UPDATE #2: I decided I needed to update this review a bit further. I am still overclocking this card, but now using Catalyst Control instead of Afterburner. I had no need to for the voltage control that Afterburner provided, and it was sketchy when applying my overclocks. Catalyst Control does essentially the same thing, and it does it well. Just drag the power slider to +20% and GPU and memory clock speeds to the max. I haven't had any crashes or artifacting. Also, regarding temperatures, keeping the fan speed at about 50% seems to keep the temperature in the range of about 38C (100F) under full load in things like Crysis 3 and Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. During the Witcher 2 the temperature will rise to about 45C (113F), but not much more. I have seen it get to about 48C, and that has been the highest recently. Now, on performance in graphically demanding games, Crysis 3 will run at high settings at about 40 FPS. If you do some settings customization, it will go above 60 FPS without sacrificing major graphical effects. I set "particle effects", "water", "shading", "shadows" (a major GPU killer), and most others to "Medium" since they are GPU destroyers and not really necessary for a great experience. I set "Object Detail" and Game Effects to "High" and "Very High", respectively. Also, setting Anisotropic Filtering to 16x and changing Anti-Aliasing to SMAA 4x really helps. I don't actually see the benefits of MSAA, but some people do, so do what you feel is best on your eyes. I keep 60 FPS and above with these settings, and it looks spectacular. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon requires similar adjustments, but the lesson here is to lower the quality of shadows and very high anti-aliasing effects. If you adjust these properly, this GPU will really surprise you.
UPDATED #1: So, I just got around to messing with the overclocking on this card. It is incredible. I did not unlock the voltages, and got my core clock up to 1050 MHz and memory clock up to 1450 MHz. The performance increase on my build is around 20%, so I'm very happy with that. Fine tuning the fan speed also keeps it several degrees Celsius cooler, just turn it up around 50 or 60 in MSI Afterburner and it's not too loud but much cooler. After adjusting the fan speed, my load temperature (with the overclock settings on) hasn't been above 50 C. I haven't had any artifacting after increasing the clock speeds, and that's always a good sign. I feel like this card is still a great deal, considering I get about 86 FPS (average) on Bioshock Infinite with everything turned up to "Ultra". Same with the new Tomb Raider; I get about 72 FPS (average) with the settings on "Ultimate", which is the same as "Ultra", but with TressFX enabled.
This is a perfect card for a budget build, especially considering its retail price is less than $250. I just used this in my new gaming PC, and I haven't had any issues with it. Upon installation, the drivers install automatically (I'd recommend downloading the newest ones from AMD, though) and it's ready to do some work. I have been playing the new Tomb Raider on "Ultimate" settings, and the performance of this card is very impressive!
I will do my best to describe what "Ultimate" actually means, as most people are already familiar with what "Ultra" is. "Ultimate" is a step above "Ultra". This setting adds things like the new TressFX feature, which enables physics on individual strands of Lara's hair (you can get a peek at this on YouTube by searching for TressFX...you won't regret it!); also, it cranks every setting that was previously set on "High" to "Ultra" (i.e. Depth of Field, Quality, Texture Quality, Anti-Aliasing, Shadows, Shadow Resolution, Texture Filter, Level of Detail, Reflections, SSAO, Tesselation, and some post-processing/V-Sync options for Triple Buffering). I ran the in-game benchmark to see what I could expect from these "Ultimate" settings, and I was surprised to find that my minimum FPS was 36.8 and my maximum was 63.2. Now, these aren't necessarily reflective of what the actual experience would be like, but this card was able to achieve in the 60 FPS range and sometimes dip to ~50 FPS.
Now, about the temperature situation: under full-load in RAGE and Tomb Raider, the temperature has not risen above 45 C (113 F). This may sound hot, but most people with the new GTX 600 series cards say their load temperature is about 60 C or more. I am very impressed with that, but part of that may be my case setup; so, as always: results may vary. Although, with this card, I haven't heard much about anyone going above 60 C, so that's always encouraging.
On overclocking: I haven't changed the settings from stock, so I cannot honestly comment on this. In the future, I may delve into that, but not yet (no need). If I get around to it, I will update my review and post some conclusions on the process and the performance.
For some dislikes: I don't have much to add here. I've had issues with V-Sync related stuff, but I think that's only because my monitor/TV don't have native support for it. It's something that needs to be experimented with on a case-by-case basis. As for support from MSI, I can't comment on that, as I have never needed it. I've heard good and bad things, but mostly good. If I have to deal with them, I'll update my review with the analysis of my experience.
I didn't know I wanted this card, but I did some research and ended up being incredibly happy with my decision. I would recommend it to anyone who needs an excellent performing graphics card that has a lot to offer.
| Max Screen Resolution | 4096 x 2160 |
|---|---|
| Memory Speed | 4800 MHz |
| Graphics Coprocessor | AMD Radeon |
| Chipset Brand | AMD |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 2 GB |
