# MSI GTX 760 HAWK 2 GB



## W1zzard (Aug 20, 2013)

MSI's new GeForce GTX 760 HAWK comes with several features for overclockers, like LN2 Dual-BIOS and voltage measurement points. For normal users, the card has been heavily overclocked out of the box, making it the fastest GTX 760 we tested so far.

*Show full review*


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## Fluffmeister (Aug 20, 2013)

Fast card no doubt about it, low power consumption and with some nice O/C headroom, the GTX x60 series is now mixing it with the 7970, how things have moved on.


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## dj-electric (Aug 20, 2013)

"This could be a good indicator of what to expect when you buy the card, or we could have gotten a very lucky sample."

A quick look at other reviews show that overall, this just may be the best overclocking GTX760 to this day


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## Delta6326 (Aug 21, 2013)

Great review and very good card, little to much premium for me. 

Hey W1zz what would happen if you plug just 1 x 8pin in? It only used 230w...


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## DarkOCean (Aug 21, 2013)

Delta6326 said:


> Great review and very good card, little to much premium for me.
> 
> Hey W1zz what would happen if you plug just 1 x 8pin in? It only used 230w...



probably wont start.


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## raghu78 (Aug 21, 2013)

the 760 hawk is built well. but the price needs to come down. the GTX 760 has no chance against HD 7950 cards selling for USD 220 - 280 at newegg. these cards come clocked at 925 - 1000 mhz out of the box and on average OCs hit 1100 - 1150 mhz. at those speeds HD 7950 is faster than GTX 760(1.3 ghz)  

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/07/02/msi_n760_tf_2gd5oc_gtx_760_overclocking_review/5

         also TPU's performance summary average is disproportionately affected by Starcraft II which has the AMD cards running at just above 50% of Nvidia cards perf. If TPU can include a game which affects the average disproportinately there are many games which run much better on AMD cards which can find a place in tpu suite. eg:COH 2 with SSAA 4x, Dirt Showdown with Global Illumination 

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/07/22/company_heroes_2_performance_iq_review/6

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/896-14/benchmark-dirt-showdown.html

In other reviews on the web the HD 7970 Ghz is on par or slightly ahead of GTX 770 and the HD 7970 is faster than GTX 670. TPU shows a stock GTX 670 faster than stock HD 7970 which is not a correct reflection of how these cards perform in the latest and most popular games. 

http://techreport.com/review/24996/nvidia-geforce-gtx-760-graphics-card-reviewed/10
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2013/nvidia-geforce-gtx-770-im-test/4/
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/896-22/recapitulatif-performances.html


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## W1zzard (Aug 21, 2013)

raghu78 said:


> the GTX 760 has no chance against HD 7950 cards



amd fanboy or review troll too?

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/search.php?do=finduser&u=106613


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## EarthDog (Aug 21, 2013)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> "This could be a good indicator of what to expect when you buy the card, or we could have gotten a very lucky sample."
> 
> A quick look at other reviews show that overall, this just may be the best overclocking GTX760 to this day


Agreed. Mine clocked to the moon for my review!!!

The ram almost hit 2K in fact.


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## haswrong (Aug 21, 2013)

ok, so as i understand the review properly, the functionality of the ln2 bios switch wasnt tested, right?


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## EarthDog (Aug 21, 2013)

haswrong said:


> ok, so as i understand the review properly, the functionality of the ln2 bios switch wasnt tested, right?


All it does is disable OCP/OVP and allow a 185% power limit.

I could clock the same on the original bios as I was not hitting the power limit in the first place.


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## W1zzard (Aug 21, 2013)

haswrong said:


> ok, so as i understand the review properly, the functionality of the ln2 bios switch wasnt tested, right?



that's correct. see earthdog's response for what it does


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## EarthDog (Aug 21, 2013)

Wizz, you know more about bios' and how they work when I do. Is there a way manufacturers can implement a second bios without having to reinstall drivers? Its like the system thinks its a different card... Is that possible?


