MSI Twin Frozr GTX770 OC Review

Today we look at a customised, overclocked version of the new Nvidia GTX770 graphics card from MSI. The latest GTX770 is based around the same GK104 GPU that was used in the ever popular GTX680. The GTX770 is priced close to the HD7970 and targets the high end gaming audience who don't want to compromise their frame rate performance at high resolutions. Should this be making your shortlist for a new system upgrade? Nvidia enjoyed great success with their GTX680 solution, and rightly so. Not only was the card a frame rate monster, but it delivered great power efficiency and the reference cooler was quiet under load. Always a bonus not to be dealing with irritating fan noise during those late evening gaming sessions. Nvidia partners will be shipping their GTX770 cards in two configurations. 2GB models will target the 1080p gaming audience and a 4GB version will be released at extra cost to tackle those 30 inch and multiple monitor configurations. All GTX770 graphics cards will ship with 7Gbps memory modules, currently the world's fastest GDDR5. Nvidia claim peak memory bandwidth is 224.3Gb/s - or 15% more than last year's GTX680. The MSI MSI Twin Frozr GTX770 OC we are reviewing today ships with 2GB of GDDR5 memory. The GTX770 also features GPU Boost 2.0 technology currently used in other models such as the GTX Titan and GTX780. This gives the user fine control when overclocking, hardware monitoring and adjusting fan control. The GTX770 is replacing the GTX670 within Nvidia's lineup. Final pricing of the reference card is around the £330 inc vat point. We don't have confirmed pricing for MSI's Twin Frozr GTX770 OC version, but we expect it to retail for around £360 inc vat. Nvidia claim that this new solution delivers nearly twice the performance per watt compared against the GTX 570. Our MSI Twin Frozr GTX770 OC sample features a beautiful black heatsink and dark PCB with red accenting on the heatsink. The MSI logo is positioned between the fans. The MSI Twin Frozr GTX770OC card is overclocked to 1,059 mhz, with a boost clock speed of 1,111 mhz. The memory clock speed is set at 1,753 mhz (7,012 mhz effective) - the highest memory speed we have seen to date. The base speed of the reference GTX770 is 1,046mhz with a typical boost speed of 1,085mhz. The Nvidia GTX770 ships with 8 SMX units which provide 1,536 CUDA cores. The memory subsystem of the card consists of four 64 bit memory controllers (256 bit). The MSI Twin Frozr GTX770 ships in a very stylish box featuring their logo in the corner and the name of the product and specifications along the right side. The bundle includes a quick user manual, a software disc, two power converter cables and a video converter adapter. Not surprisingly, this is a dual slot graphics card. On closer inspection, the PCB of the card is actually dark brown, and not black. The 11 blade fans are high performance models, designed to maintain a low noise threshold when they are spinning fast. The MSI Twin Frozr GTX770 OC takes power from two 8 PIN PCIe power connectors. We have been told that the reference card will utilise a 6 pin and an 8 pin power connector. The MSI card has clearly been designed with further overclocking in mind. We will look at this in more detail, later in the review. The card is SLI capable in 2, 3 and 4 way configurations. On the rear panel there are two DVI connectors, alongside a full sized HDMI and DisplayPort connector. The cooler is relatively easy to remove. The core is nickel plated and there are five thick heatpipes which run into two rack of aluminum fins on either side of the base. MSI have incorporated a plate to help offer additional cooling for the GDDR5 memory and VRM's underneath. On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. You can right click and ‘save as’ to your computer to view later. For this review today we are using the latest versions of both AMD and Nvidia drivers. We are using the ForceWare 320.18 driver with the GTX770. We built a very high end liquid cooled Core i7 3960x system and overclocked it to 4.4ghz. We paired it up with 16GB of 2,400mhz memory and an ASUS Rampage IV Extreme motherboard. We included a wide cross section of cards in this review today - although our GTX680 sample decided to die just before the review started and we were unable to get one in time for NDA lifting today. We will likely revisit this at a future date when we get more samples in for review. While many of the cards featured in the review fall in a price bracket below or above the £330-£350 price zone of the GTX770 - The Sapphire HD7970 OC Boost 3GB is very closely matched - available for around £340 inc vat at OCUK this week. This can be used a direct comparison, based on price. Test System Processor: Core i7 3960 X Extreme Edition @ 4.4ghz Graphics Card: MSI Twin Frozr GTX770 OC (Forceware 320.18 beta) Cooler: Antec 920 H20 Memory: 16GB G.Skill 2,400mhz @ 10-11-10-30 Motherboard: Asus Rampage IV Extreme Power Supply: Enermax Platimax 1250W Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive Chassis: Lian Li PC-A77FR Aluminium Red Full Tower Case Boot Drive: Patriot WildFire 120GB Secondary Drive: 1TB Samsung Monitors: Dell U3011 and Dell U2410 x 3. Other video cards: Sapphire HD7990 Sapphire HD7970 Toxic 6GB (1200mhz core /1600mhz memory) Sapphire HD7970 OC Boost 3GB Sapphire HD7950 Vapor X XFX HD7870 Core Edition XFX HD7850 Core Edition Sapphire HD7790 (1GB & 2GB versions) XFX HD7770 Core Edition Nvidia GTX690 Nvidia GTX Titan Zotac GTX670 Gainward GTX660ti Gainward GTX660 Zotac GTX650 Software: Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit Unigine Heaven Benchmark Unigine Valley Benchmark 3DMark Vantage 3DMark 11 3DMark Fraps Professional Steam Client FurMark Games: Alien V Predator Total War: Shogun 2 Dirt Showdown Sleeping Dogs May Payne 3 Tomb Raider All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page. Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand. Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable: Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems Multicore CPU support Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles) Powerful C++ API Comprehensive performance profiling system Flexible XML-based data structures We use the following settings: 1920×1080 resolution. Anti Aliasing off. Anisotrophy 4, Tessellation normal. Shaders High. Stereo 3D disabled. API: Direct X 11. The MSI GTX770 TF OC delivers a fantastic result in this benchmark, outperforming even the Sapphire 6GB HD7970 Toxic Edition. When compared directly against the overclocked 3GB Sapphire HD7970 it is around 12fps faster. Valley Benchmark is a new GPU stress-testing tool from the developers of the very popular and highly acclaimed Heaven Benchmark. The forest-covered valley surrounded by vast mountains amazes with its scale from a bird’s-eye view and is extremely detailed down to every leaf and flower petal. This non-synthetic benchmark powered by the state-of-the art UNIGINE Engine showcases a comprehensive set of cutting-edge graphics technologies with a dynamic environment and fully interactive modes available to the end user. We used the settings above at 1920×1080. Again, performance in this synthetic benchmark is fantastic, averaging almost 93 frames per second, and slightly outperforming the 6GB Toxic Edition from Sapphire. The 3GB Sapphire HD7970 Boost OC is around 9 frames per second slower than the overclocked MSI Twin Frozr GTX770. Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings. The MSI GTX770 Boost OC is slightly faster than the Sapphire HD7970 3GB Boost OC, scoring 38,366 points - compared against 37,882 points. 3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page. The system with the GTX770 OC scores almost 11,000 points, around 700 points more than the HD7970 3GB Boost OC and around 700 points behind the Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition. 3DMark is an essential tool used by millions of gamers, hundreds of hardware review sites and many of the world’s leading manufacturers to measure PC gaming performance. Futuremark say “Use it to test your PC’s limits and measure the impact of overclocking and tweaking your system. Search our massive results database and see how your PC compares or just admire the graphics and wonder why all PC games don’t look this good. To get more out of your PC, put 3DMark in your PC.” The system scores 7,051 points, almost head to head with the Sapphire HD7970 3GB Boost OC Edition. Shogun 2 is set in 16th-century feudal Japan, in the aftermath of the Ōnin War. The country is fractured into rival clans led by local warlords, each fighting for control. The player takes on the role of one of these warlords, with the goal of dominating other factions and claiming his rule over Japan. The standard edition of the game will feature a total of eight factions (plus a ninth faction for the tutorial), each with a unique starting position and different political and military strengths. We run the DX11 Graphics High 1080p benchmark, available for this game in STEAM. You can therefore directly compare against your own system. This engine has always ran better on AMD graphics cards and there is no change with the results today. While the MSI GTX770 TF OC has outperformed the Sapphire HD7970 3GB Boost OC in most of the tests, it lags slightly behind in this test. Aliens V Predator has proved to be a big seller since the release and Sega have taken the franchise into new territory after taking it from Sierra. AVP is a Direct X 11 supported title and delivers not only advanced shadow rendering but high quality tessellation for the cards on test today. To test the cards we used a 1920×1080 resolution with DX11, Texture Quality Very High, MSAA Samples 1, 16 af, ambient occulsion on, shadow complexity high, motion blur on. Another strong Direct X 11 engine for AMD hardware, although the MSI GTX770 TF OC scores very well, averaging 112 frames per second. Sleeping Dogs started development as an original title, but was announced in 2009 as True Crime: Hong Kong, the third installment and a reboot of the True Crime series. As a result of the game’s high development budget and delays, it was canceled by Activision Blizzard in 2011. Six months later, it was announced that Square Enix had picked up the publishing rights to the game, but the game was renamed Sleeping Dogs in 2012 since Square Enix did not purchase the True Crime name rights. We are using the highest possible image quality settings at 1080p, including the high resolution texture pack. This is a very demanding Direct X 11 engine and at these settings you will need a very capable system if you want to get smooth frame rates. The MSI GTX770 TF OC scores well, averaging 50 frames per second, almost identical to the Sapphire HD7970 3GB Boost OC. Max Payne 3 is a third-person shooter in which the player assumes the role of its titular character, Max Payne. Max Payne 3 features a similar over-the-shoulder camera as its predecessors, with the addition of a cover mechanic, while also retaining much of the same run-and-gun style of gameplay. Max Payne 3 also marks the return of bullet-time in action sequences, for which the franchise is notable. In bullet-time it is possible to see every bullet strike an enemy in detail. New to the series is a “Last Stand” mechanic, which gives the player a grace period after losing all health during which time the player may kill the enemy that wounded them in order to continue playing, however this mechanic is only usable if the player has one or more bottles of painkillers in their possession. The MSI GTX770 TF OC scores