If you have the same 100% fan speed problems as so many others, you are screwed. Nothing will change the fan speed.
RivaTuner will not tell you the fan speed. I don't think that fan speed monitoring is possible from software with these cards.
The easy way to tell if it's running at 100% all the time is to listen to it.
What should happen is that it runs at 100% while the machine is booting, loading Windows and loading the graphics driver. It should then drop to a far lower level, around 25%. This causes a dramatic reduction in noise. When you run software marked as being 3D (AFAIK, the driver checks to see if OpenGL or Direct3D is being used), the fan should spin up to about 50%. An alternative is for the fain speed to be linked to the GPU temperature.
Either way, you should get a dramatic reduction in noise from the card when the graphics driver loads. If you don't, your fan is running at 100% all the time.
EDIT: The coolers aren't hard to fit, just a bit fiddley. I've read that the cloth pads covering the AC one for the memory chips can become displaced during fitting and that it's easier to remove them from the cooler, stick them on the memory chips and then fit the cooler. I haven't fitted either because I want a guarantee on a card that has proven to have at least one serious flaw and fitting a cooler voids the guarantee except on EVGA's cards. Personally, I prefer the AC cooler because it exhausts the heat straight out the back of the PC. I have one on my old 9800 Pro.