MSI Gaming X is best value to performance, if you can get over the Red crap. Zotac AMP Extreme is the fastest and has the best LED's if that's what you're after (but the 1080 AE has a very ugly yellow stripe thing going on on the back plate). Only other problem is the stock fan profile sucks hard, you'll have to set up a custom fan profile, which isn't hard but can be annoying (I had one for 8 months before getting the 1080 Ti AMP Extreme). I don't trust a damn thing from EVGA anymore (I know I know they have "legendary" CS [probably because of all the practice they get] I really couldn't care less, change the record, that's apparently the only thing they have going for them.) Asus products are good but generally overpriced and gigabytes are way too ugly for me to put one in my system. So my first choice of GPU is Zotac, haven't let me down yet.
AIO is overrated for GPU's, if you were going to do liquid you would need a custom loop which can cost about $300 even if you were only wanting to cool your GPU. At that price you might as well cool your whole system on a single loop which would be over $500 for a good EK loop, not to mention the GPU itself being about $150 more than an air one.
Having said all that, if I wanted a 1080 build I would go with a Zotac first, MSI Gaming X second, and Asus ROG Strix OC third, I might research a Galax HOF or the Palit GameRock but I don't know enough about them, they are supposedly extremely good cards as well, but I haven't looked into them enough to say for sure. The Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme cards are pretty good as well, they are just much too ugly for my liking. Already said I don't trust EVGA personally, it seems like they have the most problems/highest failure rate of any GPU. All that is assuming I couldn't afford an MSI Sea Hawk EK X build, which I consider to be the king of all GPU setups.
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