MSI GTX780 Ti Twin Frozr Gaming OC Review

Using Twin Frozr cooling and incorporating a huge factory overclock, we test MSI’s interpretation of the NVIDIA GTX780 Ti…

Product on Review: GTX 780Ti GAMING 3G
Manufacturer and Sponsor: MSI
Street Price: £551.74 at time of review

MSI are renown as a top tier graphics card and motherboard manufacturer. Their components are regularly seen at the top of HWBOT leaderboards with many seasoned overclockers utilising the products MSI produce and for good reason. They don’t just churn out a re-hash of a reference design instead they add thier own cocktail of overclocking goodness be it improved power design, ‘hard as nails’ components or like today’s product, a factory overclock that is second to none. Because of this, MSI have a huge enthusiast following too. Their designs are both stylish yet powerful too and this is exemplified by their ‘Gaming range of PC components.

The gaming range isn’t isolated to their VGA range, of which both NVIDIA and AMD are served with a full compliment of cards available but motherboards too. While the Gaming range are not MSI’s flagship products (this title is reserved for the ‘Lightning’ cards), the gaming range are built for overclocking, indeed many of the products, like the one we have for review today, are already factory overclocked. With a huge 1020MHz base clock – 144MHz over reference, you can be assured this card will be no slouch. Add to this the supreme Twin Frozr cooling and sublime aesthetics and you have one bad ass graphics card. So if you are on the lookout for a custom cooled, high performing, factory overclocked GTX 780 Ti the MSI Twin Frozr OC Gaming Edition could be just the graphics card you desire.

About MSI

Micro-Star International Co., Ltd (MSI) was established in August 1986 in Jhonghe, Taipei by 5 founders, one of the world’s largest information technology manufacturers with more than 12,700 employees, including those in Taipei headquarters, Baoan Plant (Shenzhen), Kunshan Plant and sales staff around the world.

MSI started from the motherboard and graphics card industries and extended into consumer and commerical electronics including notebooks, All-in-One PCs, servers, workstations, industrial PCs, household appliances, car infotainment products, barebone systems, multimedia, communication devices, and others.

Specification

The first thing to note is that the GTX 780 Ti model has the largest number of stream processors, closely followed by the AMD R9-290X. The TITAN closely follows these models with the standard GTX 780 bringing up the rear. The green team far outweighs the 290X in terms of texture units however the 290X does have 16 more ROPs than all the NVIDIA cards who have 48 each. Memory speed goes to the GTX780 Ti with a huge 1750MHz (7000MHz effective GDDR5) while the TITAN has the most memory (6GB) with the 290X having the higher bus width of 512bit. Both the GTX780 Ti and TITAN have a faster fill rate than the 290X while the 290X has the faster Pixel fillrate. All four cards are based on the 28nm process.

The R9-290X also uses more power at peak vs. the GTX780 Ti. The 290X has to work harder at dissipating this heat because of a smaller die size (455 square mm). Because of this higher thermal density the 290X runs hotter and therefore needs an efficient cooler be that a very fast fan speed (noise) or huge heatsink (cost). While AMD are to be applauded for cramming so much into such a small sliver of silicon, the NVIDIA method results in a more efficient design from a cooling perspective. Because the chip is cooler, less heat dissipation is required and therefore ultimately it can utilise lower speed fans which in turn equate to less noise (see our acoustic testing section). The R9-290X has a nominal operating temperature of 95c which is much higher than the GTX 780 Ti’s of 83c.

Here is a full breakdown of the MSI GeForce GTX 780 Ti Twin Frozr Gaming OC specification:

MSI GTX 780 Ti Twin Frozr Gaming OC

Graphics Processing Clusters: 5
Streaming Multiprocessors: 15
CUDA Cores (single precision): 2880
CUDA Cores (double precision): 960
Texture Units: 240
ROP Units: 48
Base Clock: 1020MHz
Boost Clock: 1085 MHz
Memory Clock (Data rate): 7000 MHz
L2 Cache Size: 1536K
Total Video Memory: 3072MB GDDR5
Memory Interface: 384-bit
Total Memory Bandwidth: 336 GB/s
Texture Filtering Rate (Bilinear): 244.8 GigaTexels/sec
Fabrication Process: 28 nm
Transistor Count: 7.1 Billion
Connectors: 2 x Dual-Link DVI 1 x HDMI 1 x DisplayPort
Form Factor: Dual Slot
Power Connectors: One 8-pin and one 6-pin
Recommended Power Supply: 600 Watts
Thermal Design Power (TDP): 250 Watts
Thermal Threshold: 95° C

So, on paper the GTX780 Ti appears to have the slight advantage over both the TITAN and the AMD R9-290X. All three cards however have advantages in different areas so it is going to be a very close run race.

