MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition OC Video Card

Manufacturer: MicroStar International
Model Number: R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC
Product Name: Radeon HD 6950
Price As Tested:$299.99 at Newegg

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by MSI.

AMD changed the game with its 6000 series of GPU's but at the same time it confused a lot of people with its numbering system. To cut a long story short, a HD58XX is equivalent to a HD69XX and not a HD68XX, a common misconception for the less informed enthusiast. The MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition OC video card is the current card on the bench so to speak, and as you can tell from the name this offering from MSI carries its top end Twin Frozr III cooler equipped with twin propeller blade fans. The power edition in its name relates towards the support for triple over-voltage and a 6+2 Phase VRM, and I'm sure you can guess what the OC stands for.

Unfortunately there is only so much overclocking an AIB partner can do with a HD6950 without it running into HD6970 performance territory, so the overclock on this card is not very aggressive. Add to that factor the unlocking potential of the 6950 series, one has to be careful not to back bench one SKU to sell another. The MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC video card comes factory overclocked at 850MHz GPU / 1300MHz (5.2GHz effective) Memory.

For this review we have a wide range of video card comparisons in our usual mixture of DX10 / DX11 synthetic benchmarks and current games to get a good idea where it fits in performance and price wise. We also intend to overclock the GPU to its limits and see if the Twin Frozr III cooler with its improved fan design has what it takes to cool the GPU and other components effectively, so without further delay let's move on and get stuck in.

Closer Look: MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III

Let's take a good look at the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC's exterior, later we shall strip it down to see what secrets the cooler is hiding. The image below shows a very professional looking video card, it measures 27cm long x 11.6cm tall and is a true dual slot design.

The guts of the MSI Twin Frozr III cooler are well hidden by the gun-metal color aluminum shroud. This shroud improves over the previous Twin Frozr II design and looks much less hideous and much more functional. Twin 80mm 'Propeller Blade' fans dominate the front face of the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC and complete the aesthetics.

The MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC requires two 6-pin PCI-E power connectors from your PSU, while MSI includes two molex to 6-pin adapter cables it is highly recommended to use a PSU that already has these connectors present.

For connectivity we have 2 x mini display ports, a full size HDMI port and 2 x Dual Link DVI-I connectors. There is a little space left over for ventilation but the design of the cooler expels hot air inside your case rather than out here.

A side view of the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC video card showing you how it will look installed inside your PC. The PCB is somewhat re-enforced by the Memory/VRM heatsink but not to the same extent as we have seen previously on the MSI GTX 560Ti Hawk, this seems somewhat strange considering this card is the longer of the two.

Removing the cooler assembly reveals yet another heatsink, MSI have dubbed this the 'Form-in-one' heatsink and it covers all of the memory IC's and the power circuitry. There is a slight bit of overkill with the thermal paste here but nothing that can't be remedied, the temperature recordings are good so only us perfectionists need worry about cleaning and refining here. A little cut-out at the top of the formed heatsink reveals a fan profile switch that allows you to choose between 'Performance' (higher noise) and 'Silent' (higher temps), needless to say I left it on performance.

The Twin Frozr III cooler on this card varies slightly from the Twin Frozr seen on MSI GTX 560Ti Hawk in that it has an extra 6mm heatpipe and it is slightly longer too. There are three 6mm heatpipes and two 8mm heatpipes to carry the heat away from the GPU and into the aluminum fin array.

The Twin Frozr III design incorporates two 80mm propeller blade PWM fans introduced by MSI on their Cyclone II coolers. These fans have proven track record for cooling ability but they are not the quietest when running at full speed, thankfully you won't need to ramp them up to 100% to get optimum performance as they cool very effectively on their auto cycle with minimal noise disruption.

MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC Details

In this section we shall take an in depth look at the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC video card and see what makes it tick.

With the cooler assembly removed we can get a better look at the board, in this design most of the action is on the front of the PCB. All in all the PCB looks good with no real waste of space and the soldering quality is of a very high standard as you will see in the close-up shots further down the page.

