So here is the deal.
 
About a week or so ago my EVGA 1070 SC edition w/ back plate burned out.  Terrible mechanical burning smell and my PC totally shut down and would not reboot. After a little poking around, I decided to put in my old r9 280x and with that my PC is working just fine, I ultimately determined it was my EVGA card that died.
 
I sent it in for RMA which they received on 10/28/16.
 
After that point, someone sent me a link on twitter to an article and picture of VRM burnt on the back of a PCB.
 
Unfortunately before I sent my card off for RMA I was unaware of this problem and did not think to look under the back plate or take a picture to verify.
 
My next step was to both come to this forum to see if it was a general problem (which it certainly seems to be) and to contact EVGA for a full refund.
 
Although the Tech support guy I talked to was very nice, and seemed to basically admit to their being problems on their end, the Moderators and Tech Support on this forum are totally out of touch with what is happening and generally misleading, lying, or otherwise just trying to cover up this whole situation.
 
DO NOT listen to them. YES THERE IS A PROBLEM.  Protect yourself now.  I personally will not trust the same model to go back in my PC with the Thermal Pad mod or not.  Therefore, while my card is in with them anyway I am demanding a full refund of my purchase price. 
 
The thermal pads should not be considered optional.  You are essentially dealing with a ticking time bomb.  Everything I am reading here from these people is just purely irresponsible and shameful.
 
I used to have the utmost faith in EVGA, but this whole forum, and EVGA's own obviously biased article has completely soured my opinion on them, and I will never be doing business with them again.
 
Thank you for listening and please take action ASAP.  For those afraid to do the procedure yourself I suggest sending in your card or returning it as soon as you can.
 
I have uploaded a picture of my PC pre burn out.  You can see I have plenty of ventilation, large case and great cable management.  4 x 120 mm intake fans, 3 x 120 mm exhaust.

So for, all I see are a few cases scattered around the internet...being conflated with the issue of the VRM/Memory running hotter than other models.

I have only looked at a few forums and a few tech sites and so far a few seems a little conservative....If it is only a few then this issue will just fade away, no?
 
 

BF3PRO
Isolated cases aren't enough for a recall.

 
Not isolated if they are all missing pads? I mean its not a matter if. Its when is it going to happen? Know what I mean? I would imagine EVGA has already corrected this with newer stock being made as we speak to include them. 

Completely agree with OP.  This is not acceptable at all.  People should not be rolling dice at all with the rest of their components simply because evga doesn't want to take a small dip in profits. 
 
I'm betting evga will continue to deny the fact that their FTW line and others are a disaster and failed product due to rushing the 10 series out and completely overlooking the VRM.  I'd like to know if there is a single other vendor who like evga, didn't cover the VRM for 1070/80.  Instead of making customers fill your shortcoming, just admit it's a failure and do a recall.  But I'm betting that won't happen.
 
I'll probably be submitting a RMA soon as I've been having numerous issues involving 3d accelerated applications such as Madvr and World of Tanks.  Been getting BSODs relating to nvidia drivers and complete and instant shut downs when playing games(Not even OC'ed at all).  This only happened as soon as I installed the 1070 FTW.  For a top end card, this is sad, I've never had such a bad experience with evga all the way back to the geforce FX series but this may be the nail in the coffin for me with evga if they do not follow up properly.  If I had the chance to just return it to Newegg, I would have done that in an instant if I knew all evga would do is a band-aid solution.

To be honest this is the reason I'm selling my 1080 classified because I thought I paid for the best but when you think of it the game rock 1080 that ive just bought is better....
Price            evga £750         palit £620
boost clock   1860mhz            1885mhz
temp under load when playing BF1 @1440p
Evga    75`c  with 80% fan     Palit 63`c   with 60% fan
Warranty      36month                       24 month
Also there is no vrm heat issue

Know what they say, one aw ****, wipes out all your attaboys. This will be my last EVGA Product. I have used Asus and their RMA in the past and it was just as easy and seamless as EVGA. I agree, an extended warranty would be a good show in faith, but guess they don't care.

nope, and thats another reason i refuse to keep using the card till its sorted.

ilyama
That's not normal...
 
And can we know for those who had a burning cars, what was the temperature of the gpu ?

