MSI GTX 670 Power Edition VS Asus GTX 670 DC2

[tigersty1e]

I can get the asus card for 420 (amazon) or the msi card for 470 (newegg). CA tax FTW.

Which would be the better buy?

I plan on overclocking and the msi card will get voltage control, but does it really add much in the overclocking department?

 

[DrBoss]

I plan on overclocking and the msi card will get voltage control, but does it really add much in the overclocking department?

We won't know until Afterburner 2.2.3 releases and we can actually play with voltage... As is (no voltage control) my MSI 670 PE is stable at:

Core Boost Clock -1290 MHz
Memory Clock - 7204 Mhz
Running at a Max of 69 C



I can't speak for the ASUS, but the MSI is pretty boss. I'm really looking forward to voltage control.

 

[cmdrdredd]

There was a thread here with an Asus card with a volt mod and overvolted. The scores went up but core/boost clock only helps so much. You need to get the memory clock to scale up as well or you will get severely diminishing returns.

BTW: The asus card doesn't directly cool the VRMs and memory with it's cooler from what I remember of that thread. Other designs like the Gigabyte, Zotac, MSI do.

 

[tigersty1e]

I'm considering the non-top version. This picture is of the top version that shows most of the vrm covered.

 

[chimaxi83]

There was a thread here with an Asus card with a volt mod and overvolted. The scores went up but core/boost clock only helps so much. You need to get the memory clock to scale up as well or you will get severely diminishing returns.

BTW: The asus card doesn't directly cool the VRMs and memory with it's cooler from what I remember of that thread. Other designs like the Gigabyte, Zotac, MSI do.

Yea, that was my thread. I haven't seen huge gains in any benchmarks with the volt mod, but I haven't put much time into it lately with other obligations taking my time.

As far as overclocking goes, it's definitely an issue that the DC II cards have naked VRAM chips with no kind of heatsink/unisink touching them, as well as that small black heatsink covering the VRM's. The VRAM IC's get pretty warm, I measured them around 80C at the surface. That is without the DC II heatsink on because I have a universal block on the GPU. I'm not sure if the fans of the DC II cooler itself provide adequate cooling by the air that flows through the heatsink, which is already warmed. The VRM bank on my DC II 680 is a set of 10 phases all dumping their heat into this tiny sink. 100C is easily attained even with a tiny over volt. Yes they're rated to withstand that, but so what. No thanks. I strapped a fan to that area (not sure about getting a full cover block) and haven't seen VRM temps over 60C since.

I like the DC II and everything, but if I was shopping for a 670, it'd be an MSI Power Edition, no question. I've had two Twin Frozr cards, and thermally they were great performers overvolted and overclocked.

 

[tigersty1e]

but the msi pe also has bare ram chips on the backside.