objective comparisons.  Subjectively, I'll say that the sound is much better than with the stock fans.  At idle, the stock fans were audible.  The Noctuas are not.  At load, the Noctuas are also much quieter than the stock fans.  Plus, the sound is a "better" one.
 
The primary reason I did this is that I was having issues with the stock fans.  The primary fan would make scratching noises under 34% fan speed.  The secondary fan would not start after the computer returned from Sleep (it would just make a constipated type of noise continuously as it tried to ramp up (and then down)).  So, I had to use a manual fan curve with a floor on both fans at 34% and turn off the Sleep option on my computer.  With the swap, I thought I wouldn't need Precision X1 any more.  But, it turns out I was wrong.  The first fan was fine, but the second one (now a Noctua) had the same problem:  it wouldn't start after Sleep.  So, it looks like the problem there is with the card, itself.  Not the fans.  So, I put Precision X1 back on used the same fan curve.  If I had know I'd end up using software to manage the fan curves again, I would have just connected the Noctuas to a header on the motherboard and used something like Speedfan to control them.
 
The one thing that bothers me is the fan speed of the second fan.  With both fans at 34%, the first one is running at about 1190 RPM, while the second runs at about 450 RPM.  As the load picks up, both fans speed up, too.  But, the second fan runs only at half the speed of the first (with identical fan curves).  I don't know if the first fan is pulling too much power and starving the second, or if that's just the way the card is designed.  Temperatures are fine. Here's what HWINFO64 looks like for the GPU after running a SuperPosition Benchmark (you can see the two fan RPMs at the bottom of the screenshot):