If you had the a choice.. which would you get???

I'm thinking the Asus could be slightly overclocked to the same speeds
as the GS, but does the extra 4 pipelines really mean much of
anything?

One card has a 350MHz core, the other 485Mhz. I don't think you're going to
be able to o/c the Asus to such levels. The memory, maybe, it's 500 vs 550.
You really need to find some benchmarks and reviews for each.

That's part of what's getting me.. Neither card really has benchmarks
or reviews anywhere..

And the 6800GS with 12 pipelines seems to be better than the 6800GT
with 16 pipelines... that doesn't make sense to me..

(I'm still googling for a website that really explains the benefits of
more pipelines)

Well, there's a good review of the XFX here...
http://www.motherboards.org/reviews/...re/1564_1.html

More pipelines means more bandwidth and performance, but of the two you're
looking at, the 16 pipeline Asus is clocked a LOT slower....and the GS
review shows it to be a real performer.