I wouldn't say the cooling is a lot better on the Giga, the two large fans on the MSI work wonders. Even at 1600mhz core I've yet to see it break 70c after long periods of gaming. It's also likely to be quieter with less and bigger fans. You can't go wrong with either though and the back plate is a nice edition on the Giga but didn't interest me.
so gigabyte or msi ?
im guessing most have msi and preorder for gigabyte will lead to a bit of a biased result.
the cooling looks a lot better on the gigabyte.
My max temp in an ok case was 66c full lad over clocked. Personally that temp is crazy.
Check the base and boost speeds, think the Giga is higher too.
I have the Gigabyte and it is fantastic in so many ways:
1. Looks stunning with all metal frame and beautiful backplate, will fit into any colour scheme if you are bothered about that
2. WINDFORCE logo lights up blue LED and can be customised to flash or turned off
3. Very, very solid build quality
4. Silent at stock fan speed, and just a faint whoosh at 100% fan speed
5. I have mine running 24/7 at 1500 core 8000 mem at stock volts
6. Temp in Firestrike when overclocked only hits 60-62, in BF4 its like 55 max
(i'm coming from a 290 which was a warm beast)
7. Higher base clock if you are not overclocking
8. Runs cool and efficient so wont dump as much heat, reducing your other components heat (same for all 970's I guess)
I am sure the MSI is just as good in it's own ways, and I have heard they might be able to get to 6000+ core (I have only got the gigabyte to 1570 without driver crashing, but perhaps that is another variable in my rig)