A Closer Look

MSI's cooler uses five heatpipes. To maximize heat transfer, two of these are of a fat variant.


Secondary components like memory and voltage regulation circuitry are cooled by two smaller heatsinks.


Power delivery requires two 8-pin PCI-Express power connectors. This configuration is specified for up to 375 W power draw.


MSI is using an OnSemi NCP81174 voltage controller, the same as on the NVIDIA GTX 980 reference design. It is a cost-effective solution without support for I2C, so there is no advanced monitoring. Its VID-based voltages can be monitored and controlled through NVIDIA's driver.


The GDDR5 memory chips are made by Samsung and carry the model number K4G41325FC-HC28. They are specified to run at 1750 MHz (7000 MHz GDDR5 effective).


NVIDIA's new GM204 graphics processor brings the Maxwell architecture to the high-end. It is produced on a 28 nm process at TSMC, Taiwan, with a transistor count of 5.2 billion and a die size of 398 mm².