discussion MSI GTX 670 Power Edition OC Review

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Shogun 2: Total War (DX11)

Shogun 2: Total War (DX11)

Due to its very nature, Shogun 2 is a tough game to benchmark since the in-game tool doesn’t accurately convey an in-game experience. So we took a pre-recorded battle which pits three large armies against one another and includes camera zooms, fog, gun smoke and other items. Using a pre-recorded sequence also effectively removes the CPU from the equation since it doesn’t have to process AI.

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The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (DX9)

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (DX9)

Being one of the most popular and best looking RPG games released in the last few years, Skyrim needed to be included in our reviews, regardless of the fact that it uses an older DX9 rendering engine. For our test sequence we used a typical runthrough interspersed with some combat. A modded .ini file along with the official high resolution texture pack was used in order to ensure image quality was up to expectations.

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Wargame: European Escalation (DX11)

Wargame: European Escalation (DX11)

This may not be the most popular game on the market but through its DX11 rendering path it can display some amazing visuals. For our benchmark we used a combination of wide angle zooming, close quarters combat and camera pans in order to simulate as many in-game scenarios as possible.


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The Witcher 2 (DX9)

The Witcher 2 (DX9)

The Witcher 2 may be a DX9 based game but its graphics quality is beyond reproach. In this benchmark we take an area out of The Kayran mission and include one of the toughest effects the graphics engine has in store for the GPU: rain. Throughout this sequence, rain plays a large part but explosions, combat and even some sun shafts are included as well.

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Taking Image Quality to the Next Level

Taking Image Quality to the Next Level

In this section we take a number of games we have tested previously in this review and bring things to the next level by pushing the in-game settings to the highest possible level. All other methodologies remain the same.


Batman: Arkham City

Crysis 2

Dirt 3

Metro 2033

 

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Taking Image Quality to the Next Level (pg.2)

Taking Image Quality to the Next Level (pg.2)

In this section we take a number of games we have tested previously in this review and bring things to the next level by pushing the in-game settings to the highest possible level. All other methodologies remain the same.

Shogun 2: Total War

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

Wargame: European Escalation

The Witcher 2

 

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Surround / Eyefinity Multi Monitor Performance

Surround / Eyefinity Multi Monitor Performance

Both NVIDIA and AMD now have single GPU multi monitor output options for some truly immersive gaming. However, spanning a game across three or more monitors demands a serious amount of resources which makes this a perfect test for ultra high-end solutions.

While all solutions have the ability to implement bezel correction, we leave this feature disabled in order to ensure compatibility. The benchmarks run remain the same as in normal testing scenarios.


Batman: Arkham City

Battlefield 3

Crysis 2

Dirt 3

 

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Surround / Eyefinity Multi Monitor Performance (pg.2)

Surround / Eyefinity Multi Monitor Performance (pg.2)

Both NVIDIA and AMD now have single GPU multi monitor output options for some truly immersive gaming. However, spanning a game across three or more monitors demands a serious amount of resources which makes this a perfect test for ultra high-end solutions.

While all solutions have the ability to implement bezel correction, we leave this feature disabled in order to ensure compatibility. The benchmarks run remain the same as in normal testing scenarios.


Metro 2033

Shogun 2: Total War

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

Wargame: European Escalation

 

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Temperature & Acoustics / Power Consumption

Temperature Analysis

For all temperature testing, the cards were placed on an open test bench with a single 120mm 1200RPM fan placed ~8” away from the heatsink. The ambient temperature was kept at a constant 22°C (+/- 0.5°C). If the ambient temperatures rose above 23°C at any time throughout the test, all benchmarking was stopped. For this test we use the 3DMark Batch Size test at its highest triangle count with 4xAA and 16xAF enabled and looped it for one hour to determine the peak load temperature as measured by GPU-Z.

For Idle tests, we let the system idle at the Windows 7 desktop for 15 minutes and recorded the peak temperature.

While it may not have the lowest temperatures we’ve seen from a custom GTX 670 card, the Power Edition’s Twin Frozr still demolishes the reference heatsink and is barely edged out by the Gigabyte and ASUS products. Essentially, MSI has designed this cooler with excess capacity in mind so overclocking with it installed shouldn’t be an issue.

Acoustical Testing

What you see below are the baseline idle dB(A) results attained for a relatively quiet open-case system (specs are in the Methodology section) sans GPU along with the attained results for each individual card in idle and load scenarios. The meter we use has been calibrated and is placed at seated ear-level exactly 12” away from the GPU’s fan. For the load scenarios, a loop of Unigine Heave 2.5 is used in order to generate a constant load on the GPU(s) over the course of 20 minutes.

Ironically, MSI may not post the absolute best temperatures but it has the competition beat when it comes to acoustics.

System Power Consumption

For this test we hooked up our power supply to a UPM power meter that will log the power consumption of the whole system twice every second. In order to stress the GPU as much as possible we once again use the Batch Render test in 3DMark06 and let it run for 30 minutes to determine the peak power consumption while letting the card sit at a stable Windows desktop for 30 minutes to determine the peak idle power consumption. We have also included several other tests as well.

Please note that after extensive testing, we have found that simply plugging in a power meter to a wall outlet or UPS will NOT give you accurate power consumption numbers due to slight changes in the input voltage. Thus we use a Tripp-Lite 1800W line conditioner between the 120V outlet and the power meter.

As you may have assumed, higher clock speeds equate increased power consumption. However, due to MSI’s upgraded components, the hit has been softened a bit.

 

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Overclocking Results

Overclocking Results

MSI’s cards have continually impressed us with their willingness to overclock to impressive levels. With a bit of coaxing via MSI’s AfterBurner software to maximize the Power Limit and add 100mV to the core and memory voltage (PLL was also increased by 50mV) the GPU hit an impressive 1388MHz while the memory petered out at 6524MHz. Both of those clock speeds are personal bests but we have a feeling like there’s more in the tank should MSI decide to release a GTX 670 Lightning.

For those of you wondering, at these speeds, the actual Boost clock we typically observed in games was between 1450MHz and 1465MHz.