Yes, it matters.
1.
Size - Make sure the card you select fits in the case you have chosen.... some cards may be as much as 2" longer than others.
2.
Fake AIB Cards - When we think of AIB or add-in board, we expect a new / improved board. Some vendors don't do this and merely slap a new cooler on a reference nVidia PCB. The EVGA SC series has done this for the most part since the 5xx series and the FTW line joined it with 10xx. Most other AIBs use beefed up VRMs and improved memory / VRM cooling as well as improved chokes and other componentry. So it's kinda **fake** when they use the term **add-in** board when they didn't **add-in** anything.
Helped a user here on the forum with his 1070 MSI Armor yesterday. He reported a fire similar to the well known instances with the EVGA SC / FTW cards. If you compare the MSI 1060 Gaming X and Armor lines, you will see that the Gaming X includes a cooling plate and thermal pads and the Armor does not. Had that user made a better choice, he wouldn't be in the fix he is today.
3.
Outta Box Clocks - A meaningless piece of data. These are arbitrarily set by the bean counters based upon what % of cards will maintain that speed. Due to the silicon lottery, a certain % will not. All the base clocks mean is that the manufacturer is making a decision based upon what they think the financial impact will be if and when cards fail. I had this experience with EVGA where it could not get within 10% of the factor clock w/o crashing ... 18 month, 20 support calls and 5 RMAs later, still did not have a card that met factory OC.
What matters is the OC you get once you're done with Afterburner. What you will find if you consult various reviews is that certain cards consistently rank higher than others. One of the best examples of this is here:
https://www.bit-tech.net/reviews/tech/graphics/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-review/1/
If you read this review, by the time you get done reading the tear down pages where they detail all of the individual board components, you know who the winner is and ... no, it's not the one with the highest base clock
Out of the Box Factory OC
Base Clock: EVGA =1,165MHz / MSI = 1,140MHz
Boost Clock: EVGA = 1,317MHz / MSI 1,279MHz
Memory Clock: EVGA = 1.75GHz / MSI = 1.75GHz
Manual OC
Base Clock: EVGA =1,290MHz / MSI = 1,315MHz
Boost Clock: EVGA = 1,430MHz / MSI 1,504MHz
Memory Clock: EVGA = 1.925GHz / MSI = 1.950GHz
So we do see the proof of the pudding here and that pudding is the improved power delivery system, the beffier VRMs w/ more phases, the better chokes and the better memory and VRM cooling
4.
Power Consumption, Temperatures and Sound - You will find that some cards can draw 100 watts more power than others. Some cards allow you to boost the power limit by 17%, some by 50%. Some cards are louder, some cards run hotter. VRM temps can limit an OC just as easily as GPU temps. One card may be OK for your PSU, one card may not. I tend to value lower sound greatly. Low temps in the test corresponds to more OC headroom.
5.
Boost 3 - Over the past few generations, nVidia has clamped down both legally and design wise as to what AIB board partners can do. The driving force behind this is that x70 cards are too close in performance to x80 cards and they get a big fat price premium for that top tier card. So when the AIBs "do their magic" allowing substantial OCs, that hits nVidia hard in the wallet. In previous 2 generations, they effectively rendered the "super cards" (Lightning, Matrix, Classified) irrelevant. Even the AIB cards were limited in that you couldn't exceed certain voltage / power limits but with a BIOS Editor available, these were easily overcome.
Boost 3 has no editor and therefore we are stuck w/ nVidia's imposed limitations. So essentially, this dampens what individual AIB partners can achieve. With 10xx series, we are no longer seeing the large performance differences between AIB cards... but once OC'd "bawlz to the wall", we do still see about a 7% difference between cards.
6.
Reviews - many of the cards you mentioned (total of 10) were reviewed by TPU. Keep in mind that the rating may include price at time of release or other factors which may be unimportant to you. The FE got a 9.3 rating ... the EVGA SC, Palit Game Rock managed marginally better at 9.4. I have linked the 9.7 or above
MSI Lightning (9.8) - https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1080_Ti_Lightning_Z/
Gigabyte Aurorus Extreme Gaming (9.9) - https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GTX_1080_Ti_Xtreme_Gaming/
MSI Gaming X (9.7) - https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1080_Ti_Gaming_X/
Gigabyte Aurorus Extreme Edition (9.7) - https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GTX_1080_Aorus_Xtreme_Edition/
Zotac Amp (9.7) - https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/GeForce_GTX_1080_Amp/
Asus Strix (9.7) - https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_1080_Ti_Strix_OC/
7.
Price - The price you have to pay to get an extra 0.1 rating may be more than you are willing to pay.
8 -
Special features - If you have a Custom Loop or a open loop AIO, such as those from Swiftech, Alphacool or EK, then the MSI Seahawk Edition is a very attractive alternative. problem is, they sell out within an hour after they are in stock. They have a full cover EK water block pre-installed and the 1080 version shown here is actually cheaper than the gaming X
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127952
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