Introduction
Nvidia’s GTX 770 was released as the successor to the GTX 670 when Nvidia announced the GTX 700 series quite some time ago. In essence the GTX 770 is a GTX 680 on steroids and so it isn’t really new as such. What is new is that it has a market price of $400 USD compared to the GTX 680 which has a market price of $420 USD. Of course it is cheaper and performs better as you’d expect from a card that makes the generational advancement. The unique aspect of the GTX 770 comes from its familiarity. Most AIB vendors have already worked with the GK104 GPU when it was the GTX 680 and know exactly how to get the best out of it – which can only be good for consumers.
Today we are looking at MSI’s high end GTX 770 solution that comes equipped with their popular and most recent version of the Twin Frozr VGA cooler. This card is also part of MSI’s Gaming Series so is no longer just standalone Twin Frozr. MSI has a few series that use the Twin Frozr cooler including the Hawk, Gaming, Lightning and the Power Edition cards.Unlike the MSI GTX 760 Twin Frozr Gaming OC graphics card, this one we have here today boasts a slightly chunkier heatsink design with an extra 6mm heat pipe to cope with the higher TDP of the GTX 770 compared to the GTX 760. I have already been impressed by MSI’s newest Twin Frozr VGA cooler on so many graphics cards so hopefully today we will be impressed with this latest MSI card.
The front of the box uses MSI’s Dragon styling to symbolise the gaming series. We can also clearly see this is an OC Edition graphics card meaning a higher-than-stock clock out the box.
The back is filled with all marketing stuff that you can find more about on the product page.
Included in the box is MSI’s Certificate of Quality & Stability to let you know this card is made from tested Military Class III components. The other accessories include dual 8 to 6 pin PCIe power adapters and a DVI-VGA adapter.
I have the same video card, but not even with the AC onits imposible for me to reach those low temp you have shown us ! Are you sure you did not test the video card in a freezer next to some porkchops?
temperatures are deltas (actual – ambient). That means 53.9 is not actual temp. The actual temp is 53.9 + your room temperature which in our cases was about 24 so about 78 degrees celsius.
Then please write it down in the review 🙂
78°c with the default profile or with a modified one? On auto or 100% ? Please specify that to in your review. Thank you
It clearly states at the top of the graph that delta temperatures are used. We always use automatic fan profiles.
No offense but this review looks like a lot of bs
You are entitled to that opinion if you so wish. You don’t give any substance as to why it is “bs” so it’s not a particular useful comment.
Nice card was thinking about getting one of these until I got screwed by Scans RMA services…
how did you get screwed?
I own one of these, honestly the best card i ever had, its overclocking capabilities are great too. i really recommend it for gamers that want to play the latest games maxed out in full hd 🙂
How about that. We have one of these awaiting testing (not sure about clock speeds, GPU-Z will reveal all). I really like MSI’s graphics cards and the Twin Frozr cooler. Once testing is done, I’ll pull it apart, replace the thermal grease with decent stuff and bolt it in my rig.
Usually I run a more aggressive fan profile for improved cooling using MSI Afterburner with it being barely audible under normal usage & ramping up much higher under load. The extra din from the fans doesn’t worry me one bit because when gaming, my ears are firmly ensconced in my Roccat Kave’s and I can’t hear them at all.
It’s either that or I’ll just stick with my Gigabyte GTX 770 WindForce 3X OC which I’m more than happy with. I only run my games on my personal rig at 1980 X 1080 anyway. I know the card is overkill but hey… I didn’t have to buy it. 🙂
Interesting. Now i can’t decide between this Twinfrozr and the Gainward Phantom… My major worry with the phantom is that it’s big, and i’m on a m-atx board, with a PCI soundcard installed, scared of having it overheat… Any idea?
Gainward card will not overheat it has amazing cooling. Space on the other hand might be an issue, it’s effectively 2.5 PCI slots. What board do you have?
Thank you for the response. I have an asus Maximus IV gene-z. (not the B3 revision, so i just don’t have the pci-e 3.0, i’m aware the card will bottleneck).
Well providing your sound card will fit in the last PCIe 4X lane (which it should as most sound cards are PCIe 1X or 4X) then yes you can get either card. If you get the Phantom you may be limited by what you can put in the second PCIe 16X lane, e.g nothing that is thick will be able to fit. No PCIe 2.0 will not bottleneck you so honestly don’t worry about that, you’d need SLI 770s to even notice a difference between PCIe 2.0 and 3.0 speeds. I think either card is a great choice, the MSI one is slightly cheaper but clocked lower (so performs worse), the Gainward one is slightly more expensive but clocked higher (so performs better). As far as I am aware the MSI GTX 770 also has a slightly longer warranty, 3 years vs 2 years. Both run super quiet and really cool (neither will overheat even in a poorly ventilated case). From my experience overclocking on the Gainward card might be slightly better. Hope this helps you make a decision.
Got it, thank you for clearing all of this out! I haven’t decided yet, but since either will be a god choice, and there’s less than 10 bucks difference at my place… I’ll see which weights more between the clock and oc potential (phantom) vs warranty, lower noise (even slightly) and size (msi). Best regards!
Hey there! Just to tell you that thanks to your advice, i picked the Phantom, since i found a shop where it was cheaper and at same waranty (Digitec, switzerland). And since i’m not a big oc-er, it won’t push it often to the higher temps neither. Ma machin is on a roll 😀 Thanks again for your help!
Glad to hear, hope it serves you well for many years to come. If you’re not sure if the OC is stable be sure to use a stability test like Unigine Heaven, OCCT or even 3DMark Vantage/11 – there is no point in using Furmark as most cards are programmed to down-clock in Furmark. I didn’t personally review the GTX 770 Phantom, but our review shows that you should be able to get it to about 1200-1250MHz on the core and 1900-2000MHz on the memory
http://www.eteknix.com/gainward-geforce-gtx-770-phantom-oc-2gb-graphics-card-review/16/
Thanks for the advice, I will do it. Best wishes for your future!