Pros: This card handles anything, and it should continue handling anything for quite some time. It's nice to see a card in this price range that's actually a new architecture, not some refreshed and renamed high-end GPU from 2 or 3 years ago.

It's very quiet and runs cool. No coil whine that I can tell. I see a lot of complaints about how the fans don't spin unless the temperature reaches 65C. The hottest I've seen mine idle with no fans is 45C, but that was shortly after gaming. Normally it's under 40. Not bad. If you don't like it, set up your own fan profile in the MSI software. As for temps under extreme load, I've never seen it go much over 70C, and even then I can't hear the GPU fans over the rest of my PC's fans.

Cons: A backplate would be nice, as would a metal cover instead of plastic. But these are no biggies.

The included mouse pad is too big for my desk. This is an outrage.

Other Thoughts: I had just bought a GTX 770 when the 970/980 came out. Promptly returned the 770. Had a tough decision between EVGA, ASUS and MSI. I was a little leery of MSI, as I haven't owned any MSI products and have always dismissed them as the cheapie "MicroStar" brand from years ago. Normally I'd have gone with EVGA, but they dropped the ball on this one. Reviews pointed to MSI as the technologically superior 970, so MSI it was, and it's been great. They're definitely not MicroStar any more.

My last couple cards have been AMDs. The deciding factors that brought me back to NVIDIA were the build quality, the heat/power efficiency, and ShadowPlay. AMD has been lacking in these areas for a while, and with the price point of the GTX 970's there's no comparison.

Pros: Don't be scared away by this card's Renesas/NEC controller. It is superb and in some cases works better than Intel's.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: My experience with USB 3.0 compatibility issues involves BlackMagic video devices. They do not work well with Intel USB controllers, but work brilliantly with this.