I noticed right away that Heaven DX11 Benchmark was stuttering like crazy and the overall score seem a little low (scored 20 points better than my 7750
). I then ran CGMiner with the fan speed @ 85% and the card hit 77°C right away. Obviously something was wrong since the card was advertised as being "20% cooler".Before taking the heatsink off I took note of the four GPU screws on the back. They seemed to protrude more than normal. Luckily I had another card on hand to compare and what to you know, Asus used the WRONG FREAKIN' SCREWS! They weren't threaded long enough to hold the cooler in place which is why the temperatures rose so quickly in any 3D application.
Oh well, back to Newegg it goes.