MSI R6870 HAWK (Twin Frozr III Thermal Design) Review

Today we are using one of our Core i7 970 Intel systems, which is liquid cooled and overclocked to 4.33ghz.

Processor: Core i7 970 @ 4.3ghz
Cooling: Coolit Vantage
Motherboard: MSI X58A-GD65 (MS-7522)
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10
Power Supply: Corsair Ax1200
Memory: 6GB GSkill Performance Gaming ram @ 902.9 MHz (2:10) @ 7-8-7-24
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB Gen 2 SSD (Storage) / Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (OS boot)
Monitors: Dell U2410 UltraSharp, LaCie 730, Iiyama Prolite E2472HDD x2

Other graphics cards for comparisons:
nVidia GTX460 OC (740 core)
AMD HD6950
AMD HD5870
AMD HD6870
AMD HD6850
AMD HD5850

Software:
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
Catalyst 11.1
Forceware 263.58 WHQL
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark
TessMark
ShaderToy
HQV 2.0 Software

Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
Keithley Integra unit
Thermal Diodes
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp
Extech digital sound level meter & SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter

Games:
Alien V Predator
Far Cry 2
Resident Evil 5
Tom Clancy HAWX 2
Mafia 2
Lost Planet 2

All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests all games across five closely matched runs and average out the results to get an accurate median figure.

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