Architecture

The architecture of the NVIDIA GTX 780 Ti core, the GK110 is an evolution of the GTX680’s GK104. Both cores are based on Kepler architecture and both are built upon the 28nm ASIC. However the GK110 features 7.1 billion transistors compared to the 3.54 billion found in the GTX680 and the 4.4 billion in the AMD HD7970. The CUDA core count has also been increased to a ‘full fat’ 2880 from the 2688 used on the GTX TITAN and from 1536 of the GTX680.

The GK110 has an additional GPC to the four found on the GK104 and also and additional SMX in each GPC making 15 compared to the GTX 680’s 8. There are 6 64-bit memory controllers (384bit) controlling the huge 6GB of GDDR5 which is yet another massive hike over the 256bit controller found on the GK104.

Above we can see a breakdown of an individual SMX.

NVIDIA’s CUDA core count on the GTX 780 Ti weighs in at an astonishing 2880. This is a huge undertaking as every SMX needs to be perfect. Previously at least a single SMX would be disabled and thus the silicon would then be ‘binned’ as either a GTX TITAN (14 SMX – 2688 CUDA cores) or GTX780 (12 SMX – 2304 CUDA cores). The GTX 780Ti uses all 15 SMX so understandably, this will be an expensive card to produce.

To combat this, NVIDIA have made the wise decision to reduce the amount of on-board GDDR5 to 3GB. The GTX TITAN has 6GB of on board memory and while this amount can be utilised under certain scenarios, 2-3GB is more than enough for the vast majority of uses. That said, while we can see the wisdom in reducing the memory size, we would still have preferred to see a 290X equalling 4GB AND a higher memory bus width which remains 384bit as opposed to the 290X 512bit. The raw grunt of the extra cores should however ensure that the GTX 780 Ti is a very capable graphics card not only for today’s games but also for future titles too.

Features

MSI Gaming Features

PRE-OVERCLOCKED PERFORMANCE

Most MSI Gaming graphics cards come pre-overclocked out of the factory. This simply means you get more performance out of your card, without spending any time on checking for maximum clocks and stability. Pre-overclocked graphics cards simply give more performance and you don’t have to worry about damaging your card, it is completely covered by our warranty!

TWIN FROZR
MSI’s Twin Frozr has been the industry defining graphics card cooler. The first Twin Frozr kicked of the dual-fan trend and today MSI stays true to its dual-fan dual-slot design where others have to resort to less effective means, for instance triple-slot cooling. The fans on MSI’s Twin Frozr use tow large Propeller Blade fans with Dust Removal Technology* which make sure there is always plenty of airflow going to your card.

MILITARY CLASS COMPONENTS
Extended Lifetime with MSI GAMING Average Gaming Lifetime One of the deciding factors in performance is the quality of the components used. That is why MSI only uses MIL-STD-810G certified components for its Gaming cards because only these components have proven to be able to withstand the torturous circumstances of extreme gaming and overclocking.

AFTERBURNER
MSI Afterburner has quickly become the favorite overclocking software for media, overclockers and end-users. Because of its simple interface, it’s easy to learn, but it packs a lot of powerful features like an integrated benchmark utility called Kombustor that can check your system performance in benchmarking mode, or run as a stability test.

PREDATOR
A built-in screen and video capturing tool named Predator which captures your screen as still images or videos with the push of a button and allows you to capture and record your coolest, goofiest and most awesome gaming moments on your PC!

NVIDIA Features

3D Vision Surround
NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround expands your field of view across three 3D monitors for breathtaking panoramic gaming. At an ultra-wide resolution of 5760 x 1080, games like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 have to be played to be believed.

SLI
NVIDIA SLI technology links multiple GeForce GPUs together for dramatically improved graphics performance. With over 1,000 supported applications and used by over 94% of multi-GPU PCs on Steam, SLI is the technology of choice for gamers who demand the very best.

DirectX 11
Microsoft DirectX is the graphics technology powering all of today’s hottest games. The latest version— DirectX 11—features tessellation for film-like geometric detail, compute shaders for custom graphics effects, and improved multithreading for better hardware utilization.

CUDA
CUDA is NVIDIA’s parallel computing architecture that enables dramatic increases in computing performance by harnessing the power of the GPU to speed up the most demanding tasks you run on your PC.