The back of the PCB is utilised mainly for resistors and the soldering quality is excellent for such tiny components, man loses the war to the machine when it comes to detailed work like this.

Reading the memory codes is somewhat difficult due to the thermal interface that was used between the memory modules and the form-in-one heatsink. The memory used on this card is lablled Hynix H5GQ2H24MFR modules, rated at 5GHz.

The VRM controller used on the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC is the same uP6218AN chip seen on the MSI GTX 560Ti Hawk.

Above and below are dual uP0104P 3A ultra low dropout linear regulators manufactured by uPI Semicondutor Corp.

Now that's what I call cutting it close!! This cooler mounting hole is in very close proximity of the voltage regulator, so much so that the washer has to fold around it.

The Pericom PI3HDMI4 chip controls the HDMI and DVI interfaces.

MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC Features

Power Edition Architecture

MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC Features

• Two fan speed profiles - Performance / Silence
• Performance Mode provides best cooling demand; Silent Mode balances noise and GPU Temperature

• Hi-C CAP for GPU provides more precise voltage
• SFC (Super Ferrite Choke) has higher current for better overclocking ability
• All Solid CAPs have longer lifespan

• MSI's exclusive innovation design
• 20% more airflow
• Cool down more components on the PCB
• 11? cooler and 13.9dB quieter than reference HD 6950

• Driver CD
• Manual
• Installation Guide
• DVI to D-Sub Dongle
• 2 x 6-Pin Power Cable

MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC Specifications

Source: MSI Computer Corp.

VGA Testing Methodology

The Microsoft DirectX-11 graphics API is native to the Microsoft Windows 7 Operating System, and will be the primary O/S for our test platform. DX11 is also available as a Microsoft Update for the Windows Vista O/S, so our test results apply to both versions of the Operating System. The majority of benchmark tests used in this article are comparative to DX11 performance, however some high-demand DX10 tests have also been included.

According to the Steam Hardware Survey published for the month ending April 2011, the most popular gaming resolution is 1920x1080 with 1680x1050 hot on its heels, our benchmark performance tests concentrate on these higher-demand resolutions: 1.76MP 1680x1050 and 2.07MP 1920x1080 (22-24" widescreen LCD monitors), as they are more likely to be used by high-end graphics solutions, such as those tested in this article.

In each benchmark test there is one 'cache run' that is conducted, followed by five recorded test runs. Results are collected at each setting with the highest and lowest results discarded. The remaining three results are averaged, and displayed in the performance charts on the following pages.

A combination of synthetic and video game benchmark tests have been used in this article to illustrate relative performance among graphics solutions. Our benchmark frame rate results are not intended to represent real-world graphics performance, as this experience would change based on supporting hardware and the perception of individuals playing the video game.

Intel P55 Test System

• Motherboard: ECS P55H-AK (Intel P55)
• System Memory: OCZ Blade ST 2000MHz 4GB Kit
• Processor: Intel Core i5 760 @ 3.60GHz
• CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS10X Flex
• Disk Drive 1: 60GB OCZ Vertex 2 SSD
• Disk Drive 2: 160GB Seagate SATA 7200rpm 32MB cache
• Enclosure: Lancool PC-K63
• PSU: Corsair HX750W Modular
• Monitor: HKC 2219A 22" Widescreen

DirectX-10 Benchmark Applications

• 3DMark Vantage v1.02
  • Extreme Settings: (Extreme Quality, 8x Multisample Anti-Aliasing, 16x Anisotropic Filtering, 1:2 Scale)
• Street Fighter IV Benchmark
  • Extreme Settings: (Very High Quality, 8x AA, 16x AF, Parallel rendering On, Shadows High)

