Being a Mid/high end graphics card, the GTX570 has proven very popular with enthusiasts who are looking for solid performance without having to pay through the nose to get it. More often than not though, people who buy the GTX570 will be looking to overclock their card to compete with its GTX580 brethren. Users are also keen to reduce the noise emitted from their setups and thus MSI have acted upon this demand by producing a graphics card that is not only powerful but cool running and near silent.
The Twin Frozr II is held in high regard by both overclockers and those who seek silence above all else so it was with trepidation that I began to review a card with the successor to this popular cooler, the Twin Frozr III. While it is not radically different from its former incarnation, it is an improvement; an evolution if you will that has enhanced all that was great about the previous version without adding noise or sacrificing the aesthetic value. IS it the best on the market at present though?
To answer that question I would need to know what your requirements were. If space were an issue then the MSI GTX570 1280MB Twin Frozr III Power Edition OC is the best GTX570 we have tested to date. In terms of performance it just falls short of the competition but only by a knats whisker. It does however weigh in a little cheaper and in this highly competitive segment of the market, price is key and I would say MSI are bang on the money here. Priced at around the £265 mark it is cheap enough to dissuade potential buyers of the top of the range GTX580s yet it still comes close in providing the performance, especially when overclocked further than the modest factory overclock already applied which itself demands a slight premium over reference cards. Couple this with a cooler that is both efficient and quiet and you have to ask yourself why bother with a GTX580?
For the most part I would agree. However when you look a little closer at the results, the lack of memory becomes apparent in high resolutions. VRAM limitation is a highly debated and contested subject but there can be no denying, especially with regard to Metro 2033 that in our testing, less than 2GB of memory is insufficient at high resolutions with all the trimmings applied. The game is simply unplayable. I will concede that this is only one game that suffered such dreadful results but with future games becoming more and more complex you have to wonder at the longevity a card with this amount of memory offers. Buyers of the GTX570 are looking for value for money and while today it certainly gives that, I would not place as much faith in tomorrow. I would however, have no concerns if I used a sub 24 inch monitor yet as with most components, resolutions have steadily risen over the years to a point where 1920x1080 is now the most common resolution in use today. The MSI GTX570 will easily deal with this resolution but what about next year, or the year after that? Will it still be able to reproduce the excellent results shown in the majority of benchmarks today? It is hard to tell but it wasn't so long ago that people scoffed at having 512Mb of graphics memory. Today 1GB is pretty much the minimum!
I can however only base my findings on what I have seen today and although it just fell short of the GIGABYTE GTX570 SOC in terms of raw performance both in stock and overclocked settings, it matched its cooling and acoustics. It also costs slightly less and did it all in a smaller package. For that reason it deserves the very same awards as the GIGABYTE GTX . Each product scored its own victories and thus are very evenly matched depending on your ultimate requirements.
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net. Thanks to MSI for providing todays review sample.
The Twin Frozr II is held in high regard by both overclockers and those who seek silence above all else so it was with trepidation that I began to review a card with the successor to this popular cooler, the Twin Frozr III. While it is not radically different from its former incarnation, it is an improvement; an evolution if you will that has enhanced all that was great about the previous version without adding noise or sacrificing the aesthetic value. IS it the best on the market at present though?
To answer that question I would need to know what your requirements were. If space were an issue then the MSI GTX570 1280MB Twin Frozr III Power Edition OC is the best GTX570 we have tested to date. In terms of performance it just falls short of the competition but only by a knats whisker. It does however weigh in a little cheaper and in this highly competitive segment of the market, price is key and I would say MSI are bang on the money here. Priced at around the £265 mark it is cheap enough to dissuade potential buyers of the top of the range GTX580s yet it still comes close in providing the performance, especially when overclocked further than the modest factory overclock already applied which itself demands a slight premium over reference cards. Couple this with a cooler that is both efficient and quiet and you have to ask yourself why bother with a GTX580?
For the most part I would agree. However when you look a little closer at the results, the lack of memory becomes apparent in high resolutions. VRAM limitation is a highly debated and contested subject but there can be no denying, especially with regard to Metro 2033 that in our testing, less than 2GB of memory is insufficient at high resolutions with all the trimmings applied. The game is simply unplayable. I will concede that this is only one game that suffered such dreadful results but with future games becoming more and more complex you have to wonder at the longevity a card with this amount of memory offers. Buyers of the GTX570 are looking for value for money and while today it certainly gives that, I would not place as much faith in tomorrow. I would however, have no concerns if I used a sub 24 inch monitor yet as with most components, resolutions have steadily risen over the years to a point where 1920x1080 is now the most common resolution in use today. The MSI GTX570 will easily deal with this resolution but what about next year, or the year after that? Will it still be able to reproduce the excellent results shown in the majority of benchmarks today? It is hard to tell but it wasn't so long ago that people scoffed at having 512Mb of graphics memory. Today 1GB is pretty much the minimum!
I can however only base my findings on what I have seen today and although it just fell short of the GIGABYTE GTX570 SOC in terms of raw performance both in stock and overclocked settings, it matched its cooling and acoustics. It also costs slightly less and did it all in a smaller package. For that reason it deserves the very same awards as the GIGABYTE GTX . Each product scored its own victories and thus are very evenly matched depending on your ultimate requirements.
Pros:
-Solid Performer
-Very good cooling
-Very quiet operation
-Solid state capacitors, Hi-c Caps and super ferrite chokes for durable, efficient performance
-Small size
Cons:
-Lack of memory may be an issue for some
-Brown PCB
-Solid Performer
-Very good cooling
-Very quiet operation
-Solid state capacitors, Hi-c Caps and super ferrite chokes for durable, efficient performance
-Small size
Cons:
-Lack of memory may be an issue for some
-Brown PCB
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net. Thanks to MSI for providing todays review sample.