3D Vision
NVIDIA 3D Vision® technology delivers stereoscopic 3D images for gamers, movie-lovers and photo enthusiasts when configured with NVIDIA GPUs, NVIDIA 3D Vision active shutter glasses, and 3D Vision-Ready display/projector. Only NVIDIA 3D Vision supports the richest array of 3D content available – more than 600 3D games, Blu-ray 3D movies, 3D photos and streaming YouTube 3D videos.

PhysX
Without accurate physics simulations, even the most beautiful game feels static and lifeless. PhysX taps into the GPU for complex physics calculations. Used by popular games such as Alice: Madness Returns, PhysX brings games to life with dynamic destruction, particle based fluids, and life-like animation.

Adaptive VSync
NVIDIA Adaptive VSync makes your gaming experience smoother and more responsive by eliminating frame rate stuttering and screen tearing. To learn more check out the Technology tab.

TXAA
TXAA anti-aliasing creates a smoother, clearer image than any other anti-aliasing solution by combining high-quality MSAA multisample anti-aliasing, post processes, and NVIDIA-designed temporal filters.

GPU Boost 2.0
GPU Boost 2.0 extracts every ounce of computing power from graphics cards, maximizing frame rates in each and every game. Compared to the original GPU Boost, GPU Boost 2.0 is faster and more flexible, giving users more control over its configuration.

G-SYNC
NVIDIA G-SYNC monitors feature revolutionary NVIDIA technology that eliminates screen tearing and VSync input lag, and enhances the capabilities of existing monitor panels, resulting in the smoothest, fastest, most responsive gaming experience ever seen. The result: Scenes appear instantly. Objects are sharper. Game play is smoother. Every time.

GPU BOOST 2.0

GPU Boost caused a bit of a stir when it was first introduced because it did away with the traditional ‘absolute’ method of dictating MHz. Rather it worked by overclocking the card by different means. To achieve an overclock using GPU Boost, one increased the MHz and Voltage as per usual however the card would then ‘Boost’ when placed under load. So rather than having a fixed clockpseed, the GPU adjusts the clockspeed depending on load, ensuring the power is there when you need it rather than it being full on all of the time, thus saving power consumption and heat production by having the card overclock dynamically.

GPU Boost 2.0 is an evolution of this idea. The techs at NVIDIA have determined that GPU power was unnecessarily limiting performance when GPU temperatures was low. Instead of boosting GPU performance based on a power target, it is now based upon temperature with this temperature threshold being 80 degrees Celsius.

Because the boosting is now determined by temperature, noise levels are also reduced as NVIDIA claim the GTX TITAN delivers a better acoustic profile.

So to summarise, overclocking the card using GPU boost 2.0 means adjusting the temperature threshold, for example from 80c to 85c. The GPU clockspeed will then gradually increase until it reaches this new temperature and will be dynamically adjusted on-the-fly to stay within this threshold. Because of this it is much more difficult to claim one GPU is faster than another without having both working under precisely the same operating conditions.

It therefore should go without saying (but we will say it anyway) that the colder your card runs, the faster it should theoretically operate as a colder card allows overvolting and thus even higher clockspeeds.

GPU Boost 2.0 also features overvoltage control. NVIDIA make no bones that enabling this function will damage the long term operability of the graphics card and as with AMD’s overdrive, you have to acknowledge this fact before you can unlock the cards voltage control. We applaud NVIDIA for this because they have acknowledged that enthusiasts, like us here at Vortez, like to push hardware to the max and without voltage control, the whole process becomes so much more uninteresting and much more difficult.

So, because GTX780’s boost clock and voltage level are now tied to the GPU’s temperature, the voltage can be dialled higher which in turn will allow the GPU to attain higher clockspeed values. Obviously, increasingly board voltage, as with most other products, will gradually degrade the GPU through electron migration causing a premature death of the GPU. Voltage support will be offered on a board partner by partner basis however, we would be extremely surprised if it wasn’t enabled in every GTX780’s VBIOS.

We will see how GPU Boost 2.0 performs in our overclocking section later in the review.

GeForce Experience

GeForce Experience is a new application from NVIDIA that optimizes your PC in two key ways. First, it maximizes your game performance and game compatibility by automatically downloading the latest GeForce Game Ready drivers. Second, GeForce Experience intelligently optimizes graphics settings for all your favorite games based on your hardware configuration.

