Please watch this before buying any brand 970.
http://youtu.be/wmiVf9cmA9I
Saw the comment right below about coil whine and remembered about this video. The EVGA 970's were the first ones with a coil whine issue, but it may be fixed now with the ACX 2.0 cooler.

I highly recommend either the MSI GTX 970 4G or the Gigabyte GTX 970 G1. The MSI one is the quietest of all the 970's in the video which are arguably the most popular, and it turns the fans off during idle or light use, even on full load it's very quiet, and I'm a stickler for noise levels. The Gigabyte one is not silent during idle and is louder than the MSI during load, it also has almost a higher pitched noise that I think gets really annoying.
The MSI is the second fastest stock 970, with the Gigabyte being the fastest stock and having the highest overclock ceiling, but the ceiling of the MSI is absolutely fine for most, but if you are going to overclock the shit out of your card, the Gigabyte would suit you. The difference between the two's stock speeds isn't significant IMO and would not sway my decision much if it came down to noise, price, and aesthetics, also size since the Gigabyte is really long and can pose issues with that. Cooling is also not a huge difference, you won't have problems with cooling on either, but the Gigabyte will run cooler due to having 3 fans, but you need to consider if it's slightly lower temp is worth the extra noise and cost.

My recommendation is the MSI 970. It has the second highest stock speed, a very liberal OC ceiling, silent idle, quiet load, looks nice and would go well with a similarly matched build color scheme, usually won't pose an issue with size compatibilies. It combines the best of low noise with enthusiast level performance.
If you want balls to the wall fastest, best OC potential card, period, and don't care about noise and it will fit, go for the Gigabyte, but the speed difference isn't much and most won't take advantage of the higher OC ceiling that the Gigabyte has.