[section_title title=Closer Look]Closer Look
Taking a look at top of the MSI R7 260x, the single fan cooler features MSI’s exclusive propeller blade technology which is designed to provide up to 20% more airflow than the reference AMD cooler as well as cooling 50% more surface area. The card itself is not a part of the MSI Gaming range thus the colour of the cooler reflects this fact. Touching more on the colour, the fan sticker is black and blue while the remainder of the cooler is black. It is also worth mentioning that the R7 260x is based on the Bonaire processor and not the Pitcairn found in the R9 270 and 270x.
The MSI R7 260x doesn’t come with a back plate as standard although those capable modders are more than welcome to create their own. The PCB is brown and it kind of spoils the overall look of the card but isn’t a big deal as it would be hard to notice inside of a dark case anyway. There is a MSI warranty sticker covering one of the screws so check with your re-seller if you are unsure about voiding the warranty or not.
Here we have the end of the 260x which not only has the fan header for the included 10cm cooling fan, but we have the end of the actual heat sink which is relatively decent fin density to ensure the card remains cooler under load.
The MSI R7 260x is powered by 1 x 6pin PCI-Ex power cable and is effectively an AMD 7790 re-brand just like the 280x is a 7970 refresh. Also to the right of the 6pin power input, there is the dual copper heat pipe design which is designed to ensure maximum heat dissipation in conjunction with the heat sink/fan.
Touching more on power, the R7 260x has a 1280 shader count, 16 ROPs and has 2GB of VRAM pushed along by a 128bit bus unlike the 2GB found on the 270 which has a 256bit bus.
The AMD R7 260x series graphics cards supports Crossfire just like the majority of the range which isn’t surprising as the 7790 also supported CF.
At the bottom of the card, we have the PCI-E connector which supports GEN3 although it is backwards compatible if you don’t have a capable CPU/motherboard. It supports up to x16 and as always, this will depend on the available bandwidth on your motherboards lanes.
Last but not least, we have the Rear I/O of the graphics card which contains the following inputs:
1 x Display Port
2 x DVI (Dual-link)
1 x HDMI
Also on the back is the rear exhaust to essentially force the heat out the rear of the case to ensure the rest of the system doesn’t get plagued with the hot air; I favor this extremely.
