MSI GeForce GTX 760 Gaming OC 2GB Video Card Review in SLI and 2D Surround

MSI GeForce GTX 760 SLI

Earlier today we brought you a review of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 2GB reference card. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 uses the GK104 “Kepler” GPU and has 1152 CUDA cores with a base clock speed of 980MHz, while the boost clock speed is 1033MHz. The 2GB of GDDR5 memory runs on a 256-bit bus and is clocked at 6008MHz (effective). Pretty impressive specifications for a desktop graphics card in the $250 price segment.

However, pretty much every NVIDIA board partner will be offering factory overclocked GeForce GTX 760 boards that run at even higher clock speeds along with custom GPU coolers for improved cooling. This is great for consumers as when you purchase a desktop graphics cards you have a a wide variety brands and models to pick from. The number of different cards can be daunting, but you can get exactly what you want. The very first retail board partner GeForce GTX 760 card that we will be looking at is the MSI N760 TF 2GD5/OC. We were told to call it the MSI N760 TF 2GD5/OC, but if you go by the retail box it would be the GeForce GTX 760 Twin Frozr Gaming OC Edition.

The MSI GeForce GTX 760 Twin Frozr Gaming OC 2GB looks nothing like the NVIDIA Reference card as you can see from the image above.

GeForce GTX 760	MSI Twin Frozr Gaming 2GB	NVIDIA Reference
Model	N760 TF 2GD5/OC	reference
GPU boost clock	1085MHz	1033MHz
GPU base clock	1020MHz	980MHz
Memory clock	1502MHz (6008MHz)	1502MHz (6008MHz)
Memory interface	256-bit	256-bit
Price	$259.99	$249.99

The MSI GeForce GTX 760 Twin Frozr Gaming OC is clocked at 1020MHz on the core and 1085MHz on the boost clock. This is a 4% overclock on the base clock and a 5% overclock on the boost clock. The 2GB of GDDR5 memory runs at 1502MHz (6008MHz effective), so the memory has not been overclocked and is running at stock speeds.

MSI was kind enough to send over a pair of their GeForce GTX 760 Twin Frozr Gaming OC cards for us to try out in both single card and 2-way SLI.

The MSI GeForce GTX 760 Gaming features two 100mm (10cm) fans and the Twin Frozr IV GPU cooler that has 5 copper heat pipes. At start up the fans are audible but quickly fade to nearly inaudible.

MSI uses Military Class 4 components on the Gaming series card, so they have Hi-c CAP, new SFC and Solid CAP. The dual 10cm PWM fans have propeller blade technology with dust technology, so they spin backwards for a second when first started to prevent dust from blowing into the heat sink.

MSI went with an 8-pin and 6-pin PCI-e power connectors for their GeForce GTX 760 gaming edition card. MSI suggests a 500 Watt or greater power supply for proper operation.

Here we can see the video output connectors for the GTX760 card. It has a pair of dual-link DVI connectors, the bottom is a DVI-I while the top is DVI-D. Display Port is at the bottom left and HDMI is in the middle. The design looks is identical to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 reference card, so the video outputs are the same.

Here we have the back side of the card where it should be noted that this card uses a PCB that is 10.0″ in length, but the GPU cooler extends past the card making it nearly 10.25″ in length. This is about 0.75-inches longer than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 reference card.

From this angle you can better see that the Twin Frozr 4 GPU cooler extends past the PCB and how it pushes air in all directions. Not much air is exhausted out of the chassis, so it will be interesting to see how the temperatures are during our SLI testin.

MSI is using SK hynix GDDR5 IC’s that are marked H5GQ2H24AFR-R0C. These are the same exact ICs that NVIDIA used for the frame buffer on the reference card. According to the SK hynix website these specific IC’s are rated to run at 6.0Gbps (0.3ns) at 1.5V.

Let’s take a look at the retail box and bundle!