Anyone with a good eye can see if I have any gaps? From my eye it looks good to me. Mine was an RMA from early September from the EVGA California facility.

http://imgur.com/CI3IWx4
http://imgur.com/g3TUiJ6

Gotta admit, the short yellow bus is funny.
@darkheran
On a serious note, good luck with surgery tomorrow and hopefully a speedy recovery.

TheGuz4L
Anyone with a good eye can see if I have any gaps? From my eye it looks good to me. Mine was an RMA from early September from the EVGA California facility.

 
Yes difficult you need the camera or angle a tad bit lower to really tell

You're all forgetting as Gahelm mentioned it's possible that having the pad directly over the mosfets and towards the back of the card it may wick away majority of the heat. That, coupled with the chokes not being covered allowing airflow through that area may yield better results. Generally this is how it's done on other branded cards and in the past.
 
But without any thermal testing now one can say which is better. Both would yield decent results I'd assume considering the only really area you need to focus on is above/below the mosfest.

DSP1
 
Still posting your disinformation I see.
this kind of bs statement "all over the internet", only means if you look for it. Not only that, it is a handful of cases only. Not thousands of cases as you would like everyone to believe. They are all just re-postings! No one is falling for your lies.
And you are lying about getting names. If that were true you would be pming people here to add to your false class action lawsuit. Not only that you would be posting your lawyers name so we could all contact him to join in on your holy cause. rofl And also just because someone posts on a forum  or youtube does not make it true. Or do you still believe in fairies?
You really are making a fool out of yourself here.
Everyone needs to be made aware of your nonsense.

Again, we'll see. Oh and for the PMs here you should know that i can't since my account have less than 5 days, i tried though. Gathering them is easier elsewhere anyway.
 
That said and clarified,
How interesting for you to know i didn't used my PMs here, only an EVGA/mod (one with short memories about the 5 days Rule) would be able to know this for sure...way to go!. See, i told you you'll fall in your own trap.

DeathAngel74
Gotta admit, the short yellow bus is funny.
@darkheran
On a serious note, good luck with surgery tomorrow and hopefully a speedy recovery.

Thanks. :)

shannonjpower
You're all forgetting as Gahelm mentioned it's possible that having the pad directly over the mosfets and towards the back of the card it may wick away majority of the heat. That, coupled with the chokes not being covered allowing airflow through that area may yield better results. Generally this is how it's done on other branded cards and in the past.
 
But without any thermal testing now one can say which is better. Both would yield decent results I'd assume considering the only really area you need to focus on is above/below the mosfest.

certainly the improvement on evga method is mainly achieved by the backplate.
adding pads on the back of the pcb is rare and it is the only way to activate the cooling fucntion of the backplate. gigabyte waterforece does have pads on the backplate. 
 

darkheran

Xfade81

Mangelwurzel
Video entitled "How to Install Thermal Pad Mod on EVGA GTX 1080 & 1070" on Gamers Nexus channel.
Just wondering what anyone makes of these comments made by someone named 'acnfanmanin':
"THATS NOT WHERE YOU PUT THE FRONT THERMAL PAD. You should put it on the HOTTEST part which is ON the baseplate itself. Those things you put on top of are CHOKES which doesnt get hot and dont mind being hot. You want the baseplate to be cold so it can cool the mosfets."
"No you're not supposed to put it on top of the chokes is what I'm saying. those things don't need cooling (look at motherboards and watercooling blocks they're never cooled) so you're wasting thermal pad contact area putting it there. You're better off putting it on the baseplate area on the right of the chokes because the mosfets which do get VERY hot are located under there connected to the baseplate."
"if EVGA told them to put it on the chokes...wt*...you're basically trying to cool a piece of copper...why"

But those are already cooled by the massive slab on the back. If i look at my own card with a light, the back seems the only way to give them extra cooling unless you want to remove the middle plate aswell.

Yes and putting anything beyond the mid plate in that section is still useless I would think if you only draw the heat to the midplate unless you added another pad above the midplate lol. Plus if you look at other aftermarket designs they seem to have pads on chokes too www.imgur.com/a/XGgn6#e7vLgBa 

darkheran you save me time with the pictures with the link above, today I start to see what other manufactures do with their cooler and collect pictures to edit.
acxcoolerssuck I have the same thought to cut a pad strip only for the chokes only and place this strip on top of the chokes, just like msi.
All of you talk about the vrm the last pages I also have some thoughts and start some search. 
 
I search to find how the other manufacturers make their cooling systems, they doesn't have thermalpad to backplate and baseplate, that include the don't cover the whole pcb.
 The fix with thermal pads that lower the temps 5C it's not a totaly fix, because the temps are trapped at thermal pads and that's why we see lower temps (personal opinion).
1)The baseplate has not contact with heatsink and has between them a gap about 1mm.
2)Also the thermalpad that supposed to put between baseplate and heatsink, to the point are location the VRM's under the baseplate they had thermal pad, so if we put the pad over the baseplate to same location as the intructions gave us EVGA it has no effect to cool the vRM's area.
3)The thermalpad for the backplate it was not necessary, hasn't point to put. 
 
I believe EVGA must desighn/make again the baseplate, that can throught direct air to vrm's area.
From the others manufactures the MSI,Zotac has the prefered system to cool the vrm's with the passive heatsink on them (that "hitted" with air).
 