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## raghu78 (Aug 21, 2013)

W1zzard said:


> amd fanboy or review troll too?
> 
> http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/search.php?do=finduser&u=106613



first get your reviewing methodology right. stop benching cards which cost USD 170 and USD 700 at same settings 

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_650_Ti_Boost_TF_Gaming/13.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_760_HAWK/13.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_780_TF_Gaming/13.html

you have perf numbers which are meaningless. there is no min fps at all which is one of the most important factors in determining playability. no fraps graph. no frametimes using fraps or fcat. no video of the scene/level being tested as techreport and hardwarecanucks do or even explaining the level and exact gameplay scene being tested as hardocp do. how many benchmarks are actual gameplay benchmarks ?  how many are using in game benchmarks which in most cases is not a good indicator of game performance. pick  8 - 10 of the latest and most important games. focus on quality and not quantity. try and bring more credibility into your benchmarking. 

    and yes if you believe a 760 is better than a HD 7950 run a HD 7950(1150 mhz) vs a GTX 760(1300 Mhz) benchmark faceoff. also do not believe you are the only site on the internet benchmarking GPUs. many sites do a better job than you and there are even end users who do a better job than you. good luck. if you want to get vengeful and ban me goodbye.


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## haswrong (Aug 21, 2013)

so with ovp gone, can i change the voltage freely right away with the default app or do i have to ask for a special licence?


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## brandonwh64 (Aug 21, 2013)

raghu78 said:


> also do not believe you are the only site on the internet benchmarking GPUs. many sites do a better job than you and there are even end users who do a better job than you. good luck. if you want to get vengeful and ban me goodbye.


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## EarthDog (Aug 21, 2013)

Voltage is still limited. I will be testing out the MSI AB beta14 tonight to see if I can get 1.3x volts out of it though. I REALLY want 1400MHz core out of this thing on air... was close at 1359MHz for some benchmarks.



raghu78 said:


> first get your reviewing methodology right. stop benching cards which cost USD 170 and USD 700 at same settings
> 
> http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_650_Ti_Boost_TF_Gaming/13.html
> http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_760_HAWK/13.html
> ...


Wow...

1. Minimum framerates are important to an extent. Is anyone going to base a buying choice over what one FPS over THOUSANDS through the benchmark are? I think if one were to do a minimum FPS, it should be presented as time below XX FPS which gives one a better idea of how long it is hanging out down there. The value of that metric goes down the higher the FPS are anyway. 

2. Is there a point to test single card frametime? Last I heard this problem was with SLI/CFx which, for the most part, has been fixed outside of DX9 and multiple monitors...

3. I would like a more clear explanation of what sections of games are tested. I think he lists it when he adds it? But after that, I don't see a mention. 
3a. As far as manual walkthroughs to benchmark. I thought the same thing you did a while ago until I actually sat down and tested it. If you try to do the same things you did on each run through and not deliberately go off course so to speak, it is remarkably consistent. I mean sure you may not reload in the same place or duck for cover or whatever, but the longer that it is tested, the less overall variance you will have between results for the most part. Also, not a lot of games have canned benchmarks either. So do we(reviewers) leave out a AAA title like BF3 because it doesnt have a canned benchmark? That is the question reviewers ask themselves on this issue (well our team anyway, LOL!).

I really think there is a much better way to get your point across than to post in the manner you did. Wizz is a well respected reviewer and his reviews are right up there in places I look first, and many others do as well. If I were to nitpick, my only concern with the reviews, all of them here, is the scoring. I do not think there is an empirical method behind it. For example, what  is the difference between a 8.5 and 8.7? How do you take off tenths of points? It just seems 'different' each time. That said, I never look at the scores but the data, which is plenty to make an informed decision off of. On the flip side, the site I review for uses Approved, MEH, and Fail and have each clearly defined. 