 
Yeh i don't think its that simple, there's a couple indirect observations to make. The main one being VRM's overheating VRAM thus blackscreens.
The VRAM themselves have also been independently reported to have a gap and not making physical contact. Components on the back of the 
PCB close to the VRM section have burnt out, no idea if the 2 is related, but yeh, few things at play here, and some of them "may" be related.
The temps themselves are difficult to record without a FLIR camera or direct VRM monitoring sensors. Specs are for 125/150c.

Yes but those who had the issue, even if it's not the same temperature, it would be a good information to know if the gpu was at 50 degres celsius in load or 75...

Mine is max at 50 degres celsius... I think its more safe like that no ?

@NucleusX last night I dismantled my 1080 and looked for this "gap" issue. To my surprise, there was not a single gap. Also, the VRM have been attached to the midplate via just such a thermal pad.
 
So, just a few facts:
FACT: There are indepdendent reports of gaps with the thermal pads on the VRAM. As I can claim that there is not such a gap on my card, this hints to a QC issue with the manufacturer.
FACT: There are claims that there is NO cooling of the VRM whatsoever. As I do not want to believe I got some sort of miracle unit where out of a sudden the manufacturer decided to patch in a strip of thermal pad, there is at least a inadequate, passive cooling solution (the VRM transfering heat to the midplate, a comparatively big surface where the fans blow on).
 
@OP please do not throw in several issues together. There has been already a official announcement of a bad batch of VRM. Without knowing the shipment date of your card I would suggest you check with EVGA if the card has been manufactured before 8/30. If yes, there is a chance it is part of the faulty batch. This is not an "overheating" issue. This is an issue of a part of the chips on the PCB being not up to par and thus not able to withstand the specified wear.
 
Just so you understand: The "ticking timebomb" is not caused by overheating. It is caused by bad VRM that wear out really fast. The logical conclusion is that everyone having a card manufactured in the timeframe before 8/30 should consider a RMA request, linking to this announcement and requesting a new replacement to prevent this from happening OR a return to the reseller if possible OR taking the risk that your unit might be not part of the affected 4% of the bad batch.
 

Angier_1985
@NucleusX last night I dismantled my 1080 and looked for this "gap" issue. To my surprise, there was not a single gap. Also, the VRM have been attached to the midplate via just such a thermal pad.
 

Dismantled mine yesterday and was pleased to find no gaps either. Physically i could not find a single visual defect, but that alone won't dismiss my trepidation.

Angier_1985
@op I'd be interested in pics of the burned out PCB (you can dismantle it and still claim a refund as EVGA warranty covers cooler disassembly from card) and if there are any other affected parts of your rig.

First of all thank you everyone for listening. To Angier, as stated in my original post, I was unaware to even know to look under the backplate for a problem.  I didn't know to do so until after my card was already shipped off for RMA.  So long as EVGA makes good by me, and steps up to the plate for others I will let this issue drop.  Until then it is my personal mission to warn innocent folks like myself, how EVGA should have done in the first place.  I'm doing my best to give them the chance to do so before I make it a full blown social media fiasco.  With over 1 million twitter impressions monthly (99 percent gaming related), I could have a big impact on them if need be. See included picture if you need proof.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Checked my 1070 FTW right now and I'm pleased to have found no gaps either.
Thermal pads on VRM are thick enough and seem nicely compressed between the VRMs and the midplate.
Thermal pads on Memory don't seem compressed, but no gap at all.
 
I had not a single problem. Until now all fine.
But I'm aware my processor (i7 2600) is not giving enough feed to the graphics card to go 100% power, so.... I'm never at full throttle.
 
My 5 cents.

ilyama
Yes but those who had the issue, even if it's not the same temperature, it would be a good information to know if the gpu was at 50 degres celsius in load or 75...

Mine is max at 50 degres celsius... I think its more safe like that no ?

Although, i suppose dropping your over-clocks and power limits can directly reduce the overall current draw at the power 
delivery stages and thus reduce over-all heat. This would probably be the best way to keep gaming if you have to. If it 
where me, id also under-clock if anything, drop other values below 100, and lower the image quality in games. Then
when your thermals are all done and feel confident its ready to go, run at defaults for a while, increment from there.