MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 OC Edition Review
Category : NVIDIA
Published by Hiwa Pouri on 30.01.14
With the Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 OC Edition, MSI has launched a rather interesting graphics card. Equipped with the companies powerful Twin Frozr cooler and an attractive price tag, this sound like a great offer. Already now we're really curious to find out what's you get from this card.
 Article in English |
 Artikel in Deutsch |
 Article en français |
 Articolo in italiano |
Presentation
A while back, MSI has launched its new Gaming series which includes both motherboards as well as graphics cards and today we have a chance to take a look at one Gaming series member, the Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 OC Edition. As the name suggests, the aforementioned graphics card is not only the member of the MSI Gaming series but also comes with MSI's quite famous Twin Frozr cooler and since it is an OC Edition graphics card, also works at factory-overclocked settings. In case you missed MSI's Gaming series products earlier, these are all based on the red/black color scheme and the Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 OC Edition is not an exception. While MSI's Lightning series is the cream of the crop, the Gaming series is definitely not bad either, and we certainly hope that Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 OC Edition will justify that.
As you can see from the above picture, the Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 OC Edition uses the new B1 revision of the GK110 chip. Therefore it was a simple decision to go for higher factory overclocking than on the standard model but the manufacturer didn't push things too far and decided to go for an average factory-overclocking on the new card we're testing here. While the reference GeForce GTX 780 GPU is set to work at 863MHz for the base clock and 900MHz for the Boost clock, the new MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 OC Edition works at 902 MHz for the base clock and 1'006 MHz for the Boost clock.
Unfortunately, no factory overclocking was done on the 3GB of GDDR5 memory that remains at recommended 1'502 MHz (6'008 MHz effective).
While the typical Boost clock is set at 954 MHz, the maximum Boost of 1'006 MHz was achieved quite easily and the Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 OC Edition held that clock most of the load time due to good custom cooler as well as good TDP target (Nvidia's Boost technology being based on both temperature and power on this card, the latter being predominant). The GPU Max. Boost clock only dropped in Furmark down to 849 MHz at 1.012 V because of the power target, while the temperature was at 72°C. We did not experience any throttling in the games tested games, the GPU was always running at 1'006 MHz, more than 50 MHz above the advertised Boost clock.
Specifications
| Gigabyte 780 GHz | MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 OC Edition | Gigabyte 780 OC V2 | GeForce GTX 780 | |
| Chip | GK110-300-B1 | GK110-300-B1 | GK110-300-A1 | GK110-300-A1 |
| Process | 28 nm | 28 nm | 28 nm | 28 nm |
| Transistors | 7.10 billion | 7.10 billion | 7.10 billion | 7.10 billion |
| GPU clock | 1'020 MHz | 902 MHz | 954 MHz | 863 MHz |
| GPU Boost clock | 1'072 MHz | 1'006 MHz | 1'006 MHz | 900 MHz |
| Memory GDDR5 | 3'072 MB | 3'072 MB | 3'072 MB | 3'072 MB |
| Memory clock | 1'502 (6'008) MHz | 1'502 (6'008) MHz | 1'502 (6'008) MHz | 1'502 (6'008) MHz |
| Memory interface | 384 Bit | 384 Bit | 384 Bit | 384 Bit |
| Memory bandwidth | 288'400 MB/s | 288'400 MB/s | 288'400 MB/s | 288'400 MB/s |
| Shader Cores | 2'304 (12 SMX) | 2'304 (12 SMX) | 2'304 (12 SMX) | 2'304 (12 SMX) |
| TMUs | 192 | 192 | 192 | 192 |
| ROPs | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 |
| PCB Type | Custom Design | Custom Design | Custom Design | Reference Design |
| Lenght (PCB - Total) | 26.9 cm | 26.9 cm | 26.9 cm | 27.0 - 27.0 cm |
| Height (PCB - Total) | 11.8 cm | 11.8 cm | 11.8 cm | 11.0 - 11.0 cm |
| Slots | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Cooler | WindForce 3X 450W | Twin Frozr IV | WindForce 3X 450W | NVIDIA Reference |
The card
As noted earlier, the MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 OC Edition graphics card features MSI's quite famous Twin Frozr IV cooler with a total of five heatpipes, three 6mm and two 8mm ones. It has two 100mm fans which cool the large heatsink connected to the nickel-plated copper base plate via aforementioned heatpipes. As a part of the MSI Gaming series, the Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 OC Edition uses red on black color scheme and the overall build quality of the cooler is quite good.