No review site or method is perfect... we all try to do the best we can to bring the best information to the readers. Give him some slack or be CONSTRUCTIVE in your criticism. 

*Wizz, keep up the good work you and thousands of others know you do. Don't let punks like this slow you down.*


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## raghu78 (Aug 21, 2013)

EarthDog said:


> Wow...
> 
> 1. Minimum framerates are important to an extent. Is anyone going to base a buying choice over what one FPS over THOUSANDS through the benchmark are? I think if one were to do a minimum FPS, it should be presented as time below XX FPS which gives one a better idea of how long it is hanging out down there. The value of that metric goes down the higher the FPS are anyway.



thats why a fraps fps graph is useful in seeing how much time it spends below 30 fps. even then it has been shown that frametime graphs are the best measure of gameplay smoothness. 



> 2. Is there a point to test single card frametime? Last I heard this problem was with SLI/CFx which, for the most part, has been fixed outside of DX9 and multiple monitors...



yes there is. just because it has been fixed in  past games does not mean frametime consistency issues will not occur in future titles. reviewers need to make sure Nvidia/AMD don't let up. 



> 3. I would like a more clear explanation of what sections of games are tested. I think he lists it when he adds it? But after that, I don't see a mention.
> 3a. As far as manual walkthroughs to benchmark. I thought the same thing you did a while ago until I actually sat down and tested it. If you try to do the same things you did on each run through and not deliberately go off course so to speak, it is remarkably consistent. I mean sure you may not reload in the same place or duck for cover or whatever, but the longer that it is tested, the less overall variance you will have between results for the most part. Also, not a lot of games have canned benchmarks either. So do we(reviewers) leave out a AAA title like BF3 because it doesnt have a canned benchmark?



no.  reviewers should avoid in game benchmarks and look at benchmarking gameplay runs. obviously they need to try and keep the run as much consistent as possible. so as you mention it involves not deviating from a planned course or set of actions. 



> I really think there is a much better way to get your point across than to post in the manner you did. Wizz is a well respected reviewer and his reviews are right up there in places I look first, and many others do as well.



yeah i would have if he had not called me a fanboy. If he believes he is non-biased why would he respond with personal attacks. 

tpu reviews need to reflect the trends in benchmarking and the focus on gameplay quality (frametimes) rather than raw perf(avg fps). anyway thats for tpu to figure out.


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## EarthDog (Aug 21, 2013)

> yes there is. just because it has been fixed in past games does not mean frametime consistency issues will not occur in future titles. reviewers need to make sure Nvidia/AMD don't let up


Perhaps you do not understand. That issue is with MULTIPLE GPUs, not single... so why would that be an issue in THIS review?


Bias and personal attacks have nothing to do with each other... I dont get the point there. 

That said, I'm out. Nice review as always Wizz!


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## rysyndrome (Aug 21, 2013)

Thanks for the review.  This is my first post (new to PC gaming) and just got this card from online retailer.  I am very impressed though I'm noticing driver instability in some benchmarks, notably 3DMark demo and Metro Last Light benchmark. Also had a few games that would fail to start. Had to revert Nvidia driver back to 320.49 from 320.63 I believe it was.  Now Metro Last Light is working but 3DMark demo is still crashing about 2mins in.  Looks like a new driver might be out today so gonna give it a shot this evening. Still very happy with this GPU as it runs all my games in HD very well and is super quiet.  Paid $289 like the review says.  Was worth the extra $20-$30 over the gaming version to me, but I have an MPower board and wanted the look along with the quality.  

BTW, I love Techpowerup and its Android app.  Helps me stay informed even with a busy schedule.  Thanks again and please keep providing these great reviews!!


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## EarthDog (Aug 21, 2013)

I used the 326.xx beta driver that is at the Nvidia site, and 3DMark (Firestrike) worked just fine. We do not test Metro:LL though, sorry.