Some enthusiasts will view (excuse the pun) altering settings to get the very best from a game one of the ‘fun’ elements of owning a powerful graphics card. Others just want to play their game of choice without the endless testing and benchmarking to determine what settings work best. Many don’t have the inclination or indeed the time to learn what effect each setting has upon the games visual elements.It soon becomes a bind when upon a new driver release those settings which were great before can be bettered (or lowered) for a better gaming experience. FXAA, TSAA, MMAA or simply AA. Low, medium, high, ultra texture settings along with overall visual settings can be all too confusing when configuring a games visuals and while it would be easy to just crank everything up to maximum and hoping for the best, this all too often results in choppy, unplayable gaming ruining the gaming experience.

NVIDIA’s GeForce Experience removes much of the guess work when configuring a game thereby giving users the means to jump straight into the game with the best optimised settings for there hardware.

This handy utility will also keep your GPU updated with the latest driver that can be set to automatically download, ready to be installed as soon as they are available and also it gives you access to the beta drivers.

How does it work?
GeForce experience requires an internet connection which, once connected to the NVIDIA Cloud datacenter will download optimal game settings that are tailored to your PC based upon CPU, GPU and monitor resolution.

Low end hardware will have the visuals reduced to improve framerates while high end hardware will inevitably have higher settings assigned. This is all done with a click of a button which ensures that the game not only looks great but perhaps more importantly, plays smoothly.

Testing of the settings are done by NVIDIA themselves who benchmark the game, set a framerate target to ensure smooth gameplay then adjust the settings to ensure both framerate and smooth gameplay are optimised.

In our own tests, the utility worked well and is great for those who want to jump straight into the game with the minimal of fuss and furore of adjusting GPU settings.

Our one complaint is that the supported games list requires expanding. While most of the popular games are supported, many, especially some older but very popular titles are not.

GeForce Shadowplay

Most gamers have that ‘golden time’ when everything in-game seems to be going right. You’re getting headshots galore, ‘noobs’ accusing you of hacking and you finish the map top of the leaderboard. You then sit back in your chair with a satisfying grin on your face soaking up the victory and pure domination you have just laid down. Sadly, those moments are short-lived because no sooner do you have a good round, the very next round could be a nightmare where you get spawn raped, reducing your kill/death ratio to that resembling the Italian infantry. What if you could savour your ‘golden time’? What if you could wallow in your glory time and again? Perhaps you made a sick acrobatic move in a chopper or had some fun with a ‘knives only’ round? Whatever your preference, you can relive these moments for all eternity thanks to the wealth of recording devices available…should you remember to hit record that is.

This is where NVIDIA’s ShadowPlay comes in. ShadowPlay will shadow up to the last 20 minutes (10 minutes in Windows 7) of game play. While it can be used like any other recording software, it is the ‘Shadow’ feature which makes this utility special. All you have to do is hit a hotkey and the utility will save a predetermined amount of minutes for you to view later. The great thing about ShadowPlay is you can record AFTER the event has taken place. As long as ShadowPlay is activated before you begin gaming it will continue to save the previous 10 minutes then when you want to ‘replay’ the last section of your gaming, hit the predefined hotkey of your choice to save and view later. This can be repeated infinitely (depending on the amount of hard drive space available) without you having to come out of game.

The console is simplicity itself however it is part of the GeForce Experience utility so you must also have this installed. There are few options to configure. Simply assign hotkeys (or use the predefined ones) and designate where you would like the overlay which is a very small icon and not intrusive. Next you can configure the quality. We recommend high but this setting will take up sizable chunks of hard drive space. That’s all there is to it.

Below is the sequence we use from Battlefield 3 for benchmarking a graphics card. The actual resolution was at the time 2560×1600 however ShadowPlay will always default to 1920×1080 but it will give you an idea of the quality you can expect:

There are other recording utilities that can record in real-time however these require you to commence recording BEFORE or during your gaming session. ShadowPlay allows you to record the event after it has taken place as long as you hit the hotkey. Better still, the recording has minimal impact on the game (between 5 and 10%).

GeForce ShadowPlay is capable of recording at 1080p by using H.264 encoding and has quality settings of 15, 22 and 50Mbps depending on the quality level set (low, medium or high). 1 minute of recording at the highest level uses around 450MB of hard drive space. Lower levels will obviously use much less.

We certainly like this feature and so will those who want to relive those special moments of game play to be treasured and replayed at a later date. With more and more people uploading there favourite moments to YouTube we can expect some ‘ownage’ examples along with those hilarious moments that would otherwise be lost because you weren’t recording at the time.

Packaging & Accessories

The outer sleeve has a very ‘pro’ feeling about it with the MSI tribal Dragon clinging to a satin black backdrop. Swathes and flashes of red signify that this is a ‘hot’ card; hot in terms of desire rather than heat although the OC moniker to the bottom left may belay this fact!

