Two GeForce 7950GT by Chaintech and MSI
MSI 7950GT Zero Edition
The second video card which we are examining today is made by MSI. The sound conservatism and innovative approach have been fully reflected in MSI 7950GT Zero Edition. But - all in good time.
The setting of the box is quite traditional. Among the most essential points to note is the support for HDCP, as well as Heroes of Might and Magic V as a bonus item, and a proprietary noiseless cooling system due to which the video card has acquired the Zero Edition suffix.
The reverse side of boxes for MSI video cards almost never changes. These days, they start promoting yellow connectors which support the 2560õ1600 resolution, but this resolution is supported by all other offerings. If we compare this video card versus the Chaintech offering, the MSI video card supports 10% overclocking using the same proprietary D.O.T. Express technology. However, in the case of MSI 7950GT Zero Edition we should not be hasty at overclocking. Let me explain why.
MSI 7950GT Zero Edition uses a passive cooling system based on heat pipes. On the front side of the PCB, we can see merely a part of the cooler which adjoins the GPU. Evidently, the PCB design is absolutely the same as in all the other video cards of the 7900GS/GT series video cards. Among the pleasant surprises is the VIVO chip made by Philips. Lately, it's not often that you can see support for the video capture feature on video cards equipped with NVIDIA chips.
The reverse side of the MSI 7950GT Zero Edition is half hidden by a huge radiator of copper plates attached on heat pipes coming out of the video processor. Such a layout of the radiator is justified, since the air flow from the CPU cooler simultaneously blows about the video card radiator. However, we can bring in a number of examples when the design of the CPU cooler assumes a different structure of air flows. In this case, the efficiency of rejecting heat off the GPU may be reduced.
Another important point to dwell is the dimensions of the radiator. The thickness of the radiator is 17 mm (the distance from the PCB plane to the external plane of the radiator),so there may be issues when installing the video card on a motherboard with a huge radiator on the chipset or full-length memory modules having protective radiators.
We are not bringing in a photo of the radiator because it is unlikely to make any difference from the one installed on the Chaintech video card, and we also wouldn't like to dismantle the housing. The GPU operating frequency on MSI 7950GT Zero Edition fully meets the 550 MHz recommended by NVIDIA.
As regards the video memory, it is precisely the same. The overall capacity is 512 MB, the chips are made by Infineon, and the access time is 1.4 ns. The memory operating frequency coincides with the nominal and equals 1400 MHz DDR.
And this is a video capture chip made by Philips.
Package bundle of MSI 7950GT Zero Edition:
- a cable for additional power supply
- S-Video cable
- VIVI/HDTV-out adapter
- DVI/D-SUB adapters - 2 pcs;
- User's manual
- drivers and utilities CD
- a CD with Star DVD Family, including PowerCinema, Power2GO, PowerProducer
- a CD with Heroes of Might and Magic 5
At that, we'd better stop with the exterior of these video cards and move on to the tests for overclocking and performance.
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