In case you were still on the fence as to what GTX 980 Ti to buy, Gamernexus posted up a review of the EVGA vs a few others. The HYBRID cooler on the card was built from the ground up for a GPU, so its easy to see why there is a big difference...
 
http://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/2128-msi-sea-hawk-gtx-980-ti-review-and-benchmark/Page-2
 

That's awesome that the Hybrid performs that much better than MSI's new liquid cooler.  If there was a GTX 970 Hybrid when I bought my 970s, that's what I would have bought.  Next generation I am definitely getting me some Hybrids   And hopefully next generation we might see some Classified Hybrids (that would be my dream card).

Well the MSI Sea Hawk uses almost the exact same components for cooling (pump+rad Asetek OEM) BUT if I recall correctly the fan on the msi version is controlled by temp/load of the gpu, like it would be normally. On the EVGA Hybrid though I noticed no change in fan speed whatsoever under all conditions. So it stays basically at 100% duty all the time I guess that's why it obviously wins the crown when it comes down to cooling performance.
 
But to be perfectly honest it's now the loudest part in my system and with the lack of sound dampening material it transfers a noticable amount of vibration to the cassis aswell. I'd rather have a more silent solution with variable fan speed and sacrifice a couple of degrees. Just a heads up for the next version of the cooler.
 
Oh and ofc I talk about the 120mm fan attached to the rad not the blower style fan on the gpu. That one is still temp controlled. Not ideal though, cuz the them of the gpu obviously won't rise as much with water cooling therefore the little blower style cooler won't even start to really spin up why the vrms that it's supposed to cool don't get enough air flow. You really have to set up a custom fan profile for the card. Should have gotten a individual fan curve in the bios of the card right away.

EVGA_JacobF
There are more differences than that, the coldplate on the EVGA card is completely different. GPU has different characteristics than a CPU, and the EVGA solution was designed for GPU cooling.
 
Also the fan on the EVGA card is controlled by water temperature.

Ok I didn't know that. Yes cooling is insane even overclocked to the max. What I'm just trying to get through is why not make the fan of the rad temp controlled aswell. Get both worlds combinded cool and silent. Or was it just not possible due to the fan headers on the pcb?

EVGA_JacobFThere are more differences than that, the coldplate on the EVGA card is completely different. GPU has different characteristics than a CPU, and the EVGA solution was designed for GPU cooling.

Are the differences sufficient that the Asetek law suits can't affect future production?

Glad ive got one coming as my Titan x sc was getting hot this summer :)