To the rear we get an in-depth breakdown of the graphics card’s features along with reference NVIDIA features, specifications and minimum system requirements. In short pretty much all the product information you require.

By removing the outer sleeve you will be greeted by a babushka style packaging (box in a box) with the main compartment holding a foam braced graphics card and the other separate box containing the product accessories which include the following items: Quick user guide, driver and utility disk, MOLEX to 6 pin PCIe adaptor, 6pin to 8pin PCIe adaptor and a VGA to DVI adaptor. No games voucher is included however as this is a qualifying product, retail versions should be packaged with an Assassins Creed: Black Flag redeemable code.

First Look

The card is dominated by the Twin Frozr design which encompasses twin 100mm fans. The main shroud is highlighted with flashes of red to match the Gaming Series badge found in the centre of the card. The various inserts and louvers of the shroud give us a sense of performance while the underlying heatsink array hidden beneath those huge fans, serve to reinforce that fact.

The PCB is matt black which we adore. Gone are the days when MSI used brown PCB’s. Only the best for the gaming range! Sadly, this card didn’t appear to deserve a backplate which is a shame as this would have rounded off product aesthetics and cooling nicely.

From the side we see a single 8mm nickel plated copper heatpipe which like an oversized exhaust on a sports car, hints at the performance this card is capable of.

The card is quite short as far as top of the range cards go measuring just 266mm in length. What it lacks in length though it certainly makes up in girth as the Twin Frozr expands the cards width to a bulbous 129mm. Height shouldn’t pose any problems though being a standard 38mm although you should be aware that this will take up two expansion ports being of dual slot design.

Like the reference design GTX 780 Ti, the MSI Gaming OC version requires both 8pin and 6 pin PCIe power cables. Thankfully MSI have included two adaptors for this so even if your PSU only has a single 6 pin power cable, with use of both adaptors, you can make up both a 6 pin and 8pin configuration with relative ease. We also appreciated that MSI placed the power ports in the correct orientation meaning removal of cables was a simple affair.

Being a flagship NVIDIA product it should come as no surprise that there are twin SLI tabs meaning this card can be linked to any other GTX780 Ti or indeed more than one should your bank balance allow!

The I/O area matches the NVIDIA reference design by offering both DVI-I and DVI-D along with a Displayport and HDMI port.

Let’s take a look beneath the Twin Frozr cooler…

Closer Look

The fans which direct cool air onto the heatsink have angled ends to enhance airflow without increasing noise.

For a card aimed at enthusiasts we are not happy at MSI voiding warranties should you wish to remove the cooler. Sadly, this is becoming more common place, no doubt due to the amount of returned cards that have been damaged by the user so while we are not happy about it, we can understand the business case behind it.

The Twin Frozr design is one of the best in the business and while it has evolved over the years it remains a very efficient and powerful GPU cooling design.

The baseplate of the cooler is welded to 5 nickel plated heatpipes which branch out across the aluminium finned heatsink array to best dissipate heat.

Removing the cooler, despite voiding the warranty, was a simple case of removing four spring-loaded screws. With the main heatsink removed we can see MSI have employed the use of a brace/midplate which acts twofold. First in strengthens the card under the weight of that massive heatsink and second it assists with the cooling of both VRM and memory chips.

The PCB layout is near identical to the reference design save for a few minor changes which we have covered below.

The VRM area is where we see these changes. The eagle-eyes among you may notice that the MSI card appears to be missing some Hi-C capacitors which is odd given that MSI make a big deal of their Military class III components make-up. There are however the same amount and specification of inductors.

The memory on the MSI card carries the same product code as the reference design (H5GQ2H24AFR R2C) so we should expect some very good overclocking results.

The core of course is the same as any other GTX 780 Ti. Speed-binned to be capable of 1020 MHz, you can be assured of a quality sliver of silicon here.

Test Setup & Methodology

How we test graphics cards

Testing a graphics card is an extremely lengthy process. We sometimes see reviews where a graphic card has been tested using out of date equipment, out of date games and out of date drivers. While the latter can be excused due to the sheer amount of driver updates making a thorough review impossible we will however notify the reader when we have used a different driver to the normal for example a pre-release driver. For the most part however we will always use the same hardware and where possible the same drivers unless a newer driver rectifies an issue we have encountered or significantly improves performance to such an extent that continuing with an outdated driver is not feasible.

