A Closer Look

MSI's cooler uses two large fans and five heatpipes to keep the card cool.


The front side of the card (with the GPU) is covered by a secondary metal heatsink that cools the memory chips and voltage regulation circuitry.


MSI has installed some additional MOSFETs on the back of card to spread around the heat generated by the VRM circuitry. These components are cooled by this metal backplate that is installed on the back of the card; it also helps protect against damage while handling the card.


The card requires two 8-pin PCI-Express power connectors. This configuration is good for up to 375 W of power draw.


You will find MSI's GPU reactor on the back of the card. It uses an additional PCB to provide extra voltage filtering to the GPU. It has also been placed there to be as close as possible to the GPU, which maximizes its effect.


A BIOS switch is used to toggle between the normal- and LN2 BIOS. It is also a useful feature should a BIOS flash fail.


The card uses a CHiL 8318 for voltage control. It offers extensive software voltage control and comes with many monitoring features.


Three easy-to-use voltage check points are located near an edge of the card. They provide measuring access for GPU-, memory-, and PLL voltage.


The GDDR5 memory chips are made by Samsung and carry the model number K4G20325FD-FC28. They are specified to run at 1750 MHz (7000 MHz GDDR5 effective).


NVIDIA's GK104 graphics processor introduced the company's Kepler architecture. Manufactured at TSMC in Taiwan, it is NVIDIA's first chip to be produced on a 28 nm process. The transistor count is 3.54 billion.