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## raghu78 (Aug 21, 2013)

EarthDog said:


> Perhaps you do not understand. That issue with with MULTIPLE GPUs, not single... so why would that be an issue in THIS review?



the topic of frametime consistency problems on single GPU became a huge issue with techreport's article on AMD HD 7950 last dec. 

http://techreport.com/review/23981/radeon-hd-7950-vs-geforce-gtx-660-ti-revisited/11

after that a lot of sites have started bringing in fraps or fcat based frametime benchmarking.


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## EarthDog (Aug 21, 2013)

Fraps frametime is not good at showing the big picture. So MEH on that techreport article. THEY needed to do it right, LOL! One needs the FCAT behind it...Here is a quote from our article/take on this whole thing...Please specifically go to the Anandtech link which should clear a lot of things up for you. 



> AMD dislikes FRAPS as a tool. They gave Anandtech’s Ryan Smith an exclusive interview and outlook on their opinion with regard to FRAPS measurements and their driver roadmap. In it, basically, they admit to a problem with CrossfireX, say they’re working on drivers to address the problem and hope to come out with them sometime this summer. *Their takeaway with FRAPS is that it shows problems where none exist, and amplifies them where they do.
> 
> Interestingly, NVIDIA agrees with AMD about FRAPS. They dislike its use as a frame time measuring tool for the very same reasons.*



Regarding single card issues (from anand article): 





> In this scenario, at the end of the rendering pipeline every frame could be displayed at an even pace despite the unevenness at the input, but FRAPS would never know. This doesn’t mean it’s not an issue, as uneven presents will cause the gap in time between the simulation steps to suddenly become uneven as well. But unless the heartbeat pattern occurs with high regularity *or the size of the beat is enough to let the context queue drain completely, the impact from this scenario is far less than having the frames come out of the end of the rendering pipeline unevenly. Ultimately it’s another form of stuttering, but in the case of FRAPS looks far worse than it would be if we were measuring the end of the rendering pipeline and what the user was actually seeing.*



Also note, for single cards, it was mostly fixed since march: 





> There is still work to do – AMD quickly fixed their DX9 issues, while DX10 fixes are in the process of being rolled out – but in many ways this is a post-mortem on the issue rather than being an explanation of what AMD will do in the future. Not every game is fixed yet, but many are. Scott Wasson’s most recent results show an incredible improvement for AMD compared to where they were even 6 months ago.



More on FRAPS being MEH for this testing: 





> AMD’s concern – and one that NVIDIA has shared with them in the past – is that measuring the rendering pipeline at the beginning of the pipeline like FRAPS goes about it does not accurately represent what the end user is seeing, due to the various buffers in the Pipeline and how the Present mechanism works. While FRAPS was good enough to pick up on the major stuttering issues in AMD’s drivers, as these issues get resolved it’s far too coarse a tool to pick up on finer issues, and in fact what FRAPS is now seeing is decoupled from what the user is seeing due to the presence of the context queue and other buffers. All of these, for the record, are points we agreed with AMD on, even before our meeting.





> If FRAPS is no longer an adequate tool to measure stuttering and frame intervals – as both AMD and NVIDIA insist – then new methods and new tools must be created to measure those factors at the end of the rendering pipeline, where the results would match what the end user is seeing.



Single card testing: 





> Single GPU Configurations – *Performance as Expected*
> 
> Today’s results focus on the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 as well as their SLI/CrossFire options, but let’s start with a quick talk about the results we see with the single card and single GPU configurations.  Frame Rating still tells an interesting and unique story compared to FRAPS and thanks to some of our data analysis, (Min FPS percentiles, International Stutter Units) the HD 7970 and GTX 680 compare different than they might otherwise.
> 
> We definitely can’t say the same for the multi-GPU results, but when using only a single GPU both AMD and NVIDIA platforms show consistent results on a run to run basis as well as when we compare Frame Rating to the traditional FRAPS average frame rates and frame times.  When we showed you the FRAPS graph followed by the Observed FPS graphics you should have seen that *both the single GTX 680 and the single HD 7970 are basically the same on both*.


http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...ils-Capture-based-Graphics-Performance-Tes-12


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## MxPhenom 216 (Aug 21, 2013)

FRAPs is not the tool to use to determine frame times to begin with. It does not read the frames that get transferred through the cable onto the monitor. 