DirectX-11 Benchmark Applications

• Aliens vs Predator
  • Extreme Settings: (Very High Quality, 4x AA, 16x AF, SSAO, Tessellation, Advanced Shadows)
• BattleField: Bad Company 2
  • Extreme Settings: (Highest Quality, HBAO, 8x AA, 16x AF, 180s Fraps Single-Player Intro Scene)
• BattleForge v1.2
  • Extreme Settings: (Very High Quality, 8x Anti-Aliasing, Auto Multi-Thread)
• Lost Planet 2
  • Extreme Settings: (2x AA, Low Shadow Detail, High Texture, High Render, High DirectX 11 Features)
• Tom Clancy's HAWX 2 Benchmark 1.0.4
  • Extreme Settings: (Maximum Quality, 8x AA, 16x AF, DX11 Terrain Tessellation)
• Metro 2033
  • Extreme Settings: (Very-High Quality, AAA, 16x AF, Advanced DoF, Tessellation, 180s Fraps Chase Scene)
• Unigine Heaven Benchmark 2.1
  • Extreme Settings: (High Quality, Normal Tessellation, 16x AF, 4x AA)

Video Card Test Products

• NVIDIA GeForce GTX550-Ti (950 MHz GPU/1900 MHz Shader/1075 MHz vRAM - Forceware 270.61)
• AMD Radeon HD6850 (775 MHz GPU/1000 MHz vRAM - AMD Catalyst Driver 11.5)
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX460 (715 MHz GPU/1430 MHz Shader/900 MHz vRAM - Forceware 270.61)
• AMD Radeon HD6870 (900 MHz GPU/1050 MHz vRAM - AMD Catalyst Driver 11.5)
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560Ti (822 MHz GPU/1645 MHz Shader/1002 MHz vRAM - Forceware 270.61)
• AMD Radeon HD6950 (800 MHz GPU/1250 MHz vRAM - AMD Catalyst Driver 11.5)
• MSI GeForce GTX 560Ti Hawk (950 MHz GPU/1900 MHz Shader/1050 MHz vRAM - Forceware 270.61)
• AMD MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC (850 MHz GPU/1300 MHz vRAM - AMD Catalyst Driver 11.5)

DX10: 3DMark Vantage

3DMark Vantage is a PC benchmark suite designed to test the DirectX10 graphics card performance. FutureMark 3DMark Vantage is the latest addition the 3DMark benchmark series built by FutureMark corporation. Although 3DMark Vantage requires NVIDIA PhysX to be installed for program operation, only the CPU/Physics test relies on this technology.

3DMark Vantage offers benchmark tests focusing on GPU, CPU, and Physics performance. Benchmark Reviews uses the two GPU-specific tests for grading video card performance: Jane Nash and New Calico. These tests isolate graphical performance, and remove processor dependence from the benchmark results.

• 3DMark Vantage v1.02
  • Extreme Settings: (Extreme Quality, 8x Multisample Anti-Aliasing, 16x Anisotropic Filtering, 1:2 Scale)

3DMark Vantage GPU Test: Jane Nash

Of the two GPU tests 3DMark Vantage offers, the Jane Nash performance benchmark is slightly less demanding. In a short video scene the special agent escapes a secret lair by water, nearly losing her shirt in the process. Benchmark Reviews tests this DirectX-10 scene at 1680x1050 and 1920x1080 resolutions, and uses Extreme quality settings with 8x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering. The 1:2 scale is utilized, and is the highest this test allows. By maximizing the processing levels of this test, the scene creates the highest level of graphical demand possible and sorts the strong from the weak.

Cost Analysis: Jane Nash (1680x1050)

Test Summary: For one priceless moment, in the whole history of man... all of the results scale appropriately, as one would expect when looking at the stats of the video card line-up. However, due to different aspects that go into game making processes, you will see very varied results throughout this performance analysis. The MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC tops the charts but increases cost over the stock HD6950 by $0.87 per FPS, and comes second from bottom value wise.

3DMark Vantage GPU Test: New Calico

New Calico is the second GPU test in the 3DMark Vantage test suite. Of the two GPU tests, New Calico is the most demanding. In a short video scene featuring a galactic battleground, there is a massive display of busy objects across the screen. Benchmark Reviews tests this DirectX-10 scene at 1680x1050 and 1920x1080 resolutions, and uses Extreme quality settings with 8x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering. The 1:2 scale is utilized, and is the highest this test allows. Using the highest graphics processing level available allows our test products to separate themselves and stand out (if possible).

