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MSI GTX 670 Power Edition OC Review

SKYMTL

HardwareCanuck Review Editor
Staff member
Joined
Feb 26, 2007
Messages
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Location
Montreal
Conclusion

Conclusion


With NVIDIA’s GTX 660 Ti being released, many believed its low price of $299 and the subsequent introduction of AMD’s HD 7950 Boost would eventually encroach into the GTX 670’s territory. In some instances, this may have happened but with custom, pre overclocked products like MSI’s Power Edition OC, the GTX 670 has remained extremely competitive. This card is able to provide class-leading performance at every resolution without costing a fortune.

The GTX 670 Power Edition OC bridges gap between two highly regarded competitors: the ASUS GTX 670 DirectCU II TOP and Gigbayte’s GTX 670 WindForce OC. With an excellent heatsink design and upgraded components the Power Edition shares many of the same characteristics as its competitors but a price of just $409 puts it well ahead from a value standpoint even though its performance remains a bare half step between ASUS’ TOP-branded beast. MSI’s card also exhibited the lowest acoustical footprint we’ve seen from a GTX 670.

Aside from whisper quiet fans and low temperatures the MSI GTX 670 Power Edition OC’s primary selling point will be its in-game performance. With framerates easily matching or surpassing NVIDIA’s $499 GTX 680, we really can’t think of a better card for a wide variety of in-game situations. In many ways it is a actually a perfect alternative to NVIDIA’s flagship card since MSI’s Triple Overvoltage feature allows for some impressive overclocks with only a moderate amount of voltage. The GTX 680 will tend to pull ahead at higher detail settings but more often than not, the framerate difference between these two cards will never be noticeable to gamers.

For those of you wondering, AMD’s loud, power hungry HD 7950 Boost never really came close to matching the Power Edition’s performance or overall value. There were a few very rare instances where the HD 7950’s higher memory bandwidth allowed it to pull ever so slightly ahead but for the most part, the PE was miles ahead and would remain so even if compared against a pre-overclocked Boost edition.

MSI’s GTX 670 Power Edition OC is one hell of a graphics card. It combines near-silent acoustics and excellent overclocking abilities with performance that hits far above what its $409 price would initially indicate. Unless ASUS, Gigabyte and nearly every other NVIDIA board partner lower their prices, the Power Edition OC will remain one of the best bang for buck purchases in the current GPU market.

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