And again, frametime issues are virtually non existent on single GPU solutions, it may show up from time to time, but compared to multi GPU solutions its a non issue.

This guy......


raghu78 said:


> first get your reviewing methodology right. stop benching cards which cost USD 170 and USD 700 at same settings
> 
> http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_650_Ti_Boost_TF_Gaming/13.html
> http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_760_HAWK/13.html
> ...


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## W1zzard (Aug 21, 2013)

EarthDog said:


> my only concern with the reviews, all of them here, is the scoring. I do not think there is an empirical method behind it. For example, what is the difference between a 8.5 and 8.7? How do you take off tenths of points? It just seems 'different' each time.



there is no methodology for the numeric score. it's based on my personal feel, mostly relative to other cards of the same series. the idea is to condense the whole review into a single number, which is kinda impossible as we all know, but it helps some people decide whether they even want to read the conclusion (after skipping to that page immediately of course) 



raghu78 said:


> many sites do a better job than you and there are even end users who do a better job than you. good luck. if you want to get vengeful and ban me goodbye.



then why are you even here wasting your time commenting?



raghu78 said:


> he had not called me a fanboy


I just searched your recent posts and made an observation



raghu78 said:


> Minimum framerates



minimum fps is a useless metric. in many cases it measures when a harddisk access or similar occurs that slows down an individual frame, ignoring the rest of the benchmark data. you play for an hour and determine overall playability by a sub-second instant in time?

imo the correct way to use minimum fps is to provide a histogram of frametimes, probably with some rejection of outliers, which no normal user would understand



EarthDog said:


> Also, not a lot of games have canned benchmarks



games which have a benchmark use the benchmark, everything else (the majority) uses normal gaming.
publishing which scenes you use is the same as using a canned benchmark because drivers will be actively optimized for it by NV and AMD


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## Casecutter (Aug 21, 2013)

It's a maneuver to plug the chasm that’s between their $260 and $400 offerings, but 13% more money for 9% performance, its value isn't stunning.  OC brings that value position up, but hard to say how given BF3 would translate across various games.  I'd like to see a head-to-head between this and some" Top-Shelf" 7950 Boost.  The last set of numbers for such a card was Nov 2012, for a HIS 7950 IceQ X² Boost 3 Gb, hard to correlate (1920x1200) such results.  While I concur the Summary isn't the whole story, you need to peruse the individual games.

Given the AMD "sell-off" here in the States... Newegg there's been various 7950 w/Boost for $180 working codes and rebates, plus 3 games from Radeon Gold Rewards, or a nice Sapphire (100351SR) 7970 OC with Boost down at $260, and 3 titles to pick from, it's hard to be ecstatic for this.  Essentially Nvidia is now dropping a binned version off "first-round" GK104 (aka a GTX660Ti) they’ve accumulated for months and still believe the credence it’s a $300 offering.  

In about 4 weeks this might not appear to be any value, I perceive a shake-up in the mainstream segment.


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## cadaveca (Aug 21, 2013)

raghu78 said:


> the topic of frametime consistency problems on single GPU became a huge issue with techreport's article on AMD HD 7950 last dec.
> 
> http://techreport.com/review/23981/radeon-hd-7950-vs-geforce-gtx-660-ti-revisited/11
> 
> after that a lot of sites have started bringing in fraps or fcat based frametime benchmarking.



All reviewer FCAT systems were supplied by Nvidia. FCAT was developed and is published by Nvidia. The fact W1zz doesn't use this form of testing shows his lack of bias, I think.


