A Closer Look

MSI's Twin Frozr coolers are very popular, perform well, and have been tested well. The heatsink uses three heatpipes to keep the card cool.


Once we remove the main heatsink assembly, we see a smaller heatsink that provides cooling for the voltage regulation circuitry.


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-FC03. They are specified to run at 1500 MHz (6000 MHz GDDR5 effective).


MSI is using an OnSemi NCP5395 voltage controller on their card. It does not provide software voltage control via I2C, nor any monitoring features.


NVIDIA's new GK106 processor is produced on a 28 nm at TSMC, Taiwan. The transistor count is 2.54 billion.