well, averaging 63 frames per second, just behind the Sapphire HD7970 3GB Boost Edition. After a delayed release from late 2012 to March 2013, the game received much anticipation and hype. Tomb Raider received much acclaim from critics, who praised the graphics, the gameplay and Camilla Luddington’s performance as Lara with many critics agreeing that the game is a solid and much needed reboot of the franchise. Much criticism went to the addition of the multiplayer which many felt was unnecessary. Tomb Raider went on to sell one million copies in forty-eight hours of its release, and has sold 3.4 million copies worldwide so far. We used the Ultimate quality setting at 2560×1600 with the settings detailed above. The MSI GTX770 OC averages 37 frames per second, which is around 3-5 fps less than the Sapphire HD7970 3GB Boost OC Edition. The MSI GT770 OC may be bottom of this particular chart but it still maintains a smooth frame rate above 25 at all times. Dirt Showdown is the latest title in the franchise from Codemasters, based around the famous Colin McRae racing game series, although it no longer uses his name, since he passed away in 2007. We configured the game at the ULTRA preset with a 1080p resolution and 8x MSAA. Solid performance at these settings, averaging 67 frames per second and maintaining a frame rate of 50 or greater at all times. The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 24c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this. Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes.Load measurements were acquired by playing Crysis Warhead for 30 minutes and measuring the peak temperature. We also have included Furmark results, recording maximum temperatures throughout a 30 minute stress test. All fan settings were left on automatic. The MSI GTX770 TF OC cooler seems capable, holding load temperatures at 72c in our specific environment. The temperatures increase to 79c under synthetic Furmark load - not a 'real world' result however. We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with almost completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests. Ambient noise in the room is around 20-25dBa. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation. Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635. KitGuru noise guide 10dBA - Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves 20-25dBA – Whisper 30dBA - High Quality Computer fan 40dBA - A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator 50dBA - Normal Conversation 60dBA - Laughter 70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer 80dBA - City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal 90dBA - Motorcycle or Lawnmower 100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output 110dBA - Orchestra 120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine 130dBA – Threshold of Pain 140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range) 160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum This is an extremely quiet card, barely audible under gaming load. The two fans only spin at 1,000 rpm when idle, and this rises to between 1,300 rpm and 1,400 rpm under load. We used the latest version of MSI Afterburner to handle the overclocking today. We managed to push the core clock to 1161mhz (1,213mhz turbo), and the memory from 1,753 mhz to 1,822mhz. These translate to a 9.6% and 4% increase respectively. The manual overclock translates into around a 500 point increase. Still not enough to catch the Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic, but considering the price difference of around £130 we could class that as a win for MSI. The MSI Twin Frozr GTX770 OC Edition is without question an exceptional graphics card. First impressions are positive ... MSI have really went to town on the cooling solution, adopting a dual 11-blade fan cooling system. The appearance is certainly attractive - the sporty red stripes and 'Gaming G Series' badge help lift the dark PCB and cooling shroud. There are certainly no concerns in regards to performance. The MSI Twin Frozr GTX770 OC is significantly ahead of the GTX670 and it also outperformed the similarly priced Sapphire HD7970 3GB Boost OC Edition in most of the synthetic tests and held close to same performance level with the game titles we selected. Many of the game engines we tested do tend to favour AMD hardware. Nvidia confirmed that the expected retail price of a reference style board will be £329.99 inc vat. The MSI Twin Frozr GTX770 OC will cost around £359.99 inc vat. ARIA have listed an order page over here, if you wish to buy one. Nvidia have the pricing spot on, as AMD partners such as Sapphire are charging around £340-£350 inc vat for their customised HD7970 solutions. We would give the performance edge to Nvidia's GTX770, especially if more of their partners are releasing overclocked, custom cooled GTX770 graphics cards in and around £350 inc vat. Sure, it is a lot of money, but you get a lot of graphics performance for the outlay. Furthermore, the MSI Twin Frozr GTX770 OC Edition is one of the quietest high performance video cards we have ever tested, inaudible when idle and quiet under load. Thanks to the hefty cooler underneath the shroud, the company have been able to adopt a passive fan profile, spinning between 1,000 rpm and 1,300 rpm. This has helped reduce noise levels significantly and we would be hard pressed to know the GTX770 was in operation most of the time, even in a fairly quiet room. This is a win for both Nvidia and MSI. It is the new champion around the £350 mark especially when you factor in the remarkably low noise levels. Pros: Superb cooling system. very quiet, even under load. excellent performance. some overclocking headroom. competitively priced. Cons: Not cheap. Kitguru says: A killer custom solution from MSI. We love it.