The cooler on the Lightning is a semi-failed design - assuming it's the same as on the GTX 780 iteration. The small yellow fan doesn't contribute anything towards keeping the card cool, and it's the main culprit for potential problems; it's not unusual at all for this decorative fan to develop very irritating rattling acoustics. You can unplug the fan without affecting the 2 others, though. Also noteworthy is the fact that this cooler DOES NOT work anywhere near to its otherwise lofty potential in vertical orientation (think Silverstone FT-/RV-series cases); not a fault of MSI's per se but they could consider using sintered heatpipes.
The Vapour-X and Tri-X New Edition come with double ball-bearing fans, a very smart design choice with an eye on enhanced longevity, also in the typical, horizontal orientation. I don't have a first hand experience on these so can't comment on the acoustic characteristics of these fans. The Lightning cooler (on GTX 780) sounds smooth in low RPM -as long as all the fans are healthy- but apparently it's not among the more elegant-sounding solutions in real-life user scenarios when mounted on a Hawaii core.