alexaqui
I finally had some time to work on installing the KingPin. As I have a custom loop for my CPU I had to take everything apart. I will state that based on me playing around with fitment in a standard Lian Li 011 Dynamic, the radiator does not work in the side compartment area. While it "fits", it puts a ton of stress on the hoses and the PCIE slot and I didn't care for it. I ended up putting it up in the top and replumbing everything. It's a super tight fit with a D5 given the power plugs are on the end of the card vs. the side.
When I swapped fans, I noticed that my radiator fins had a lot of damage. Is that normal for this product? The stock fans are clearly junk as people have mentioned. The radiator also seems to be of fairly low quality (at least compared to the EKWB, Alphacool, and Watercool radiator I use in my rigs). Not happy to see how thin it is with bent fins!
That's definitely not normal for fins to be damaged upon arrival, at all. I've gotten several Hybrid cards now (1080 Ti, 2070 Super, 3090 FTW3 & now the Kingpin) and never had multiple fins damaged on arrival. Sometimes there's one or two that are slightly bent, but not whole areas or anything of that nature.
I would contact EVGA CS & see if this is something they'd be willing to RMA the card for, unless you don't want to worry about it - I'm pretty sure they would, as they can get your unit back, swap a new AIO on to it, and resell it (or send it to Vince for him or another OCer to play with).
That sucks. Doesn't sound as bad as my worst AIO arrival experience though, I once received a unit from EK that was OBVIOUSLY literally rammed with a forklift before it was shipped and somehow they "missed that" when packaging it up, because the other UPS box was 100% fine (other than being wet, from all of the coolant leaking out) :
EK did make the situation right though, they sent me a new unit (and I ordered it as a package with 3 extra fans, they actually sent me 3 more fans lol) and refunded me for shipping costs to return the faulty one & the shipping cost of the first RMA I had to do before that one (the first one had a bent mounting bracket or faulty pump, apparently, because it's performance was bad).
I never used the new one I got, holding it for a friend that wants to buy it but is doing it as a packaged deal with my old Alienware 34" AW3418DW monitor once he gets his tax return in.