Cost Analysis: New Calico (1680x1050)

Test Summary: The tables have turned in the New Calico Vantage test, here the results show that the FERMI architecture is the more advanced. The performance gap is minimal across the board though, with the MSI GTX 560Ti Hawk beating the MSI 6950 TF3 PE/OC card by 3~5 FPS. Once again the Hawk shows that it offers great value when we analyse the cost per FPS results.

DX10: Street Fighter IV

Capcom's Street Fighter IV is part of the now-famous Street Fighter series that began in 1987. The 2D Street Fighter II was one of the most popular fighting games of the 1990s, and now gets a 3D face-lift to become Street Fighter 4. The Street Fighter 4 benchmark utility was released as a novel way to test your system's ability to run the game. It uses a few dressed-up fight scenes where combatants fight against each other using various martial arts disciplines. Feet, fists and magic fill the screen with a flurry of activity. Due to the rapid pace, varied lighting and the use of music this is one of the more enjoyable benchmarks. Street Fighter IV uses a proprietary Capcom SF4 game engine, which is enhanced over previous versions of the game.

Using the highest quality DirectX-10 settings with 8x AA and 16x AF, a mid to high end card will ace this test, but it will still weed out the slower cards out there.

• Street Fighter IV Benchmark
  • Extreme Settings: (Very High Quality, 8x AA, 16x AF, Parallel rendering On, Shadows High)

Cost Analysis: Street Fighter IV (1680x1050)

Test Summary: The Street Fighter IV test comes across a little biased towards the green team, perhaps the good old 'NVIDIA The way it's meant to be played' logo displayed when you launch the benchmark gives that away. As you will see later in the performance analysis, this analogy is turned on its head when a game that was touted as an NVIDIA game (METRO 2033)actually performs better on AMD hardware when PhysX is disabled. Street Fighter IV is a very fast paced game but the MSI GTX560Ti Hawk is simply overkill.

DX11: Aliens vs Predator

Aliens vs. Predator is a science fiction first-person shooter video game, developed by Rebellion, and published by Sega for Microsoft Windows, Sony PlayStation 3, and Microsoft Xbox 360. Aliens vs. Predator utilizes Rebellion's proprietary Asura game engine, which had previously found its way into Call of Duty: World at War and Rogue Warrior. The self-contained benchmark tool is used for our DirectX-11 tests, which push the Asura game engine to its limit.

In our benchmark tests, Aliens vs. Predator was configured to use the highest quality settings with 4x AA and 16x AF. DirectX-11 features such as Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) and tessellation have also been included, along with advanced shadows.

• Aliens vs Predator
  • Extreme Settings: (Very High Quality, 4x AA, 16x AF, SSAO, Tessellation, Advanced Shadows)

Cost Analysis: Aliens vs Predator (1680x1050)

Test Summary: In the Alien vs Predator benchmark it is the turn of the AMD hardware to show what it is made of. Even with its extreme overclock the MSI GTX 560Ti Hawk struggles to match even a stock HD6950. If this is your sort of game you would be best to own an AMD card. The MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC handles its own and delivers very respectable frame rates at both resolutions.

DX11: Battlefield Bad Company 2

The Battlefield franchise has been known to demand a lot from PC graphics hardware. DICE (Digital Illusions CE) has incorporated their Frostbite-1.5 game engine with Destruction-2.0 feature set with Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 features destructible environments using Frostbit Destruction-2.0, and adds gravitational bullet drop effects for projectiles shot from weapons at a long distance. The Frostbite-1.5 game engine used on Battlefield: Bad Company 2 consists of DirectX-10 primary graphics, with improved performance and softened dynamic shadows added for DirectX-11 users.

At the time Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was published, DICE was also working on the Frostbite-2.0 game engine. This upcoming engine will include native support for DirectX-10.1 and DirectX-11, as well as parallelized processing support for 2-8 parallel threads. This will improve performance for users with an Intel Core-i7 processor. Unfortunately, the Extreme Edition Intel Core i7-980X six-core CPU with twelve threads will not see full utilization.

