you are right asus aint the best here
Gigabyte
+ coolest on full load, has backplate, OC the best, has LED logo if you fancy stuff like that
- the longest of them all, bit more noisier, no fan-stop technology, more expensive than other 2, rumours about seaizing fans on previous windforce coolers, ugly (subjective opinion
ASUS
+ backplate, fan-stop technology, nice look, quiet, metal shroud around fans
- single 8 pin connector (can be advantage for other, though), worse OC of them all, also the slowest of those 3 in tests, VRMs are exposed and more prone to overheating
MSI
+ TwinFrozr cooler , fan-stop technlolgy, quieter and cooler than ASUS, OC capability (better than ASUS, tad worse than GIG), LED dragon&MSI logo (if somebody fancies that, also you can programme its behaviour from desktop), VRMs are heatsinked, just purely beautiful (subjective
, cheapest of them 3
- no backplate, plastic fan shroud (although really it doesnt mean much, heatsink and heatpipes are MUCH better than in previous TF4 so shroud is more like cosmetc feature)
Of them all I decided to go for MSI. For one, that I have soft spot for MSI cards, had 5870 Lightning (TwinFrozr3), had 670OC (TF4), so now TF5 was my first choice. Also, I LOVE fan-stop technology, I spent much effort to quieten my PC and now in idle its really dead silent. Its design and OCing won me over ASUS, and Gigabyte was just too.. too much... those extra few mhz on OC are not worth such behemot constantly spinning its fans in my case.
BTW - after testing MSI yesterday, I am stunned - it barely touches 60degree on full load (with 6 low-spinning fans in my case), and with only CPU fan working it reaches barely 69C on its own fans (with 55%speed only). And let me tell you - even at this speed, the sound it generates is similar to my previous 670OC on idle (30%fan speed was the lowest). Making fans bigger definetely was a right choice.
As for performance - its hard to choke it with anything on my HD screen, you really need 3-setup or 4K to feel stuttering.
Id say with those 3 cards you are more likely to choose based on own preferences. Performance of them all will be similar (just few FPS difference in range of 60 and above really makes no major difference) so what you need to decide is look, noise and "wow" factor that speaks to you.
Whichever you go - you will be happy