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## Ikaruga (Aug 21, 2013)

raghu78 said:


> first get your reviewing methodology right. stop benching cards which cost USD 170 and USD 700 at same settings
> 
> http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_650_Ti_Boost_TF_Gaming/13.html
> http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_760_HAWK/13.html
> ...



Not that Wizzard would need my defense here, but I seriously think that you are missing the point, so here I go: 
Do you really think that Wizzard and others on this site are only reading TPU and we never see other reviews, or we don't know about things like fraps and fcat, etc? I mean (but seriously...)  do you really think that's what actually happens, like it's only you who goes to other sites and read reviews? Just think about it for a second please.

Now that being sad... my take would be:

He is comparing cards out there on a scale like nobody else does.. period. Yes, his method might be a little inaccurate sometimes (on a small case in some games, but it's not synthetic benching anyway), but try to look at the big picture please, or go and try to do it better if you can. 
He was reviewing a single Nvidia card, which has non of the frame-time/latency/drop issues you are so worried about, that was always purely an AMD and/or MultiGPU "feature".
I have to agree with you that minimum fps is indeed very important when it comes to serious gaming experience (but lets say the lowest 5% what matters  and not just a few bad frames).

ps.: Thank you very much Wizzard for the great review again, and please keep up the good work


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## EarthDog (Aug 21, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> All reviewer FCAT systems were supplied by Nvidia. FCAT was developed and is published by Nvidia. The fact W1zz doesn't use this form of testing shows his lack of bias, I think.


Heh, we looked into buying a system for it... saw the price of the hardware, talked it over within the team again, and decided that even if it was cheap, we weren't going to do it due to how quickly the issue would be resolved and how much of a non issue it really was to the VAST majority of users (considering it was only CFx, which not many use in the first place compared to single GPU users, and it didnt affect all... at least not everyone noticed). Not to mention, we do not review a lot of SLI/CFx setups in the first place. I have probably reviewed 3 or 4 sets of cards like that over the past 3+ years.


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## fullinfusion (Aug 21, 2013)

brandonwh64 said:


> http://fim.413chan.net/art/src/131634164930-oh-he-mad.jpg



Hey brandon, I think buddie has his cranky panties on lol..
Great review wizz but I'm happy to have what I haz.
Just a question,  why not try the amd 13.8 b1 for testing as they seem to work well for me over all other amd drivers?


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## rysyndrome (Aug 22, 2013)

EarthDog said:


> I used the 326.xx beta driver that is at the Nvidia site, and 3DMark (Firestrike) worked just fine. We do not test Metro:LL though, sorry.



Thanks for the suggestion.  I tried the beta driver and 3DMark is still crashing on me.  I also noticed and "squeal or whine" coming from the PSU as soon as I start the benchmark demo.  It's weird cause I don't hear that with any other benchmark/stress test that I have tried.  PSU is a EVGA 750 bronze unit so should be sufficient at least I thought.  Oh well, I'll just stick to games...


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## tom_mili (Aug 22, 2013)

Nice review as always 
Another card that uses NCP4206, that means moar voltage 
I think it has something to do with MSI supporting NCP4206 implementation on their latest AB Beta


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## BiggieShady (Aug 26, 2013)

raghu78 said:


> stop benching cards which cost USD 170 and USD 700 at same settings



... because not being able to compare is so much more fun! 



cadaveca said:


> All reviewer FCAT systems were supplied by Nvidia. FCAT was developed and is published by Nvidia. The fact W1zz doesn't use this form of testing shows his lack of bias, I think.



Your alignment has shifted towards neutral good  ... but it's fair to say that there is no nvidia magic in FCAT setup, tech is simple and public knowledge. 
Setup is expensive only for its high write speed requirements for storage because it needlessly writes content of every frame along with the colored bars (useful for seeing tears and microstutter in slo-mo). 
For result graphs, only the vertical colored bars are needed ... one pixel wide. 
RAW fcat data could be written to a storage with around 2000 times lower write speed.


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