This card takes the cake for heat/noise which is great. The cooler looks nice and beefy too but triple slot could cause issues for SLI. Would be nice if you could change the yellow circles to some other color if you were so inclined though as not everyone has a yellow MSI mobo. And yea the price is definitely a con.
By the way, this is off topic but I thought I'd just add it anyway. So in the last two years I've upgraded GPUs like 6 times. Went from the Radeon 5770 that came with my Alienware Aurora to a Sapphire 7950 Flex. After that I added a second 7950 for Crossfire. Later the 780 Ti was released and I had to have it since it was faster than the Titan.
Ordered the MSI 780 Ti Gaming after seeing the review for it on here. When Maxwell was released, Kepler prices plummeted and I ordered a second 780 Ti gaming for $400. Finally the 980 Ti was released and it was faster than the Titan X and of course I had to have it. I really like the Asus Matrix cards but it wasn't out at the time and they are also much more expensive. It looks like it's finally been released and I don't like the copper color, should have left it black and red I think. So I didn't know what card to get and then I saw the Asus Strix 980 Ti and thought it looked cool and I liked the 3 fan coolers but it was sold out everywhere. I also liked the EVGA Classified 980 Ti and it came in stock one day so I snagged it for $699 from Newegg no tax. Man, I thought my 780 Ti was a big card because it was much bigger than my Sapphire 7950 but then I got this behemoth. This 980 Ti is Classified dwarfs my MSI 780 ti and feels twice as heavy. I also really like the look of it I find it to be a very clean look with no pipes sticking out anywhere and nice illuminated EVGA thing on the top. It also has the most beautiful backplate.