A Closer Look

MSI's cooler uses the same baseplate as the cooler on the MSI R9 280X GAMING, but its two fans have a smaller diameter. Five heatpipes are used to transport heat away from the GPU quickly.


MSI has also added a baseplate to the card. It cools memory chips and voltage regulation circuitry.


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


A dual BIOS feature is present on the MSI R9 270X HAWK, which will come in handy when something goes wrong during a BIOS flash.


Three voltage measurement points are available near the back of the card.


This is the first time I see this International Rectifier IR3563B voltage controller on a graphics card. I've seen it on some motherboards before. It offers software voltage control and monitoring, but is not supported by any overclocking software yet.


The GDDR5 memory chips are made by Elpida and carry the model number W2032BBBG-6A-F. They are specified to run at 1500 MHz (6000 MHz GDDR5 effective).


AMD's Pitcairn graphics processor uses the GCN shader architecture. It is produced on a 28 nm process at TSMC. The transistor count is 2.8 billion.