Frame Time Analysis
We have also seen the emergence of frame time analysis. We covered this in a separate article here: GPU Reviews: Why Frame Time Analysis is important so we won’t go into the reasoning again but to summarise, our testing comprises both FPS testing and perhaps arguably more importantly, frame time analysis. We also look at overall performance by equating averages across the games and finally before concluding our review we take a look at value for money.

HardwareWith the latest Intel chipset release we decided to update our ageing X58 setup to the new X79 chipset. Not only that but we will be using the flagship Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition processor clocked to 4.5GHz to ensure we have no CPU bottlenecks. With 16GB of ram on board there should be minimal paging so the benchmarks we run today will hopefully give a true reflection of the graphics card’s performance.

High End Graphics cards on test:

MSI GTX 780 Ti Twin Frozr OC GAMING 3GB GDDR5
(Forceware 331.70)
GIGABYTE GTX 780 GHz Edition 3GB GDDR5(Forceware 331.70)
HIS R9 280X ICEQ X2 TURBO 3GB GDDR5](CAT 13.11)
GIGABYTE R9 280X WINDFORCE 3X OC 3GB GDDR5(CAT 13.11)
AMD RADEON R9 290X 4GB GDDR5(CAT 13.11 Beta v5)
ASUS R9 280X DirectCU II 3GB GDDR5(CAT 13.11 Beta v1)
ASUS GTX760 DirectCU Mini OC 2GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
Inno3D iChill GTX 780 HerculeZ X3 Ultra 3GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
ASUS GTX770 DIRECT II CU OC 2GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
MSI GTX760 Twin Frozr Gaming 2GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
GIGABYTE GTX780 Windforce x3 OC 3GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
GAINWARD GTX780 PHANTOM ‘GLH’ 3GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
INNO3D GTX760 ICHILL HERCULEZ 2GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
GIGABYTE GTX770 WINDFORCE 3X OC 2GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
ZOTAC GTX760 2GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.39)
NVIDIA GTX760 2GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.39)
]NVIDIA GTX760 2GB GDDR5 SLI(Forceware 320.39)
SAPPHIRE DUAL-X HD7950 3GB GDDR5 (Catalyst 13.6 beta)
CLUB 3D HD7970 royalAce 3GB GDDR5 (Catalyst 13.6 beta)
GAINWARD PHANTOM GTX 770 2GB GDDR5 (Forceware 320.18)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 2GB GDDR5 (Forceware 320.18)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 3GB GDDR5 (Forceware 320.18)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 4GB GDDR5 (Forceware 314.22)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN 6GB GDDR5 (Forceware 314.22)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN SLI 12GB(2x6GB) GDDR5 (Forceware 314.22)
NVIDIA GTX680 2GB GDDR5 (Forceware 314.22)
AMD HD7970 3GB GDDR5 (AMD CAT 13.3 beta)

Motherboard: ASUS P9X79 Pro
CPU: Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition @ 4.5GHz
RAM – 16GB (4x4GB) Corsair Vengeance (Red) DDR3 @ 1866MHz 9-10-9-27
Power Supply – Thortech Thunderbolt Plus 1200W
Hard Drive – Kingston HyperX 240GB
Cooler – Corsair H100

Benchmarks
If you are a regular reader of our reviews you will know we like to test the latest hardware with the latest games and benchmarks on the market. Here are the games we have chosen:

Battlefield 3
Crysis 3
Far Cry 3
BioShock Infinite
DiRT: Showdown
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

We also take into consideration the benchmarkers out there so have included 3 of the more popular synthetic benchmarks available:

Unigine: Valley
Unigine: Heaven 4
Futuremark 3DMark Firestrike

Let’s see how today’s graphics card performed…

Overclocking (GPU Boost 2.0)

For overclocking today’s sample we will be using MSI’s own Afterburner tool as this gives us all of the options we require.

Above is a screenshot of GPU-Z showing the reference (factory overclocked) speeds and reference boost clocks. As previously stated, the core clock is among one of the fastest factory overclocks available on the GTX780 Ti. We have also included the ASIC rating of our sample. The ASIC rating basically tells us how good the overclock will be. The higher the ASIC rating, the better the overclock is likely to be, particularly on air cooling at a given voltage. Average ASIC readings for our GTX 780s range from 70% to 80%. As you can see from the screenshot above, today’s sample is average and clearly not a ‘cherry picked media sample’.

In truth, we are still dubious as to the real value of this reading but time will tell. As we have been asked on numerous occasions to include it in our reviews we felt it only right to show it although please take any of these values with a pinch of salt until we can confirm whether it does actually mean a higher or lower overclock will be achieved.