In our benchmark tests of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the first three minutes of action in the single-player raft night scene are captured with FRAPS. Relative to the online multiplayer action, these frame rate results are nearly identical to daytime maps with the same video settings. The Frostbite-1.5 game engine in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 appears to equalize our test set of video cards, and despite AMD's sponsorship of the game it still plays well using any brand of graphics card.

• BattleField: Bad Company 2
  • Extreme Settings: (Highest Quality, HBAO, 8x AA, 16x AF, 180s Fraps Single-Player Intro Scene)

Cost Analysis: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (1680x1050)

Test Summary: As DirectX 11 titles go, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is not the most demanding. Even the low end GTX 550Ti can deliver above standard frame rates. The good news is that you can rest assured that your video card won't be the cause of your lag in BF: BC2.

DX11: BattleForge

BattleForge is free Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) developed by EA Phenomic with DirectX-11 graphics capability. Combining strategic cooperative battles, the community of MMO games, and trading card gameplay, BattleForge players are free to put their creatures, spells and buildings into combination's they see fit. These units are represented in the form of digital cards from which you build your own unique army. With minimal resources and a custom tech tree to manage, the gameplay is unbelievably accessible and action-packed.

Benchmark Reviews uses the built-in graphics benchmark to measure performance in BattleForge, using Very High quality settings (detail) and 8x anti-aliasing with auto multi-threading enabled. BattleForge is one of the first titles to take advantage of DirectX-11 in Windows 7, and offers a very robust color range throughout the busy battleground landscape. The charted results illustrate how performance measures-up between video cards when Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) is enabled.

• BattleForge v1.2
  • Extreme Settings: (Very High Quality, 8x Anti-Aliasing, Auto Multi-Thread)

Cost Analysis: BattleForge (1680x1050)

Test Summary: Battleforge with all the settings cranked up looks very nice indeed, once again the FERMI based video cards offer better performance over their AMD rivals in this title. Cost per FPS is very high for the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC, the question now is... How much power does one need?

DX11: Lost Planet 2

Lost Planet 2 is the second instalment in the saga of the planet E.D.N. III, ten years after the story of Lost Planet: Extreme Condition. The snow has melted and the lush jungle life of the planet has emerged with angry and luscious flora and fauna. With the new environment comes the addition of DirectX-11 technology to the game.

Lost Planet 2 takes advantage of DX11 features including tessellation and displacement mapping on water, level bosses, and player characters. In addition, soft body compute shaders are used on 'Boss' characters, and wave simulation is performed using DirectCompute. These cutting edge features make for an excellent benchmark for top-of-the-line consumer GPUs.

The Lost Planet 2 benchmark offers two different tests, which serve different purposes. This article uses tests conducted on benchmark B, which is designed to be a deterministic and effective benchmark tool featuring DirectX 11 elements.

• Lost Planet 2 Benchmark 1.0
  • Moderate Settings: (2x AA, Low Shadow Detail, High Texture, High Render, High DirectX 11 Features)

Cost Analysis: Lost Planet 2 (1680x1050)

Test Summary: Lost Planet 2 is a tough cookie to crack, in our tests we had to use relatively moderate settings just to get some acceptable numbers. This game wants high level hardware to play maxed out. The GTX 560Ti is indeed an amazing piece of hardware to behold, delivering above average frame rates at a much lower cost/performance ratio.

DX11: Tom Clancy's HAWX 2

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.2 has been optimized for DX11 enabled GPUs and has a number of enhancements to not only improve performance with DX11 enabled GPUs, but also greatly improve the visual experience while taking to the skies. The game uses a hardware terrain tessellation method that allows a high number of detailed triangles to be rendered entirely on the GPU when near the terrain in question. This allows for a very low memory footprint and relies on the GPU power alone to expand the low resolution data to highly realistic detail.

