EVGA is my go-to for graphics. They’re hands down the best manufacturer AND support company out there. Their RMA process is smooth as silk.The card I replaced was an EVGA, and that was the first brand I looked at when shopping for replacements. However, for this particular chip (GeForce 970), the eVGA card is known to have a poor thermal design. Also, the reason I was replacing the previous eVGA card was that one of the fans had gone out.
So I decided to look at alternatives to eVGA. The major brands were eVGA (already eliminated), MSI, Gigabyte, and ASUS. I read that these cards are quite heavy, and so it was a good idea to get one with a back-plate. That narrowed it down to two cards - the ASUS and the MSI. The MSI was significantly longer, and having run into space problems with video cards before, I decided to go with the ASUS. Good thing I did too, as the ASUS just barely fit.
I’m using an eVGA GTX 970 and have had zero issues with cooling. I’m not an extreme gamer by any stretch, but my monitoring programs show the card never goes over 65C during heavy use. To each their own; the major mfgs get the job done.