We weren’t expecting much more from the 780 Ti being that it has also recieved a very big factory overclock. We did however manage to squeeze a very satisfying 80MHz from the core by adding 78mv. Along with a huge 400MHz (1600MHz effective) overclock on the memory equating to a blistering 7800MHz! It should be noted that this overclock was 100% stable and tested over a few days of gaming. We could get a little more out of the card for benchmarks but alas they proved unstable during stress testing.

After settling on our stable clockspeed which was verified by multiple runs of Unigine Heaven and 3DMark we benchmarked the overclock and compared it to stock results with Unigine Heaven 4.0 to evaluate the benefits of overclocking the GPU.

Temperature, Acoustics and Power Consumption

Power Consumption

To test for power consumption we use the included iPower Meter found with our Thortech PSU. As system load figures obviously differ from idle it is extremely difficult to get an accurate figure of system draw and then simply take this figure away from the overall amount because each game will generate varying levels of CPU and hard drive activity. Dynamic power adjustments which fluctuate in game will also affect accurate power figures thus rendering any such power consumption calculations redundant at worst and approximate at best.

We will therefore take our system readings averaged over a benchmark run of Tessmark (100% load) and after 20 minutes of being idle in Windows 7. These can then be used as a comparison to other graphics cards to determine how much more or less power you can expect a GPU to consume.

Power consumption was equivalent to its nearest competitors so we have no complaints in this department. Being such a powerful card it is hardly surprising that this sample finds itself just below mid-table mediocrity.

Temperature

To test temperatures we measured idle temperatures after booting windows, letting all applications finish loading and ran a few benchmarks. Once the benchmarks were complete we left the card to reach a cooling plateau where we then took the idle temperatures. For the load tests, we would normally run Furmark for 20 minutes, taking the absolute maximum temperature attained however we found that this throttled the card and resulted in spurious results. So we set Heaven running continuously for 20 minutes and used this as a temperature result as the card did not throttle with this application.

We were actually quite surprised by this result. While it is by no means bad as it is well below the temperature threshold, we were however hoping for lower temperatures. We could of course play around with the fan profiles but we prefer to keep everything to factory defaults when running these tests as this is how you will receive the product ‘out-of-the-box’. Nevertheless, the temperatures emitted by the MSI card should be no cause for concern even for those looking to overclock the card further than factory pre-sets.

Acoustics

With the factory default fan profile dialled in we didn’t notice any fan noise from the card, even under load. Increasing the cooling potential by upping the fan rpm did however present us with detectable noise but it is certainly not a screaming banshee. Our concerns instead lay with the capacitor squeal we encountered during some of the benchmarks. While it wasn’t too loud and perhaps it wouldn’t be heard in an enclosed environment rather than an open air benching table we employ, the noise may be distracting to those who have acute hearing.

Gaming Experience (Frame Time Analysis)

Here we take a look at both average (black) and 99th Percentile (coloured) response times of the graphics cards. It is highly unlikely a user will notice any micro stutter (also incorrectly referred to as lag but the effect can be interpreted to be similar) at anything below 30ms but every gamers perception differs.

Comment

The graphs above may appear very daunting however, what you want to see is a smooth line (not fuzzy) with very few peaks and troughs. While you are unlikely to notice peaks and troughs below 30ms, any peak above 30ms may be seen as a stutter during gameplay. This will however depend greatly on your own perceptions. Multi card setups are more likely to show frame lag due to the nature of cross communicating to render frames.

Average and 99th Percentile response times (Frame Time Analysis)

Futuremark 3DMark Fire Strike (Synthetic)

Fire Strike is the new showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for high-performance gaming PCs. It is Futuremark’s most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today.

Unigine: Heaven 4 (Synthetic)

Heaven Benchmark with its current version 4.0 is a GPU-intensive benchmark that hammers graphics cards to the limits. This powerful tool can be effectively used to determine the stability of a GPU under extremely stressful conditions, as well as check the cooling system’s potential under maximum heat output. It provides completely unbiased results and generates true in-game rendering workloads across all platforms.

Unigine: Valley (Synthetic)

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.

Battlefield 3 (FPS)

Battlefield 3 leaps ahead of its time with the power of Frostbite™ 2, the next installment of DICE’s cutting-edge game engine. This state-of-the-art technology is the foundation on which Battlefield 3 is built, delivering enhanced visual quality, a grand sense of scale, massive destruction, dynamic audio and incredibly lifelike character animations. As bullets whiz by, walls crumble, and explosions throw you to the ground, the battlefield feels more alive and interactive than ever before. In Battlefield 3, players step into the role of the elite U.S. Marines where they will experience heart-pounding missions across diverse locations including Paris, Tehran and New York.

