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Rampage V Edition 10 bronzy, scorchy bits?

W1nter
Level 9
I'd love some opinions on these pics please:

- Intel 6950X Xtreme Edition processor
- 8 x 16GB (128GB) G. SKill TridentZ DDR 4 3333 RAM
- Built in December 2016 with 2 x ROG Strix 1080 GTXes, then switched in late 2018 to dual nVidia 2080 RTX FEs.
- In 6/2019 I then built a custom EKWB water loop for the video cards: front-mounted large radiator and backplate/cooling blocks with parallel water flow configuration and EKWB D-Bay front bay pump/res.

Looking over the motherboard I saw some 'bronzed' spots - I'm trying to figure out if these color changes are just heat turning the matte-black paint color or if there's actually any sort of heat damage to these components underneath. Under load the video cards under water cooling seldom broke 40 C. I was trying to limit the enthusiasm with which the Rampage V Edition 10 likes to soar through overclocking, keeping it to XMP Enabled and ASUS auto-tuning.

I took it all apart because while most everything runs fine, I'd have this random hard reset when playing GTA V - black screen, reset the machine, no workable messages in the Event Viewer (and no BSOD). No drama with temps or usages (CPU/GPU/RAM/VRAM) and no problems playing other games for hours on end. I noticed these spots and wanted to get a good look at the motherboard. I was also having some serious heat issues with the M.2 drive sitting right under video card #1, had to mount a fan directly over the drive and stick a heat-sink on it (you can see in the pics) to keep it under 50 C when gaming.

Questions / suggestions / comments welcome.

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W1nter
Level 9
I'm not surprised there isn't a lot of commentary here - I'm not sure if there's an easy way to tell if any of the motherboard's components are truly heat damaged.

That said, I have come up with a downgrade plan to test things out:
- Replace the top-vented AIO cooler that was up against the heatsink with a smaller one that's not touching anything and points out the back
- Remove the entire video water loop and replace the two 2080s with one air-cooled card (an RTX 2070 Super)
- Put the air-cooled RTX 2070 Super in slot 3 to get it off of the M.2 slot and away from the CPU.
- Remove half the SATA drives so there are fewer devices to manage
- Keep high airflow running through the case even though the big radiator & custom loop are gone

I'll then run stress tests...prior to this, despite the black screen resets in GTA V Online, and my worries about the scorch marks, it's actually been through stress tests and benchmarks without a hitch:

Port Royal: 17709
https://www.3dmark.com/pr/968074

Time Spy Extreme: 10891
https://www.3dmark.com/spy/19385013

Fire Strike Ultra: 15430
https://www.3dmark.com/fs/25261513