[section_title title=Introduction & Closer Look]
Introduction & Closer Look
Brand: MSI
Model: R7 360 OC 2GB
UK Price: £89.99 @ OcUK (At time of review)
US Price: $112.99 @ Amazon US (At time of review)
Not all graphics cards are designed for playing AAA titles and dominating frame rates, usually those options cost big bucks. Enter the MSI R7 360 OC 2GB which offers more in terms of value for money than it does for performance. Coming in at the meagre price of £89.99, it certainly isn’t going to break the bank, but with such competition at in and around the £80-150 price point, can this card show its worth in an already dominated market?
So what does £90 get you for your money? Well the MSI R7 360 OC comes with 2GB of GDDR5 memory which runs over a small, but ample 128 bit bus. The most interesting part of this graphics cards design is the very small size; it measures in at 6.5” in length. This makes it a perfect option for a small form factor system, although it certainly doesn’t have anywhere near the graphical grunt of the AMD R9 Fury Nano! The cooler features a single fan design which isn’t surprising given the short length of the card, but I see no problems with cooling as this card isn’t designed for heavy gaming, nor will it be able to play AAA titles at maximum settings.
The card doesn’t feature a back plate, but it does feature a fully black PCB which makes up for this.
With a width of 1.45”, this card is classed as a dual slot cooler; the aluminium plated heat sink also looks aesthetically pleasing.
To power the MSI R7 360 OC 2GB graphics card, your power supply will need to have a spare 6pin PCIe power cable. The card does feature a 100w TDP, but MSI are recommending a 500w power supply which may seem a bit extreme, but 500w is fairly reasonable, especially for future upgrades.
That fabled MSI rear exhaust vent is predominant on the I/O, but more importantly, the R7 360 graphics card comes equipped with 1 x DVI-D, 1 x HDMI and 1 x DisplayPort. This effectively means that this GPU can support up to 3 concurrent displays at once.
The MSI R7 360 OC 2GB card comes with default clocks of 1100MHz on the core and 1625MHz on the memory; this is a pre-overclocked model hence the slightly higher than stock clocks on this card.
