A Closer Look

MSI has come up with a clever cooler design that can be customized depending on the user's cooling requirements. In its standard configuration (first picture), just a single fan is present. You can stack the included fan on top of it to increase air flow (second picture). The whole cooler assembly can also be moved back to make space for the second fan next to the first one, which increases the cooled surface area (third picture).


MSI's cooler uses a copper base and a doubled up heatpipe to provide cooling for the card. Please note the thermal pads that cool secondary components on the board.


The card requires a single 6-pin PCI-Express connectors. This power configuration is good for up to 150 W of power draw.


The GDDR5 memory chips are made by Samsung and carry the model number K4G20325FD-FC04. They are specified to run at 1250 MHz (5000 MHz GDDR5 effective).


NVIDIA's GK107 graphics processor is the company's second Kepler GPU. It is, just like the GK104, made on a 28 nanometer process at TSMC, Taiwan. We've seen it before on the GeFoce GT 640. The transistor count is 1.3 billion, and the die size we measured is 118 mm².