Prolog
Pleasure to present today one of the best price/performance ratio video cards from Nvidia’s 7xx series.
The MSI GTX 760 OC 4 GB Twin Frozr Gaming – under this package from MSI, it turned out to be the coolest and most silent aftermarket solutions in all the 760s lineup.
Price when reviewed: £ 199.99 – via Amazon.co.uk
MSI Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 Gaming 4GB DDR5 Twin Frozer IV FAN PCI-E Graphics Card
That’s £ 30 more than the 2 GB version – We shall wee if it’s worth it.
MSI Nvidia GTX 760 2GB DDR5 TF Fan PCI-E Graphics Card
MSI – Micro-Star International
Is a Taiwanese electronics company, founded in 1986, based in New Taipei City.
It is one of the world’s largest information technology manufacturers for motherboards, video cards and also makes a range of other products including laptops, all-in-one computers, servers, industrial computers, household appliances, barebones systems, and multimedia devices.
When the board first came out back in June 2003, it was a lot cheaper at ~ 259 $ than the GTX 670 that it replaced at ~ 359 $.
The MSI GTX 760 Twin Frozr IV Gaming OC Edition comes overclocked out of the box by an additional 40 MHz at 1020 MHz base clock, up from the 980 MHz default clocks.
There is also a tonne of other advanced features like additional VRM cooling, Super Ferrite Chokes and up to 3 way SLI support.
MSI used their proprietary dual 100 mm fans with a large Aluminium fin grid array that provides a huge amount of surface area for cooling.
The quick specs are:
The GK104 GPU itself is from the Keplar architecture being used will have two shader cluster disabled thus we have 1152 CUDA cores, 96 texture and 32 raster operating units.
On a 256-bit memory bus connected to 2 GB or alternatively 4 GB (like the one reviewed) of GDDR5 video buffer memory, clocked at 6008 MHz giving us a total 192 GB/s memory bandwidth. Of course the interface is via PCI Express x16 3.0.
And it has one extra power phase (5+1 vs the NVIDIA reference at 4+1)
The TDP is 170 W and we’re starting to see why it became the sweet spot solution for gaming from almost any point of view.
Let’s see where it stands in the video card hierarchy.
Packaging
In the box it comes with:
- The Graphics Card
- 6-pin to 8-pin PCI-Express adapter
- Twin Molex to 6-pin power adapter
- Driver installation CD
- DVI adapter
- User guide
Board Inspection
Dimensions (L x W x H) are 260 x 126 x 38 mm.
Video output options:
- 1x Dual-link DVI-I
- 1x Dual-link DVI-D (with 2048×1536 @60 Hz max output)
- 1x HDMI (version 1.4a) (with 4096×2160 @24 Hz max output)
- 1x DisplayPort (version 1.2) ( with 4096×2160 @60 Hz max output)
Surprisingly, it features 2x 8-pin PEG connectors, compared to the reference design of 2x 6-pin and vs the 2 GB MSI TF version of 1x 6-pin & 1x 8-pin.
Another important difference with the GTX 760 MSI 4 GB compared to the 2 GB is that it has a back plate.
We also notice that the cooling structure is reinforced by a metal plate making the card very sturdy and preventing it from bending when mounted horizontally in the chassis. And it’s not a tall design to interfere in small cases.
Very nice.
So MSI did a great job in combining a lot of cooling hardware with aesthetics and design.
Testing
Hardware used:
Processor: Intel i7 2700k @ 3.5 GHz – Sandy Bridge 32nm, HT and Turbo Boost Enabled
CPU cooler: Thermalright AXP-100R @ 120 Noiseblocker eLOOP B12-P PWM
Motherboard: MSI B75IA-E33 mITX
RAM: 2 x 4 GB Crucial Ballistix Tactical Tracers 1600 MHz CL8
HDD : 2.5″ HGST 1 TB 7200 RPM 32 MB buffer
SSD : Samsung 840 Evo 120 GB
Case: NCase M1 mITX
Case Fans: 2x 120 mm Bitfenix Specter
PSU: SilverStone SFX 600 W w/ Single rail – 50 A – SX-600G
Display: Samsung 32″ FHD TV LED 100 Hz – UE32F5000
Sound Meter: Pyle PSPL01 – positioned 1 meter from the case, (we will include +/- 2-3 % margin for error) with ambient noise level of 25-30 dB/A
Software
Windows 7 Ultimate x64 SP1
NVIDIA GeForce 331.65 WHQL
MSI Afterburner 3.00.2384 – to record the FPS and video load/temperatures
3D Mark – All tests @ stock settings
Games: All set at 1920 x 1080 resolution with maximum settings applied.
Crysis 2
Crysis 3
Sniper Elite III
Diablo III RoS
Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag
Frames per seconds results:
Synthetic results:
Temperature results:
In idle desktop it sits at 26-28 degrees Celsius.
And we recorded the hottest temperature live via MSI Afterburner which was in Crysis 3 at 68 degrees Celsius.
Excellent numbers !
Noise results:
We can affirm that the MSI GTX 760 OC 4 GB with the Twin Frozr cooling set at auto %, was the quietest component in our build; we can offer the total system build noise at 37 dB/A.
Very impressive !
Conclusion
As previously stated, the N760 TF 4GD5OC it turned out to be one of the best buys from the 7xx series.
The good:
+ The performance is all you need at Full HD.
+ Very quiet
+ Very cool
+ Very nice design and quality all around
+ Compact design despite having the biggest fans as an aftermarket solution
+ Excellent price and we think it’s worth the extra price for this 4 GB version because you also get a back plate.
The bad:
– Can’t utilize all its 4 GB buffer in the games we used (maybe in the future things will change with better optimized games & drivers), but if you get another one and try the SLI route, then you can use all of its horsepower no matter what.
– Update 07/10/2014 – The game Shadow of Mordor is utilizing full 100 % of the 4 GB VRAM so it’s a matter of optimization and drivers.
Not much more to say than that it gets our:
Globetrotters “Best Buy” Award – 4.5 out of 5
