I have always had very good experiences with MSI graphics cards, not the blower type ones (if tMSI even makes them), but the ones with the cooler which was called ZeroFrozr at one point, then TwinFrozr, now I think it is TriFrozr.
Excellent cooling, very good noise levels, build quality felt good and in my experience they seem to stand the test of time - I had two GTX980 Gaming 4G graphics cards which I sold about 6 months ago.
They were around 5 years old, used everyday, in a system that was powered on almost always 24/7, and when I sold them, they were like new. The fans hadn't become noisy and the performance was like day one. The temperatures were still excellent. I did keep them free from dust of course, but other than that, I have nohting negative to say
Although it is down to personal preference, I think they look good too, not too flashy, but they still look like they're good quality and performance. But I'm fully aware that's not a primary concern, but I considered it an added bonus in my own case
I've had terrible experriences with the quality of certain Gigabyte motherboards, but I never heard anything negative about their graphics cards. But I have no hands on experience.
Of the two models you mentioned in the original post, I'd personally choose the MSI card, based on my own personal experience of quality and performance, and they have a good reputation as well, as far as I know.
Although you didn't mention ASUS, I thought I'd share a comment on them as well, in case someone could find it useful in some way.
My current GPU is from the ASUS RoG Strix line. They are efficiently cooled, performance is top notch, they are not noisy and look good (personal opinion). And I like the dual BIOS option on some models.
But I've seen posts on forums stating that the LED light tube is turning white-grey over roughly a 1 year period, almost like milk, and the RGB lights become very hard too see.
It is easily fixed, according to various forum posts, but I feel like that shouldn't even be something you need to be concerned about in the first place.
But I really like the button placed directly on the graphics card, which allows you to kill all LEDs without any software required, if you want to.
This is my second RoG Strix ASUS card in 6 months. Nothing broke, no complaints, I just happened to be able to upgrade by lucky coincidence.
But it means that I have had two different cards from the same current ASUS RoG Strix series between my hands, and that means I can say that
to me, the quality seems consistent and of high enough standards (based on those two cards).
Luckily, I've never had to contact ASUS support, because I'm told their customer support is terrible, close to non-existent.
I have no personal experience, since I've never owned an ASUS product which failed on me before they became obsolete and I upgraded, but the topic seems to pop up frequently on online forums, and sometimes you are unfortunate enough to need assistance from customer supoort.
So although I have no complaints of my own currrently with regards to ASUS, experiences shared online by other people makes it difficult to recommend ASUS graphics cards, at least the ones from the current RoG Strix series - unless you don't care about the flaws mentioned above, and the apparently poor customer support.
I'll happily buy ASUS myself, but I thought it was worth mentioning the things above, so someone else can take them into consideration if it becomes relevant
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