I have a few of these and mostly have found them to be okay so far. You DO need to replace the TIM and pads though. I have been working on this and will post when I find a great recipe. I also would appreciate any advice from people here. I found using 1mm thermal pads from phobya did not work if you use them on all ram, vrm, etc. The heatsink wouldn't make proper contact with the gpu chip. My next try will be 1mm pads on VRM and .5mm on everything else because I was not getting good contact with the GPU chip when I used 1mm pads all around.

For the record, mine looked new for each one I bought and I have 7. I currently have four running at 800/300 24/7 and they have been doing well with the stock heatsink, paste and pads(have not taken them apart yet).

I took apart the other four(1 is amd brand) in hopes of achieving better cooling and higher clocks. I'm shooting for a 24/7 stable 850/300 on air. I'll add that the rigs are in a cold basement that doesn't get above 15c or so even in the summer.

Once I start working on them again I will take some pics and post what I did, maybe we can create a work log thread for these cards.

Also, you better register them with diamond for the 5 year warranty ASAP just in case. Their customer service might suck, but you will get a new card or refund eventually.