|   
|
Like most of MSI' recent high-end cards the PCB has been completely reworked
and the power design beefed-up. The custom PCB features 6+2-phase design (there
are five on the reference card) with six phases for the GPU and two
phases for memory. It is an analog power design with NCP4206 voltage regulation
chip for the GPU, APL7142 PLL voltage regulator chip, APL3516A memory voltage regulator chip
and SiC780 MOSFETs.
|   
|
The memory chips used are made by Hynix and carry the model number H5GQ2H24AFR. They are specified to run at 1'502 MHz (6'008 MHz effective).
Photo Gallery
Delivery
The card ships well bolstered in a foam made mold. Bundled with the graphics card there is a user guide, a driver CD that includes the overclocking tool MSI Afterburner too, two power converters (1 x Molex to 6-pin and 1 x 6-pin to 8-pin) and a DVI to VGA adaptor. Unfortunately there is no SLI bridge. For such a card the bundle is quite poor, we would have like to see a game included in the bundle.Test Setup
| Mainboard |
|
| CPUs |
|
| Memory |
|
| Graphic Cards |
|
| Drivers |
|
| Games and OS |
|
| HDD |
|
| PSU |
|
Weighted average
| Graphics Cards | Score |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 113.63 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti | 110.86 % |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 109.83 % |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 108.55 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan | 104.15 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 | 100.00 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 6990 | 90.57 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 | 86.85 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition | 85.71 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 280X | 83.76 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 | 83.71 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 7970 | 77.65 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 | 75.92 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 | 69.35 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti | 65.58 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 270X | 85.38 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 | 61.83 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 7870 | 61.27 % |
| AMD Radeon R9 270 | 61.20 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 | 58.01 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 6970 | 50.60 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost | 50.05 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 7850 | 49.03 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 6950 | 45.10 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 5870 | 44.06 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 7790 | 40.11 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 6870 | 39.04 % |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti | 37.72 % |
| AMD Radeon HD 5850 | 36.80 % |
| More is better |
Temperatures / Noise levels
Fan Speed
| Auto | RPM |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 1'129 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 1'040 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 780 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 780 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 1'040 |
| NVIDIA Reference | 1'250 |
| 50% | RPM |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 1'493 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 1'910 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 2'180 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 2'180 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 1'450 |
| NVIDIA Reference | 2'060 |
| 70% | RPM |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 2'078 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 2'650 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 3'100 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 3'100 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 2'000 |
| NVIDIA Reference | n/A |
| 100% | RPM |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 3'023 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 3'770 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 4'380 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 4'380 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 2'900 |
| NVIDIA Reference | 4'240 |
| More is better |
Noise Level
| Auto | dBA |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 33.2 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 32.0 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 32.0 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 32.0 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 32.0 |
| NVIDIA Reference | 33.2 |
| 50% | dBA |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 37.1 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 36.6 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 37.1 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 37.1 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 34.3 |
| NVIDIA Reference | 39.8 |
| 70% | dBA |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 43.0 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 42.7 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 44.4 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 44.4 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 40.2 |
| NVIDIA Reference | n/A |
| 100% | dBA |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 51.4 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 51.2 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 52.3 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 52.3 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 50.0 |
| NVIDIA Reference | 56.2 |
| More is better |
For the noise level results, we measured the noise level using a decibel meter (Voltcraft SL-200) located at 1 meter away from the graphics card.
Idle Temperature
| Auto | Temperature |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 30 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 32 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 29 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 30 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 30 |
| NVIDIA Reference | 32 |
| 50% | Temperature |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 29 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 31 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 27 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 29 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 29 |
| NVIDIA Reference | 30 |
| 70% | Temperature |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 28 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 30 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 26 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 28 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 29 |
| NVIDIA Reference | 29 |
| 100% | Temperature |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 28 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 29 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 26 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 28 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 27 |
| NVIDIA Reference | 29 |
| More is better |
Idle, temperature is taken after 15 minutes @ lowest, 40 %, 50 %, 70 % and 100 % fan speed.
