MSI GTX 980 Ti Owners! Can you remove the backplate?

[Country Mac]

Hi there. I'm considering buying an MSI GTX 980 Ti but it'll be going into a Silverstone FT03 with a wide Noctua CPU cooler that leaves very little clearance between the edge of the cooler and the PCI-E 16x slot on my mobo.

I currently own a 970 which has no backplate, which only just fits without the back of the GPU's PCB making contact with the CPU cooler's fins, with only a few mm to spare!

So the only way I'm going to be able to fit a a 980ti is if I can remove the backplate. Hence the question:

Can the backplate be taken off the MSI 980 Ti without the heatsink falling off the other side? Do the screws travel all the way through the PCB to fasten the components on the other side? That would be a major spanner in the works!

Thanks!

 

[rohan305]

I think the screws are not connected to anything its there to hold the back plate to GPU , not sure .

 

[InfernalSurge]

I'm pretty sure the EVGA 980 Ti has no backplate, but it is the reference cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487139

 

[rohan305]

I'm pretty sure the EVGA 980 Ti has no backplate, but it is the reference cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487139

EVGA comes with back plate http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487142