Technical Data / Specifications

MSI ships its Radeon R9 270X HAWK card with the core clocked at 1'150 MHz and the memory at 1'400 MHz (5'600 effective). Compared to the R9 270X reference clocks the HAWK has a nice factory overclocking with 100 MHz on the core. Unfortunately no factory overclocking was made on the memory. The HAWK is the second fastest Radeon R9 270X out of the box at this time after the Toxic from Sapphire.

Although the R9 270X has the PowerTune Boost functionality we never saw it in action. We mean that, the HAWK has actually a core clock of 1'100 MHz and a boost clock of 1'150 MHz. During our testing, the card was always running at full speed of 1'150 MHz under load, we didn't see the chip reduce its clock speed, even under Furmark.

AMD themselves are being obscure on that point too, the reference R9 270X has actually a base clock set at 1'000 MHz with a boost clock of 1'050 MHz but AMD just write down "GPU Clock Speed: Up to 1'050 MHz". The latter is not wrong but it's not exact either.

	MSI HAWK	ASUS DirectCU II Top	Radeon R9 270X
Chip	Pitcairn XTL Curacao XT	Pitcairn XTL Curacao XT	Pitcairn XTL Curacao XT
Process	28 nm	28 nm	28 nm
Transistors	2.80 billion	2.80 billion	2.80 billion
GPU clock	1'150 MHz	1'120 MHz	1'050 MHz
Memory GDDR5	2'048 MB	2'048 MB	2'048 MB
Memory clock	1'400 (5'600) MHz	1'400 (5'600) MHz	1'400 (5'600) MHz
Memory interface	256 Bit	256 Bit	256 Bit
Memory bandwidth	179.2 GB/s	179.2 GB/s	179.2 GB/s
Shader Cores	1'280	1'280	1'280
TMUs	80	80	80
ROPs	32	32	32
TDP	161 Watt	xxx Watt	180 Watt
PCB Type	Custom Design	Custom Design	Reference Design
Lenght (PCB - Total)	25.4 - 26.1 cm	24.3 - 27.3 cm	xx.x - xx.x cm
Height (PCB - Total)	12.1 - 13.0 cm	11.2 - 13.2 cm	11.0 - 11.0 cm
Slots	2	2	2
Cooler	Twin Frozr IV Advanced	DirectCU II	AMD Reference
Launch Price	$XXX	$XXX	$199

To cool its Radeon R9 270X HAWK MSI makes use of the same Twin Frozr IV cooler you find on the GeForce GTX 760 HAWK. The cooler is exactly the same. In this case you get four six millimeter and one eight millimeter heatpipes. The heatpipes have been nickel-plated and are in contact with the GPU through a copper base plate, which is also nickel-plated. Soldered to the heatpipes you find the fin stack which is being provided with fresh air via two 100mm fans. Both fans are identical and being manufactured by Power Logic. They carry the model number PLD10010B12HH.
Overall the cooler is well made and finished. The thermal paste used is of good quality, soft and hasn't been uselessly spread in large quantity all around the chip. The base doesn't have a perfect mirror finish but is finished well enough.
Most memory chips but one are actively cooled by the metal plate that covers a big part of the PCB. They are in contact with the cooling unit thanks to thermal pads. There is only one memory chip that hasn't been included to the loop . Actually we don't really understand why this is the case. The chip is right next to the others and we don't see any reason, why it's not been integrated into the cooling loop.



Like all other HAWKs the PCB has been completely reworked and the power design beefed-up. The PCB and the power design are looking similar to what powers the Radeon HD 7870 HAWK, but after a closer look, we spotted a lot of differences. Here we have a ten phase power design where the GPU gets eight (there are five on the reference card) and the memory gets two (there is only one on the ref card) phases. Going further we see, two additional phases for the PCIe and the PLL.

The same metal plate that covers the memory chips is also providing active cooling to the MOSFETs via thermal pads. The manufacturer decided to equip its 270X with a full metal reinforcement (backplate) to prevent bending and it also protects crucial components from potential damage. Otherwise the card features a BIOS for extreme overclockers (LN2 BIOS) that can be selected via DIP switch (located at the top edge of the card). Furthremore virtually everything can be overvolted (GPU, memory and PLL (VDDCI)) via AfterBurner and to monitor what's happening, there are voltage read-out points (GPU, memory and PLL (VDDCI), located at the right edge of the PCB).

Component wise, the HAWK complies with MSI's Military Class 4 Components standard. It doesn't mean you will find military/NASA class components on the PCB, otherwise the card would have been so expensive you couldn't afford it. Still you find high quality components such as New SFC, All Hi-c CAPs for GPU and Dark Solid CAPs.

Checking the voltage regulation chip we find a digital 8-phase controller IR3563B from International Rectifier for the GPU. On the memory side there is a dual phase controller uP1610P from uPI Semiconductor. Lastly there are two single phase controllers labelled GS7252. The one closer to the end of the card takes care of PLL (VDDCI) while the one close to the PCIe connector takes care of the PCIe.



The memory chips used are made by Elpida and carry the model number W2032BBBG-6A-F. They are specified to run at 1'500 MHz (6'000 MHz effective).

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 12 - DIRT Showdown
Page 2 - Technical Data / Specifications	Page 13 - Far Cry 3
Page 3 - Preview & Delivery	Page 14 - Sleeping Dogs
Page 4 - Test Setup	Page 15 - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Page 5 - 3DMark Fire Strike	Page 16 - Metro: Last Light
Page 6 - Unigine Heaven 4.0	Page 17 - GTA V
Page 7 - BattleField 3	Page 18 - Power Consumption
Page 8 - Borderlands 2	Page 19 - Fan Speed / Noise Level
Page 9 - Bioshock Infinite	Page 20 - Temps - Idle / FurMark / BF3
Page 10 - Crysis 3	Page 21 - Performance/Price & Performance/Watt
Page 11 - Call of Duty Black Ops 2	Page 22 - Conclusion