Final Thoughts
MSI’s GTX 770 Twin Frozr Gaming OC Edition 2GB graphics card costs £318.92 | £319.99 from our preferred UK retailers (all pricing accurate at the time of writing). This compares quite favourably to all other GTX 770s on the market that start at around £315 so MSI have certainly nailed UK pricing. In the USA you are looking at $399.99 which is essentially what all GTX 770s start at anyway so again MSI have nailed pricing. There is one thing that I want to pick up on though, and that is that I’ve seen the same MSI GTX 770 Twin Frozr Gaming OC Edition 2GB graphics card with three difference clock speeds. First are the clock speeds we reviewed at (base/boost/memory) 1059/1111/7010MHz (At OCUK), then I saw slightly higher of 1098/1150/7010MHz (At Scan) and then even higher in the USA (At Newegg) of 1137/1198/7010MHz. I’m not quite sure what is going on with that, and obviously I’d encourage you to get the highest clocked models unless it is cheaper to get the lower clocked models in which case get those as the clocks won’t make a huge deal of difference. That said a 1137MHz overclock out of the box is more than our card could even overclock to! There is certainly something strange going on with GPU binning at the moment with these MST GTX 770 TF OC Gaming cards so I will reiterate my point – buy the highest clocked versions when possible and if your retailer doesn’t specify clock speeds in the product listing, then do ask them.
With pricing and clock speed differentials out of the way it is now time to discuss what I liked about the card. Firstly, it was super quiet and I reiterated this on previous MSI Gaming Twin Frozr cards (notably the GTX 760) that I was just so impressed with how quiet they run. MSI could easily use more aggressive profiles to gain lower temperatures but they don’t need to because the cards run cool enough and quiet enough as it is. That leads me onto the second point which is that due to the excellent cooling solution Nvidia’s GPU Boost 2.0 is allowed to work to its full effect because thermal throttling never really kicks in even over prolonged gaming sessions. Finally, I am just hugely impressed with how great the card looks. MSI have really designed a beautiful looking card thanks to their Gaming Series Twin Frozr cooler. The product is also boosted by the fact MSI use high quality components and you know that you’ve got a solid 3 year warranty backing your purchase.
Despite the positives there was one major let-down for me and I am going to be blunt here – the GPU overclocking on our sample absolutely sucked. I was able to overclock our reference GTX 770 by 70MHz more than the MSI GTX 770 Twin Frozr graphics card. I think we may of had a bad sample but either way users need to know that sometimes it is possible your card might be a rubbish overclocker, and ours was. Of course we had successes on the memory but memory clock increases give less performance boosts than GPU core clock increases. I think MSI should standardise all versions at those higher overclocks of 1098/1137MHz instead of running some at a variety of three different speeds, the higher the better but we think 1098MHz would be a good sweet spot for MSI to aim for.
One final thing to note is that MSI’s GTX 770 is part of Nvidia’s Splinter Cell Blacklist promotion. You can check participating retailers in the promotion right here. We’d encourage all consumers to take advantage of this deal as even if you don’t want the game you can easily sell it on to someone else as an effective rebate.
Pros
- Competitively priced
- Factory overclocked
- 3 year warranty
- Looks great
- Quiet operation
- Effective cooling solution
- Splinter Cell Blacklist promotion
Cons
- Clock speeds vary between retailers and regions
- Our sample was a rubbish overclocker
- Stock VRAM out of the box
eTeknix says: “MSI’s GTX 770 Twin Frozr Gaming OC Edition 2GB graphics card is a solid piece of kit that anyone would be delighted to have. I’m amazed how far MSI have come to the point where they can offer such an amazing graphics card for the same price as a reference solution. The GTX 770 TF Gaming OC card looks amazing, runs cool and quiet and is backed by high quality components and a three year warranty. If I had to put my money where my mouth is on buying a GTX 770 then this would definitely be one of the top contenders. The only blemish on an otherwise perfect performance was the poor overclocking headroom on our sample that left me a little disappointed. “
Thank you to MSI for providing this review sample.
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!