Room Temperature: 25°C
Temperature under Furmark
| Auto | Temperature |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 83 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 90 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 90 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 90 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 73 |
| NVIDIA Reference | 90 |
| 50% | Temperature |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 71 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 81 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 80 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 83 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 71 |
| NVIDIA Reference | 83 |
| 70% | Temperature |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 63 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 72 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 73 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 75 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 63 |
| NVIDIA Reference | 76 |
| 100% | Temperature |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 56 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 62 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 58 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 63 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 56 |
| NVIDIA Reference | 68 |
| More is better |
For FurMark, temperature is taken after 15 minutes of GPU Burn test at lowest, 40 %, 50 %, 70 % and 100 % fan speed.
We stopped the test when the GPU temperature hit 90°C.
Room Temperature: 25°C
Temperature and fan speed under BattleField 3
| Auto | Temperature |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 DirectCU II OC | 69 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 71 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 67 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 70 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 66 |
| NVIDIA Reference | 79 |
| More is better |
For BattleField 3, temperature and fan speed values taken are the highest achieved after 1 hour gaming @ auto fan speed.
Performance/Watt
| Graphics Cards | Performance Index | Power (Watts) | Performance/Watt x 10 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti (ASUS DC2T) | 53.55 | 178 | 3.01 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX TITAN (Ref) | 85.05 | 306 | 2.78 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 770 (ASUS DC2OC) | 70.92 | 257 | 2.76 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 670 (ASUS DC2T) | 62.00 | 227 | 2.73 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti (GBT GHz) | 90.53 | 333 | 2.72 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 780 (ASUS DC2OC) | 81.66 | 302 | 2.70 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 660 (ASUS DC2T) | 47.37 | 177 | 2.68 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 680 (Ref) | 68.36 | 258 | 2.65 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 760 (ASUS DC2OC) | 56.63 | 218 | 2.60 |
| AMD Radeon R9 270 (ASUS DC2OC) | 49.98 | 194 | 2.58 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 82.42 | 321 | 2.57 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 89.96 | 350 | 2.57 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 89.69 | 360 | 2.49 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 92.84 | 374 | 2.48 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost (Ref) | 40.87 | 169 | 2.42 |
| AMD Radeon R9 270X (ASUS DC2T) | 53.39 | 223 | 2.39 |
| AMD Radeon HD 7870 (ASUS DC2T V2) | 50.03 | 220 | 2.27 |
| AMD Radeon HD 7850 (ASUS DC2T) | 42.04 | 195 | 2.16 |
| AMD Radeon HD 7790 (ASUS DC2OC - Ref PCB) | 32.75 | 152 | 2.15 |
| AMD Radeon R9 280X (ASUS DC2T) | 68.40 | 320 | 2.14 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti (ASUS DC2T) | 30.8 | 151 | 2.04 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 580 (Ref) | 50.49 | 254 | 1.99 |
| AMD Radeon HD 7970 (XFX DD - Ref PCB) | 63.41 | 323 | 1.96 |
| AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition (ASUS Matrix P.) | 69.99 | 360 | 1.94 |
| AMD Radeon HD 6950 (Ref) | 36.83 | 208 | 1.77 |
| AMD Radeon HD 6970 (Ref) | 41.32 | 244 | 1.69 |
| AMD Radeon HD 6870 (Ref) | 31.88 | 200 | 1.59 |
| AMD Radeon HD 5850 (Ref) | 30.05 | 193 | 1.56 |
| AMD Radeon HD 5870 (Ref) | 35.98 | 232 | 1.55 |
| AMD Radeon HD 6990 (Ref) | 73.96 | 481 | 1.54 |
| More is better | Less is better | More is better |
The "Performance Index" value is calculated as the sum of all benchmarks results divided by the amount of games (3DMark and Unigine are not included into the calculation).
