I had a gainward 9800gt... Cooler was pretty similar to this one (
http://www.tomshw.it/files/2010/07/immagini/26360/gainward-gtx460-09.jpg) no heatpipe ofc but similar fan system. Closed plastic plate with a single fan blowing on the heatsink. It was good for that card, but rather loud even in idle. Comparing that old one with the actual cyclone, this is rather inaudible in confront. That card has a positive point btw, it does cool actively the voltage regulators. Pretty good if you want to overvolt lots, but the small fan with the covered area all around might reduce the maximum airflow possible, keeping the card hot and then loud. There is a thing also I don't like on gainward cards, a nice sticker on one of the heatsink screws, which states "Don't remove this sticker, keep it for warranty". Translated, if you remove the heatsink, your warranty will wreck off anyway. What happens if the in an year the card starts to become hot due to a thermal paste dryed? do I have to send the card back for a such simple thermal paste replacement work? thats a thing I don't like at all. Hopefully that sticker's glue gets very quickly dried by the card's heat, making it easy to remove the cooler without damaging it.
Looking at the msi card, on the positive side we see a very well made cooler, rather quiet and performing, with lots of room around to pick fresh air. Ok that the vrm aren't cooled by an heat sink, but the six phase design should reduce power losses and then heat a lot, nearly halving it compared to a three-phase common design. Even if you overclock with large overvolts, that system should be enough to power up the card without issues, staying at an acceptable temperature. On a negative side, trying to fit an heatsink there would be pretty hard, considering the minimal space between the fets and the cooler assembly.
This card has also a very positive thing: not only the gpu core voltage can be adjusted. Memory and pll can be overvolted (or undervolted) too, which adds some relevant room for overclocking
Keep in mind also the cyclone card. The cooler is very large and quiet, providing good cooling to both the chip and the memory chips. It has a con, apart from the vrm not cooled by an heat sink, most of the hot air goes into your case. If you don't have a good ventilation, you might get high temps due to a recirculation phenomena near the card.
Between the three cards, I would exclude the gainward one due to the cooler design which looks noisy, and the goodamn sticker avoiding any heatsink removal action.
My choosing would fall between the two msi cards, and the gigabyte one which looks pretty similar to the hawk one. In my case, due to budgets and availability, I've chosen the cyclone.
