8800GT @ 110C IDLE hot?!

Those temperatures are dangerously high for idle, I would guess youve damaged the cooler there. I havent played around with heat pipes to know what effect things have. As far as I know they dont contain liquid but are essential to the cooling process. I would say that the heatpipes are the prime suspect for such high temperatures, I would guess that gaming like that may be enough to cause damage to the card.

I really dont know enough about after market coolers to know which ones are smaller than the one you have and so will fit without butchery.

yep, they did contain fluid/vapour but now they don't anymore. That liquid is used to transfer the heat inside the pipes from the chip to the fins of the heatsink, and thus the performance is severely degraded if the liquid leaks out from the pipes...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pipe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Heat_Pipe_Mechanism....

Sorry, you just killed your warranty.
I was going to recommend RMAing it, but now you are kinda screwed.
The only thing you can do is stop using it until you purchase a new cooler for it!
Extended usage at these temps will kill it.
Get a new aftermarket cooler.

Your case must be tiny if it can't fit in that card vertically. My advice in future would be to get a bigger case than to fiddle with the cooler.

not for the OP to find out he's ruined it..... (pity over) HA HA HA  

It's not a tiny case, it's a origen s14v. however i do not have more than 5mm of clearance "above" the card (ie, above the direction the sli connector is pointing and back is were you connect the dvi).

Ane clue what aftermarket cooler to get, that does not stick out on top of the card (like the two end of the heatpipes)? The cooler can not go out further than the sli connnector....

I would recomend This cooler and sliding the SLI bridge through the cooler rather than cutting it.
Again DO NOT USE YOUR CARD untill you have replaced the cooler.
Doing so will cause it to fail with no warranty!

Wow 110c... that could easily fry an egg.

You should have simply RMA'ed your card. Do not use the card until you attach a new heatsink.

Maybe you should have asked forum residents before you cut...not after.

Here is some feedback on my accidental 8800GT temperature experients, in case you don't want to test it yourself:

GPU was not FUBAR from running at about 95C average temp for 10 hours. Very stable, no problems. Heatsink was very cold during operations, but impossible to hold your finger against the back of the graphics card. When running some nivida demos the temp would go up to 105C in about 30 sec, before shutting down the demo. When putting on the case lid the temperature would rise to about 105-110C in 2-3 minutes before I took it off again.

De-clocked the card somewath in Nvidia HUD and also put a miele vaccum cleaner on top of the graphics card (S 4211, maximum effect 2000 watt, third highest speed), this would take down the temp to 85C. However extremly noisy (2000 watt!).

(i'll pick up a new cooler today, I'll bring the ruined one and measure clearence)

lol dude what have u done cuting a head pipe, its likr cut one of ur members and then expect that everything will be ok.

OMG, I hope you can get a good cooler... outlw6669 recommended a good cooler.

Heatpipes work through a combination evaporation and condensation method that absolutely requires them to have the liquid inside. Without the liquid, the thermal conductivity is reduced by something like a factor of a thousand.