Performance/Price
| Graphics Cards | Performance Index | Price (EUR)* | Performance/EUR x 10 |
| AMD Radeon HD 7790 | 32.75 | 91 | 3.60 |
| AMD Radeon HD 7870 | 50.03 | 143 | 3.50 |
| AMD Radeon R9 270 | 49.98 | 144 | 3.47 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost | 40.87 | 121 | 3.38 |
| AMD Radeon R9 270X | 53.39 | 159 | 3.36 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 660 | 47.37 | 144 | 3.29 |
| AMD Radeon HD 7850 | 40.04 | 124 | 3.23 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti | 30.80 | 100 | 3.08 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti | 53.55 | 193 | 2.77 |
| AMD Radeon HD 7970 | 63.41 | 232 | 2.73 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 670 | 62.00 | 228 | 2.72 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 760 | 56.63 | 199 | 2.85 |
| AMD Radeon R9 280X | 68.40 | 241 | 2.84 |
| AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition | 69.99 | 260 | 2.69 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 770 | 70.92 | 266 | 2.67 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 580 | 50.49 | 190 | 2.66 |
| AMD Radeon HD 6870 | 31.88 | 126 | 2.53 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 680 | 68.36 | 291 | 2.35 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 OC V2 | 89.69 | 429 | 2.09 |
| Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 GHz Edition | 92.84 | 456 | 2.04 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 780 | 81.66 | 415 | 1.97 |
| MSI Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 | 82.42 | 434 | 1.89 |
| AMD Radeon HD 6950 | 36.83 | 205 | 1.80 |
| ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum | 89.96 | 552 | 1.63 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti | 90.53 | 582 | 1.56 |
| AMD Radeon HD 6970 | 41.32 | 310 | 1.33 |
| AMD Radeon HD 5850 | 30.05 | 260 | 1.16 |
| AMD Radeon HD 5870 | 35.98 | 335 | 1.07 |
| AMD Radeon HD 6990 | 73.96 | 708 | 1.04 |
| nVidia GeForce GTX TITAN | 85.05 | 832 | 1.02 |
| More is better | Less is better | More is better |
For the price we took the lowest price available on geizhals.eu.
Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
With the Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 OC Edition, MSI comes up with a very interesting and unique product. As a part of the MSI Gaming series, the Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 OC Edition features a neat looking red on black color scheme and comes paired with an excellent Twin Frozr IV cooler. Although it is not one of the highest factory-overclocked GTX 780 graphics cards on the market, it certainly has its charms and its 3D performance is quite good. Unfortunately, it does not come with a backplate which is only reserved for MSI's Lightning series cards. The bundle is quite poor and it appears that MSI decided to cut some corners there in order to lower the final price tag. |
- Performance
- Cooling performance - Design - Structural reinforcement - Noise levels |
- Memory Clock
- Bundle |
|
| Cooling / Noise Level | + | - | |
| The raw cooling performance with this card is
really good. With their Twin Frozr IV MSI have an excellent cooler, and
it simply can't be compare
to the reference cooler in no way as this is a completely
different animal. In idle the card is inaudible and under load we consider the card still very silent. |
- Cooling performance
- Noise levels |
||
| Performance | + | - | |
| Overall, the 3D performance is good but as said
previously, performance could have easily been improved with a higher
factory overclocking. Especially when you consider this graphics card is based on
a new, more efficient, revision of the GK110 chip (B1 revision). A closer look at power consumption reveals that the Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 OC Edition draws a bit more power in idle than the NVIDIA reference card. In fact the difference is 7 Watts but in this case you will have to consider that this card features quite a decent factory overclock for the GPU. Looking at the power consumption under load we see that the difference to the reference card grew by quite a margin. In fact the Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 OC Edition draws 321 Watt compared to 292 Watt for the reference card. |
- Performance | - idle power consumption - Load power consumption | |
| Recommendation / Price | + | - | |
| With the Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 OC Edition, MSI has a custom GTX 780 in their portfolio which features a very attractive price point. In fact it is currently one of the cheapest custom GTX 780 graphics cards you can buy these days. It is even cheaper than reference GTX 780 cards. For 434 Euro you get a graphics card that comes with an excellent cooler and good performance. It is only a pity that there was some noise coming from the capacitors when the card ran at 100 percent load (Furmark). |
- Gaming
- Modding - Price |
||
| We gave the Twin Frozr Gaming GTX 780 OC Edition from MSI 4.5 out of 5 stars. | |||
