They both would provide similar performance, but the slim wins because even at full speed the noise to negligible. Also that 30$ is an awesome deal, you can get a 212evo with that and it won't perform as well. Then again, I am biased towards be quiet!
If silence is your thing, the slim rock is a must get. You could get the d92 and change the fans. Also the slim rock looks better IMO. But looks are subjective
If its set up that way, I would think the Heat coming from the GPU would affect it (cus heat floats up) and the fans would be set up as Pushing or pulling the Air up. I just ordered the Heat sink too, but I guess if you have trouble setting it up you can find an assistant (with small hand preferably) . But if you have enough Intake it shouldn't be that big of a problem on the performance.
To the people that gets noises from their GPU, I would RMA it if I were you, becausr these are physical hardware issues that rming would be a much easier solution then fixing. If it was a software issue then its a different story.
Nvidia only manufacture the chip and PCB design. They send it out to other companies to make the reference card. You just don't see the other companies branding on the box.
Well, one is a blower style, and the other is an open air. Open air coolers general have lower temps and its quieter because the fans don't have ramp up to cool the card
I would think the Asus and the MSI cards would be queter , cus its 4 fans vs 6. But by raw stats, and stuff I heard about the G1 I think that set is the better choice of the 3 for SLI
Are you okay with mail in rebates? http://www.ncix.com/detail/xfx-radeon-hd-r9-280x-ff-91053-1029.htm We do have this R9 280x on for 249.99. Its a 30$ rebate doe. If rebates are not your thing, then this http://www.ncix.com/detail/gigabyte-radeon-r9-280-oc-0b-98788-1029.htm should be more of your budget. $240-ish after tax.
Nvidia: GTX 770 on sale
AMD: R9 290
Brands: Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, EVGA (Nvidia only)
And coil whine is all bout lottery, but some companies allows RMA of Coil whining cards.
He did say an AMD GPU lol, I would wait for the new RX 3XX series to come out, but if you really want to you can get any Single AMD GPU. IF you want to crossfire consider a higher end CPU so it wont bottleneck.
At stock, they both perform the same, but later on when you want to overclock and overvolt, the Asus one will do a better job, cus larger heat sink and 2 fans