No need to get salty, it's an expensive card so i obviously don't want to remove something by mistake. it does seem odd if its indeed just normal plastic film because yes those cards gets hot indeed. It's not totally obvious because it's not one of those super flimsy films which is super easy to remove either..
That's what i mean, is it really a protective film or is it something that directs the airflow? Do you own the same card? Googling doesn't tell you a lot, but i didn't find e.g this GTX980 am I meant to remove the plastic cover on the grill/radiator? : nvidia (reddit.com) so the advice here was to NOT remove the plastic film, and its only transparent to look neutral. This really doesn't look like normal protective plastic film to me, it looks too sturdy and too carefully placed, i mean it goes into and under stuff (i think). Why put a protective film like that.. and yeah, "cover" is probably better worded than "film".
So as you can see on the side there, it goes in under, so it won't peel off nicely, i don't think they would do a protective film like that, they would make it so that it's easy to just peel off... to get this to look "nice" i would have to use a razor because there will be pieces of this film or cover stuck where it can't be removed. what speaks against it being a film to be removed: stuck under parts , can't be removed nicely. what speaks FOR it's just crap that should be removed: it looks kind of terrible, no? even if its "transparent". i reckon people who have those "fancy" see-through cases wants their expensive card to look good? but what do i know. plastic crap? not great on a hot card.
so i should start unscrewing things to get it all off, or i should have a card with some plastic crap sticking up from the sides where it goes "into" the card and can't be peeled off?
To be clear, i looked up pictures of your card and no film. So just go at it easy, take your time and ground yourself first. I usually touch the copper pipe of the radiator for couple secs, and repeat this every so often until job done. Don't unscrew anything the card will be fine, just make sure none is anywhere near anything that gets vry hot.
Its to prevent scratches before the consumer receives it. There is a need, despite my card having protective film, it still was marked through the film. It would have been much worse were the film not there. Alternatively, leave it on for added protection. But beware, the sticky stuff might go off and become super sticky or change properties after a few years, resulting in even worse damage if you try and remove it. ie discolouration due to chemical reaction, scratch/abrasion damage or from using the wrong solvent. Probably better to remove it and take care with your new card.
On my 3090 the GPU hotspot temp was too far above GPU temp (+23C) so I removed the cooler and found part of the core had no paste on it. After repasting, the hotspot is only 10C over GPU temp, now normal. This gave lower temps and/or higher overclocks. https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/3090-owners-thread.434369/page-47#post-5932601 Worth checking, I use HWinfo.
Speaking about impressions, the Watercool block for the 3090 is amazing. It even dropped my memory temps from 96 to 72, even though it doesn't have an active backplate. Normal temps under heavy load are 47-50C max, hot spot is max 60c. That's with a 390W bios. I'm mostly stable (meaning frequency, not stability, things are rock solid) at 2GHz and +800 memory on pretty much everything for almost a year now.