Here are pictures
 FTW


 
MSI and Zotac with same passive heatsink on vrm's
 
 
asus,gigabyte, gainward have the same way to cool diect the vrm's

 

panaikas

darkheran

Xfade81

Mangelwurzel
Video entitled "How to Install Thermal Pad Mod on EVGA GTX 1080 & 1070" on Gamers Nexus channel.
Just wondering what anyone makes of these comments made by someone named 'acnfanmanin':
"THATS NOT WHERE YOU PUT THE FRONT THERMAL PAD. You should put it on the HOTTEST part which is ON the baseplate itself. Those things you put on top of are CHOKES which doesnt get hot and dont mind being hot. You want the baseplate to be cold so it can cool the mosfets."
"No you're not supposed to put it on top of the chokes is what I'm saying. those things don't need cooling (look at motherboards and watercooling blocks they're never cooled) so you're wasting thermal pad contact area putting it there. You're better off putting it on the baseplate area on the right of the chokes because the mosfets which do get VERY hot are located under there connected to the baseplate."
"if EVGA told them to put it on the chokes...wt*...you're basically trying to cool a piece of copper...why"

But those are already cooled by the massive slab on the back. If i look at my own card with a light, the back seems the only way to give them extra cooling unless you want to remove the middle plate aswell.

Yes and putting anything beyond the mid plate in that section is still useless I would think if you only draw the heat to the midplate unless you added another pad above the midplate lol. Plus if you look at other aftermarket designs they seem to have pads on chokes too

darkheran you save me time with the pictures with the link above, today I start to see what other manufactures do with their cooler and collect pictures to edit.
acxcoolerssuck I have the same thought to cut a pad strip only for the chokes only and place this strip on top of the chokes, just like msi.
All of you talk about the vrm the last pages I also have some thoughts and start some search. 
I search to find how the other manufacturers make their cooling systems, they doesn't have thermalpad to backplate and baseplate that include the don't cover the whole pcb.
 
The fix with thermal pads that lower the temps 5C it's not a totaly fix, because the temps are trapped at thermal pads and that's why we see lower temps (personal opinion).
1)The baseplate has not contact with heatsink and has between them a gap about 1mm.
2)Also the thermalpad that supposed to put between baseplate and heatsink, to the point are location the VRM's under the baseplate they had thermal pad, so if we put the pad over the baseplate to same location as the intructions gave us EVGA it has no effect to cool the vRM's area.
3)The thermalpad for the backplate it was not necessary, hasn't point to put. 
 
I believe EVGA must desighn/make again the baseplate and that can throught direct air to vrm's area.
From the others manufactures the MSI,Zotac has the prefered system to cool the vrm's with the passive heatsink on them (that "hitted" with air).
 
Here are pictures
 
 
[font="verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; line-height: normal"] 

Technically the thermal pad provides the most thermal reduction out of the two according to tests by gamersnexus. The left photo below shows ONLY the thermal pad fix (no VBIOS change or custom fan curves) This alone reduces the temperature from 109C to 85C in their testings. Adding only the VBIOS instead reduces from 109C to 95C. Adding both (as shown in the right photo) reduces from 109C to 81C. This means that the thermal pad (according to their tests) is the better solution. Whether the tests were properly performed or what other factors exists is a completely different question of course.

Just so its easier to read....

Change after VBIOS ONLY: 109C to 95C
Change after Thermal Pad ONLY: 109C to 85C
Change after BOTH: 109C to 81C






EDIT: And the other photo with the VBIOS tests is here..
EDIT2: I should also point out in concerns to the VBIOS these tests were performed a bit before the new one was released so the RPM has been
tweaked downward some according to gamers nexus who stated it seemed to be more like 2000 RPM instead of 2200 in the end.






Source:  www.gamersnexus.net/news-pc/2666-evga-heat-solution-thermal-imaging-of-vrm-1080-ftw

GFAFS

DSP1
 
Still posting your disinformation I see.
this kind of bs statement "all over the internet", only means if you look for it. Not only that, it is a handful of cases only. Not thousands of cases as you would like everyone to believe. They are all just re-postings! No one is falling for your lies.
And you are lying about getting names. If that were true you would be pming people here to add to your false class action lawsuit. Not only that you would be posting your lawyers name so we could all contact him to join in on your holy cause. rofl And also just because someone posts on a forum  or youtube does not make it true. Or do you still believe in fairies?
You really are making a fool out of yourself here.
Everyone needs to be made aware of your nonsense.

Again, we'll see. Oh and for the PMs here you should know that i can't since my account have less than 5 days, i tried though. Gathering them is easier elsewhere anyway.
 
That said and clarified,
How interesting for you to know i didn't used my PMs here, only an EVGA/mod (one with short memories about the 5 days Rule) would be able to know this for sure...way to go!. See, i told you you'll fall in your own trap.

No idea about the '5 day rule', I never heard of that. But that  hardly proves that I am in the employ of EVGA regardless. It was a supposition on my part.
I had a thought though, why don't you take your campaign here http://www.onsemi.com/PowerSolutions/content.do?id=1017&lctn=header
These are the guys you need to complain to. You would be doing EVGA and their lawyers a favour. Well, maybe not. The last thing they need is the rantings of a crazy person to try and build their case.