Yeah, I never run it in fullscreen anymore (could be part of the reason that I need to rma my card now). The temps get insanely hot. Im surprised those vrm temps aren't much worse than the stock cooler and in real world useage you'll never have to worry. Im not a big fan of ATI Tool. My GTX280 gets hotter in Crysis which is acctually a pretty good program for stability testing.

Is it overclocking any better with the lower core temps? I hear these things love a low core temp.

How is the thermal tape holding up?