[section_title title=Closer Look]
Closer Look
Now for your first look at this beautiful card. On first appearances its the same as any of the other gaming series cards, and you would not be able to tell which card it was, whether it was AMD or Nvidia or 270X to 280X. The cooler is essentially the same that MSI uses on all of their graphics cards in the Gaming Series range. It comes equipped with two 10cm PWM fans and five 6mm ‘Super Pipes’ which MSI claim move heat upto 5 times faster than anything the competition has to offer. Underneath the cooler is a plate which is screwed to the PCB and the cooler. This further helps cooling of the card by dissipating heat away from the VRAM chips and the power regulation as well as providing the card with some rigidity.
Onto the back of the card. We can see that MSI have decided to use a totally custom PCB which is a little wider than what we would see from a reference design. MSI have decided to implement the same PCB that they have used on previous iterations of different cards. If you look close enough, this is backed up by there being voltage check point markings, which would suggest that it is possible with this card. Unfortunately, it is not, and just goes to show that the PCB here is a PCB of another card being reused.
Powering the MSI R9 270X, you will need two PCIE 6pn power connectors. On the back of the box MSI state that the minimum power supply requirement for this card is 500w for a single card or 600w for crossfire, which seems reasonable for a card of this price and performance. It would be advisable to have a quality brand of power supply such as Enermax or Seasonic when using higher end components for the sake of safety. Just to the right of the power connectors we can see the BIOS switch. MSI have given this graphics card a dual bios feature which will enable you to change between the two if you want to flash BIOS’ to try and achieve performance gains a rather nice touch given it’s focus on overclocking. We also get a better look at one of the Super Pipes.
The I/O on the card is pretty standard across the board. Featuring one DVI-I, one DVI-D one fullsize Display Port and one Fullsize HDMI. What I don’t understand though is why those vents are still so small.
Along the top edge we can see the single crossfire connector. As there is only one it suggests that the card is only able to function in two-way crossfire. In show we can also see the reinforcement plate which MSI have placed on the PCB. This arm which is in shot screws into the IO panel.
At the rear of the card we get a better look at the heatsink design MSI have used. The radiator consists of quite a dense fin array and is positioned under the rear 10cm PWM fan. We can also see the termination of one of the Super Pipes and also another one running down the side of the card. We can also see the header for the coolers PWM fans on the PCB.
