NVIDIA’s GTX 760 is essentially a GTX 670 in terms of performance and becomes one of the most popular mid-end graphics card in the market because of its affordability and best value. The MSI GTX 760 Twin Frozr OC 2GB is pre-overclocked version of GTX760 and comes with MSI’s innovative Twin Frozr IV cooler. There is also a bunch of other advanced features like additional VRM cooling, Super Ferrite Chokes and up to 3-way SLI support.
Product Link: http://www.msi.com/product/vga/N760-TF-2GD5-OC.html#overview
Suggested Retail Price: RM 1,099
Specifications
Unboxing
The graphics card is packed in a box illustrated with a dragon picture featuring the “Gaming Series” design.
Now, let’s have a peek on the graphics card!
The graphics card comes in a red/ black theme with a unique twin-fan Twin Frozr IV cooler. Heat from the GPU is transferred to the aluminum fin grid array by virtue of heat pipes with MSI’s special SuperPipes technology. The SuperPipes transfer heat twice as fast as regular heat pipes enabling the graphics card to stay cooler than the reference cooler.
The graphics card is based on NVIDIA’s winning GK104 silicon. It is also packed with six SMs of 192 stream processors for a total of 1152 stream processors, full-size 256-bit memory interface and array of 32 ROPs.
Let’s close up to the PCB area of the graphics card. The VRM power design gives five phase power for the GPU and two phase power for the memory, making it a total of 7+1 phase power for the graphics card overall.
The memory chips are based on Hynix AFR GDDR5 which is purportedly to have high overclock ability.
The graphics card draws power from a 6-pin and an 8-pin connector, as compared to a reference GTX760 card which has two 6-pin connectors.
The SLI connectors that support up to 3-way SLI.
The rear I/O panel includes two Dual Link DVI ports, a DisplayPort and a HDMI port. Nvidia Surround is supported but this requires three display monitors with the same resolution.
Interestingly, the back side of the graphics card has half of the memory chips. The other half is on top of the card.
Accessories bundled in the package are simple.
Test Setup
Software & Tools
MSI Gaming App - provide three modes that OC, Gaming and Silent mode to improve performance
MSI Afterburner - a tweaking tool for overclocking, overvolting, power control and fan speed adjustment through the user-friendly screen panel
MSI Kombustor - a stress tool for burn-in test
GPU-Z - displays the GPU information.
Test Methodology
Stability Tests
MSI Kombustor 3.3.0 - FurMark Burner
I could stress the graphics card running at stock clocks without an error in about 10 minutes. The GPU core hit 80C during loads with the stock fan profile.
Synthetic Benchmarks
3DMark 13 Fire Strike (Extreme)
Game Benchmarks
S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
OverClocking
With a supplied voltage of 1.212v for the GPU, I managed to push the GPU core frequency to 1280MHz (boost) and video memory frequency of 6755 MHz.
Thoughts & Verdicts
The MSI GTX 760 Twin Frozr OC 2GB is an excellent graphics card for gaming. I didn’t have any problem right from installing the driver to the gameplay. It performed just perfectly throughout the tests. The twin-fan Twin Frozr IV cooler also worked intelligently to dissipate the heat generated by the GPU. The card hit 80C max in the stress test with stock fan profile, but that was in 33c ambient temperature. When setting the fan speed to spin at 100%, the core temperature relaxed to 70C. The overclock ability of this card has been disappointed by NVIDIA’s locked-voltage policy. The limit of voltage couldn’t be altered with software at all. However, MSI doesn’t let users down when they provide the MSI Gaming App which comes with three modes - OC, Gaming and Silent mode to improve the card’s performance. Overall, this graphics card has proven itself to be one of the most affordable and best value cards in the mid-end market.
I would like to thank MSI Malaysia for making this review possible.
Performance: 5/5
Materials: 4/5
Specifications: 4/5
Appearance: 4/5
Performance/Price Value: 5/5
Pros:
+ Good stock performance
+ Cooler fans are quiet
+ Sexy cooler with twin-fan design and beefy heat pipes
+ Included MSI Gaming App with three modes to boost performance
Cons:
- Overclock ability could be improved
- Locked voltage as per NVIDIA’s protection policy
- Some memory chips at the back of the card are not cooled
- No dual BIOS chips
- Brown PCB might not be attractive to some of us
- Has a warranty sticker on one of the cooler’s screws hence dismantling of the cooler is not permitted unless advised by the manufacturer
- 2GB VRAM might not be sufficient for higher resolutions and some game titles
MSI GTX760 Twin Frozr 2GB OC received Silver Award from OCDrift.com
Disclaimer: OCDrift.com gives out our own award based on the Hardware Performance, OverClocking Ability, Innovation, and Value as determined by the reviewer
owikh84
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