I always try to get an eVGA card as well, they have the strongest ties with nVidia from everything I've read, and also have an excellent warranty policy, which they back up very well, again, from what I've read. I've never had a failure with any of their stuff, so I can't comment on the warranty personally, but from various reports online available, they seem to honor their word very well.
Asus cards aren't a terrible alternative I suppose, but I would rather wait for eVGA than buy even Asus brand, which I did with my 970s - apparently most of the free world feels the same way about eVGA as the rest of us here, as all their cards sold out in a flash x3 restocks at the 3 largest resellers I tried, while there were a few Asus cards available here and there, as well as the other typical suspects like Zotac (blargh) and the like.
IMO OP should try for a 970 eVGA of some description, there are several available from the mid to high 300$ range in the USA, depending on version/factory clock/etc. Today is a holiday up here, but I should have my 970s delivered tomorrow at last after almost 2 weeks on order. The single 980 we have is working fantastic, and I"m interested to see if the 970SLI beats it as all the reviews have shown.