Average and minimum frames per second were measured using Fraps during the parking lot scene on Operation Sword Breaker. High and Ultra presets were loaded at both resolutions.

Crysis 3 (FPS)

Crysis 3 from Electronic Arts is the fourth instalment of the Crysis franchise and sequel to Crysis 2. It uses the CryEngine 3 gaming engine which is perhaps the most advanced gaming engine to date and therefore the most demanding. The meme ‘Can it run Crysis’ has never been so apparent…

Far Cry 3 (FPS)

Far Cry 3 is a tropical survival shooter video game from Ubisoft Montreal and Massive studios. It’s open world design has similar traits to it’s forbear Far Cry 2 but it does it all so much better. With stunning visuals and settings to bring a PC to it’s knee’s, this game is so much more than the ‘just another console port’ it was reported to be.

BioShock Infinite (FPS)

Set in 1912 during the growth of American exceptionalism, BioShock Infinite is a thrid person shooter developed by Irrational games and published by 2K Games. It is the third instalment of the BioShock franchise. the game utilises the Unreal Engine 3, modifying it with their own lighting engine to present a visually stunning experience like no other.

DiRT: Showdown (FPS)

DiRT Showdown is the new arcade racing game from the team that brought you the award-winning DiRT series, uncaged in 2012. Pick up and play controls combine with electrifying events, frenzied crowds and stunning graphics to deliver high octane, dive in and drive thrills from event one.

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (FPS)

Skyrim is not a direct successor to the very popular Oblivion. Instead it takes place 200 years after the events of Oblivion. The non-linear playing that made the Elder Scrolls such a popular series does however make a return along with the beautiful scenery the encompasses the world of Skyrim.

Average and minimum frames per second were measured using Fraps during the drop down passage to Riverwood. V-sync was disabled to allow fluctuating (higher the 60) FPS for these runs. It is however recommended that v-sync is left enabled during normal gameplay due to the games dynamics.

Overall Performance

Here we take a look at the overall performance of the graphics card. This figure is determined by finding the average FPS across all of the settings used in a particular benchmark(game) to give us an overall value.

Value For Money

We make a simple calculation for this set of results. For each game we add all of the resulting FPS totals together and then divide by the four sets to give us an overall performance figure. While the figures alone do not give you an accurate picture of how the card will perform in any given scenario, they do tell you, when averaged, which GPU is the more capable across all of the benchmarks and settings tested.

Conclusion

The MSI GTX780 Ti Gaming OC is clearly one of the fastest graphics cards on the planet of that their can be no doubt. It regularly outpaced the competition, often bettering the dual core GTX690 while firmly putting the AMD R9 290X in its place. It also has some awesome looks to match that blistering pace. Considering the heavy factory overclock, it also has a little left in reserve to play with to satisfy those who like to manually overclock the card. It runs moderately cool and very quiet and benefits from solid, packaging. It could be accused of being perfect in every way and indeed it does come very close but we would also argue that despite the praise that is so rightly heaped on this graphics card, as an overall package their are still some improvements to be made.

First, it is priced competitively but it is still some serious money, even for a top drawer graphics card. Of course this accusation could be aimed at many other manufacturers so with this in mind, we can forgive MSI. The packaging while very good is still missing that little extra. Some manufacturers go that extra mile and provide a mouse mat, others a free game, case badge or even a screwdriver set (yes it has been known). While we don’t expect to go to such extremes, we would have liked something extra to make forking out half a grand a little less painful. A backplate wouldn’t go amiss either, anything to soften the blow.

Instead what we get is an extremely fast graphics card with a good custom cooler and let’s face it, that is what we want above all else. So, while the MSI GTX 780 Ti Twin Frozr OC offers blistering pace and a custom cooler (that looks similar to other cards in the range), it offers little else to differentiate itself as an overall package from other equally fast cards on the market. Your decision to buy this particular card will most likely be based upon whether you like MSI or not. Us, we can’t recommend the card more for nothing other than it’s chart topping performance but just don’t expect the kitchen sink to fall in your lap when you open the box.

To summarise:
Stupidly fast that will handle anything you throw at it. If speed is what your heart desires then you should arrange a date with the MSI GTX 780 Ti Twin Frozr Gaming OC.

Pros
+ Very high factory overclock
+ Top drawer performance
+ Silent fans

Cons
– Little difference from other overclocked editions on the market
– Some capacitor squeal was evident in our sample
– Warranty void if cooler removed