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MSI R6950 Twin Frozr II/OC, MSI R6870 Hawk, MSI N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II/OC Graphics Cards



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Today we're going to review three graphics cards from MSI: a Radeon HD 6950, a Radeon HD 6870, and a GeForce GTX 560 Ti. All three come equipped with very efficient Twin Frozr coolers and should give you good overclocking potential.

Specifications

MSI R6950 Twin Frozr II/OC

  • Official product page
  • GPU: Radeon HD 6950 (Cayman)
  • Interface: PCIe x16 2.1
  • GPU clock rate (ROPs/shaders): 810/810 MHz (the standard is 800/800 MHz)
  • Memory clock rate, physical (effective): 1250 (5000) MHz (standard)
  • Memory bus: 256-bit
  • Stream processors: 1408
  • Texture units: 88 (BLF/TLF/ANIS)
  • ROP units: 32
  • Dimensions: 275x110x38 mm
  • Board color: dark brown
  • RAMDACs/TDMS: integrated into GPU
  • Outputs: Single-Link DVI-D, Dual-Link DVI-I, HDMI 1.4a, 2 x mini-DisplayPort 1.2
  • Multi-GPU mode: hardware CrossFireX

MSI R6870 Hawk

  • Official product page
  • GPU: Radeon HD 6870 (Barts)
  • Interface: PCIe x16 2.1
  • GPU clock rate (ROPs/shaders): 930/930 MHz (the standard is 900/900 MHz)
  • Memory clock rate, physical (effective): 1050 (4200) MHz (standard)
  • Memory bus: 256-bit
  • Stream processors: 1120
  • Texture units: 56 (BLF/TLF/ANIS)
  • ROP units: 32
  • Dimensions: 255x115x38 mm
  • Board color: dark brown
  • RAMDACs/TDMS: integrated into GPU
  • Outputs: Single-Link DVI-D, Dual-Link DVI-I, HDMI 1.4a, 2 x mini-DisplayPort 1.2
  • Multi-GPU mode: hardware CrossFireX

MSI N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II/OC

  • Official product page
  • GPU: GeForce GTX 560 Ti (GF114)
  • Interface: PCIe x16 2.0
  • GPU clock rate (ROPs/shaders): 880/1760 MHz (the standard is 822/1644 MHz)
  • Memory clock rate, physical (effective): 1050 (4200) MHz (the standard is 1000 (4000) MHz)
  • Memory bus: 256-bit
  • Stream processors: 384
  • Texture units: 64 (BLF/TLF/ANIS)
  • ROP units: 32
  • Dimensions: 229x111x33 mm
  • Board color: dark brown
  • RAMDACs/TDMS: integrated into GPU
  • Outputs: 2 x Dual-Link DVI, mini-HDMI
  • Multi-GPU mode: hardware SLI

Design

Comparison with the reference design, front view


MSI R6950 Twin Frozr II/OC Reference AMD Radeon HD 6950

MSI R6870 Hawk Reference AMD Radeon HD 6870

MSI N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II/OC Reference NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti


Comparison with the reference design, rear view


MSI R6950 Twin Frozr II/OC Reference AMD Radeon HD 6950

MSI R6870 Hawk Reference AMD Radeon HD 6870

MSI N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II/OC Reference NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti

All three graphics cards are custom products made by MSI, and all three PCBs are significantly re-designed. Aimed at overclockers, R6870 Hawk has been overhauled the most. It allows you to greatly increase clock rates and even adjust core/memory voltage. While I haven't tried to push the card to the max, I can say it works fine with the core clock rate of 1050 MHz. And that's, obviously, far from the limit.

Each graphics card has two 6-pin supplementary power connectors.

Maximum resolutions and frequencies:

  • 240 Hz maximum refresh rate
  • 2560 x 1600 @ 60Hz max. digital (DVI) resolution
  • 2048 x 1536 @ 85Hz max. analog (VGA) resolution

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