[section_title title=Packaging]
Packaging & Accessories
The packaging that the MSI R9 270X comes in is practically the same as what we would see with any of their other gaming range solutions. It comes in the standard gaming range red and black box, with the MSI dragon and gaming series shield branding. It is a design that I love and it really does make the box look good. It’s an attractive design that undoubtedly will catch the eye of anyone in the market for an upgrade.
The front and the back of the box follow the same red and black color scheme and feature the AMD Radeon and MSI gaming series branding. On the front of the box we can see the Twin Frozr gaming branding along with the AMD Radeon branding in the bottom right corner. In the top right corner we have the model of the card as well as a little emblem showing endorsement from the Fnatic gaming team. In the middle of the box we have the MSI dragon and the gaming series shield, two items which are synonamous with the MSI gaming brand. Finally in the bottom left side of the box we have an emblem stating that this card is the OC edition. As we are about to see, the back of the box is much more informative. Prepare yourselves for an information overload.
The back of the box follows on a similar color scheme and theme from the front. What will strike you straight away is the amount of information that MSI has managed to get onto the back of the box. The majority of his information is split into four areas. MSI’s Gaming App, Advanced Thermal Design, Military Class 4 and a built in video capture tool called Predator.
MSI’s Gaming App is an app which allows you to easily tune and play with your graphics card. It features three features which can be easily selected from an interface. these are;
OC Mode
• Tune up core clock and fan speed to gain a best performance.
Gaming Mode (Default)
• Provide a stable gaming experience with higher core clock.
Silent Mode
• The best operating environment with fabulous low noise.
Next up is the advanced Twin Frozr IV cooler thermal design.
MSI’s Twin Frozr has been the industry defining graphics card cooler. The first Twin Frozr kicked of the dual-fan trend and today MSI stays true to its dual-fan dual-slot design where others have to resort to less effective means.
The other part that the Twin Frozr cooler uses is a large Aluminium fin grid array that provides a huge amount of surface area for cooling. Heat from the GPU is transferred to the fin grid array by virtue of heat pipes with MSI’s special SuperPipe technology. SuperPipes transfer heat twice as fast as regular heat pipes enabling an MSI GAMING graphics card to stay cooler than the competition.
Futhermore, MSI provide all new Airflow Control technology on Twin Frozr. This new thermal tech leads airflow to the heat pipes by special deflector on heatsink, so it can deflect more airflow to heat pipes directly. In addition, this exclusive heatsink design increases the area of heatsink so heat dissipation is much more effective due to a larger surface area.
In regards to the Military Class 4 Components, we have seen these around on MSI’s motherboards for a little while now and it’s good to see that they are being implemented into MSI’s graphics cards as well.
One of the deciding factors in performance is the quality of the components used. That is why MSI only uses MIL-STD-810G certified components for its Gaming cards because only these components have proven to be able to withstand the torturous circumstances of extreme gaming and overclocking. MSI Have split this into three areas, Hi-C Cap, Solid Cap and their new Super Ferrite Chokes.
Solid Cap
Capacitors with MSI’s aluminum core design, Solid CAP’s have been a staple in high-end design mainboard designs and provides lower Equivalent Series Resistance (ESR) as well as a lifespan of over.
Hi-C CAP
A Hi-c CAP is a very small, but super-efficient capacitor. Besides ensuring enough spacing around a CPU socket to install large coolers, it also allows for 93% energy efficiency. Thanks to Hi-c CAP’s MSI mainboards are the most energy efficient in the market.
New Super Ferite Chokes
New Super Ferrite Chokes use a Ferrite core that is Super-Permeable. This allows the Super Ferrite Chokes to run at a 35 degree Celsius lower temperature, have a 30% higher current capacity, a 20% improvement in power efficiency and better overclocking power stability.
Lastly we have Predator. A built-in screen and video capturing tool named Predator which captures your screen as still images or videos with the push of a button and allows you to capture and record your coolest, goofiest and most awesome gaming moments on your PC!
On the right hand side we then have a features and specifications list as well as minimum system requirements, all of these have been covered on the specifications page of this review.
Removing the outer sleeve leaves us with the standard black box, something which is now pretty much standard with all graphics cards these days, but MSI have decided to emboss it with the gaming series shield and the MSI badge, a nice little touch of class to an otherwise plain box. The box is constructed of a sturdy cardboard and it is absolutely loaded with padding in the form of foam around the graphics card to keep it safe but first, let’s see the black box for what it’s worth.
Opening up the flap on this outer box reveals the accessories for this card which was admittedly sparse to my surprise. Inside we are greeted by two, 2x molex to six pin PCIe power adapters which, if you need to use  to power this graphics card, I suggest that you upgrade your power supply. Then we have a DVI to VGA adapter. Again, if you are needing to use this with this quality of graphics card, then it may be time to get a new monitor unless of course you’re using a legendary FW900. We then have a quick installation guide and the MSI driver installation disc. Rather surprisingly there is no Crossfire bridge. Considering this card still needs to utilise the bridge to enable multi-GPU usage this seems a little strange. This is a review sample so please be aware that it is possible it could have gone missing whilst going between reviewers.
Underneath the accessories box we have the graphics card. As you can see it comes pre-wrapped in an anti-static bag and is surrounded by masses of soft black foam holding the graphics card in place. This is to stop unwanted movement from the card during shipping but also to prevent rough shipping from couriers damaging it on route to you.
