The Twin Frozr III cooler features 5 heatpipes of what MSI call their SuperPipe technology. Two of these heatpipes measure a huge 8mm which will wick heat away from the core much quicker than smaller pipes used on alternative custom coolers from other manufacturers. These large heatpipes are joined by a further three 6mm heatpipes which further help to spread the heat dump onto the aluminium finned cooler.



Here we can see the heatpipe array itself. Unusually, MSI opted to have the heatpipes closest to the PCIe slot rather than on display. While this does make for a neater appearance, I'm sure most would agree that when they see heatpipes they think power and should you have a windowed case, a graphics card sprouting heatpipes galore is a wonder to behold. That said, the MSI design is meant to be compact and unlike the HIS HD6970 ICEQ cooler which was very over-the-top, the MSI is a much more refined, discreet design.



The solder that joins the heatpipes to the fin array appears to have been manually applied rather than using the dip method employed by many other manufacturers. This has the benefit of ensuring good contact is made and while it doesn't look as pretty, it is not seen and the performance of the cooler should be near perfect thanks to this manual application/quality control process.



Flipping the cooler the correct way around and removing the frame gave us a better look at the new fan design. The cooler features two slim line 80mm fans which MSI claim deliver 22.7 CFM equates to 20% more airflow than a reference model.



The fans have been redesigned and are aptly named 'Propeller Blades'. This is an exclusive MSI innovation and ensures the widest possible area is cooled by the two fans allowing the GPU, memory and power module to run at the coolest temperatures possible.



The cooler made perfect contact with the GPU with just the right amount of quality thermal interface material being applied. The cooler baseplate is nickel plated copper so while this is not a Direct CU type cooler where the heatpipes make direct contact with the GPU, the quality materials used should ensure very efficient heat transfer.



With the main cooler removed we see that MSI have also included an all-in-one cooling bracket. This has dual benefits in that it assists in keeping the VRM and memory cool but also strengthens the card, preventing it from warping which we have seen numerous times on graphics cards before with heavy coolers attached. The bracket has thermal pads beneath providing perfect contact to the uneven VRM module and the memory chips.



With all of the cooling removed, we finally get to see the heart of the graphics card. I didn't notice when I first viewed the card that the PCB is actually a very dark brown rather than the black PCB's we have become accustomed to here at Vortez. Personally, I prefer black but it is unlikely you would notice in all but the strongest light. The main GPU is framed by ten 128MB modules with the power regulation found towards the rear of the card as with most GPU designs of today.



The memory used on today’s review sample is the H5GQ1H24AFR - T2C variant hailing from HYNIX. The memory is specified to run at 1.25GHz (5GHz effective) when set to 1.5v so we will see if we can reach this speed later in the review as the card's memory is clocked as standard to 1GHz (4GHz effective).



Unlike reference GTX570's that make do with a 4+1 power phase array, the MSI GTX570 Power Edition utilises and additional two power phases. This setup provides an additional current to the GPU which in turn should ensure the card receives enough juice to combat stability problems at high, overclocked frequencies. Super Ferrite Chokes are coupled with Solid Capacitors and Hi-c Capacitors with tantalum cores which are 15% less prone to leakage and according to MSI, are the same used on the Space Shuttles hence the Military Class II insignia.

Let's move on to today’s Test Setup...