A Closer Look

MSI's heatsink comes with five heatpipes and two fans to keep the card cool.


The card uses two external 6-pin PCI-Express power connectors. This power configuration is good for up to 225 W of power draw.


For voltage control both cards use the CHil CHL8225 controller, which is essentially the same as the CHL 8228 that's used on many high-end cards. It does offer extensive software voltage control and monitoring features and is well-supported by most overclocking software.


The GDDR5 memory chips are made by Hynix, and carry the model number H5GQ2H24MFR-T2C. They are specified to run at 1250 MHz (5000 MHz GDDR5 effective).


AMD's new Pitcairn graphics processor completes the AMD 28 nm GPU stack. It is produced on a 28 nm process at TSMC, with a transistor count of 2.8 billion.