MSI GTX 760 Twin Frozr Gaming OC 2GB Review

Final Thoughts

MSI’s GTX 760 Twin Frozr Gaming OC Edition 2GB graphics card costs £218.11 and £227.99 from leading UK retailers. The pricing of reference GTX 760s starts at around £190, custom cooled ones at £200 and and custom cooled & overclocked ones at £210. In the USA the MSI GTX 760 TF Gaming 2GB costs $259.99 while all other GTX 760s start at about $249.99-$259.99. In the USA the MSI GTX 760 TF Gaming is priced a lot lower relative to the competition than in the UK. That said in the UK MSI are still very competitive on the pricing they offer, though we can confidently state it is one of the more expensive options. MSI’s GTX 760 TF Gaming is a very special graphics card in my honest opinion and it isn’t very often that I am truly impressed with the execution of a graphics card.

The GTX 760 Twin Frozr Gaming is impressive for a number of reasons. First is that it is deadly silent under all loads which is just something that graphics card vendors are almost foolish not to do these days – when competition is so fierce having a quiet graphics card can only ever be good. Second is that despite the total silence the MSI GTX 760 actually runs very cool under typical loads, though under extended intense loads it can reach the Nvidia temperature target of 80 degrees due to the low RPM quiet fans but under realistic loads it never hits that or even comes close. You should also consider that MSI could have tuned more aggressive fan profiles and easily got drastically better temperatures, but they didn’t because they wanted to offer a quiet solution. The third thing that impressed me is that the card just looks great and oozes quality. Dual 100mm fans, a dark PCB, a metal shroud and a super efficient cooler -what more could you ask for?

Though if we take a look at what’s not so hot there are a few things to consider. Firstly the factory overclock compared to rival solutions is lower. A lot of Nvidia partners have opted for 1075MHz and some for even overclocked memory but MSI have gone for only 1020MHz on the core and stock memory – a higher factory OC on both would of been welcomed in my opinion. Second is that overclocking is relatively limited on the GPU core from what we saw, though that was balanced out somewhat by such huge overclocking successes on the VRAM. Thirdly the product is a bit pricey in the UK, you can get solutions overclocked more and with custom cooling for as much as £10-15 less (about 7.5-10% less). This isn’t so much a problem for U.S customers where the MSI GTX 760 Twin Frozr Gaming is priced much more competitively.

A final word of note is that MSI’s GTX 760 Gaming Twin Frozr graphics card is part of the Splinter Cell Blacklist promition if you buy from participating retailers, picking up a free game is always good!

Pros

• Deadly silent
• Efficient cooler
• Looks amazing
• Superb memory overclocking potential
• 3 Year warranty
• Splinter Cell Blacklist Promotion

Cons

• GPU core on our sample didn’t overclock that well
• Only stock memory
• Low factory overclock on GPU compared to competition

eTeknix says: “MSI’s GTX 760 TwinFrozr Gaming graphics card really is a great piece. It is very quiet, looks absolutely superb, is built from high quality components and has one of the best coolers on the market. When there is little to differentiate graphics cards in a very competitive market MSI’s solution shines out as a smart choice for gamers, enthusiasts and silence-lovers. While overclocking on our sample wasn’t as good as we’d hoped we have seen other people have excellent successes. The card could benefit from a higher factory memory and core clock but end-users can easily rectify that with some super-simple overclocking in MSI Afterburner. Top marks to MSI as they have really done a superb job with this card”

Thank you to MSI for providing this review sample.