The Tom Clancy's HAWX2 benchmark uses normal game content in the same conditions a player will find in the game, and allows users to evaluate the enhanced visuals that DirectX-11 tessellation adds into the game. The Tom Clancy's HAWX2 benchmark is built from exactly the same source code that's included with the retail version of the game. HAWX2's tessellation scheme uses a metric based on the length in pixels of the triangle edges. This value is currently set to 6 pixels per triangle edge, which provides an average triangle size of 18 pixels.

The end result is perhaps the best tessellation implementation seen in a game yet, providing a dramatic improvement in image quality over the non-tessellated case, and running at playable frame rates across a wide range of graphics hardware.

• Tom Clancy's HAWX 2 Benchmark 1.0.4
  • Extreme Settings: (Maximum Quality, 8x AA, 16x AF, DX11 Terrain Tessellation)

Cost Analysis: HAWX 2 (1680x1050)

Test Summary: HAWX 2 is a strange game in that you need to look very close to see the difference in quality settings, the main difference is in the terrain but this is easily overlooked as you are busy fighting with the controls just to fly in a straight line. The GTX 560Ti pummels on all of the video cards in this line up, beating them in both FPS performance and price per FPS, but all of the other cards also deliver excellent frame rates. The landscapes are beautifully rendered making the game scenery pleasurable, now I just need to master the controls.

DX11: Metro 2033

Metro 2033 is an action-oriented video game with a combination of survival horror, and first-person shooter elements. The game is based on the novel Metro 2033 by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. It was developed by 4A Games in Ukraine and released in March 2010 for Microsoft Windows. Metro 2033 uses the 4A game engine, developed by 4A Games. The 4A Engine supports DirectX-9, 10, and 11, along with NVIDIA PhysX and GeForce 3D Vision.

The 4A engine is multi-threaded in such that only PhysX had a dedicated thread, and uses a task-model without any pre-conditioning or pre/post-synchronizing, allowing tasks to be done in parallel. The 4A game engine can utilize a deferred shading pipeline, and uses tessellation for greater performance, and also has HDR (complete with blue shift), real-time reflections, color correction, film grain and noise, and the engine also supports multi-core rendering.

Metro 2033 featured superior volumetric fog, double PhysX precision, object blur, sub-surface scattering for skin shaders, parallax mapping on all surfaces and greater geometric detail with a less aggressive LODs. Using PhysX, the engine uses many features such as destructible environments, and cloth and water simulations, and particles that can be fully affected by environmental factors.

NVIDIA has been diligently working to promote Metro 2033, and for good reason: it's one of the most demanding PC video games we've ever tested. When their flagship GeForce GTX 480 struggles to produce 27 FPS with DirectX-11 anti-aliasing turned to to its lowest setting, you know that only the strongest graphics processors will generate playable frame rates. All of our tests enable Advanced Depth of Field and Tessellation effects, but disable advanced PhysX options.

• Metro 2033
  • Moderate Settings: (Very-High Quality, AAA, 16x AF, Advanced DoF, Tessellation, 180s Fraps Chase Scene)

Cost Analysis: Metro 2033 (1680x1050)

Test Summary: Metro 2033 is hard on all video cards, and in our tests only the factory overclocked video cards delivered acceptable frame rates. It is also rather apparent that the AMD GPU's deliver better performance across the board when compared to their theoretical rivals, another win for the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC. This game was intended to be played with PhysX enabled and we all know this is something only NVIDIA cards can do well at the moment, hopefully in the future we might see PhysX code that is better optimized for multi-core CPU's.

DX11: Unigine Heaven 2.1

The Unigine Heaven 2.1 benchmark is a free publicly available tool that grants the power to unleash the graphics capabilities in DirectX-11 for Windows 7 or updated Vista Operating Systems. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. With the interactive mode, emerging experience of exploring the intricate world is within reach. Through its advanced renderer, Unigine is one of the first to set precedence in showcasing the art assets with tessellation, bringing compelling visual finesse, utilizing the technology to the full extend and exhibiting the possibilities of enriching 3D gaming.

The distinguishing feature in the Unigine Heaven benchmark is a hardware tessellation that is a scalable technology aimed for automatic subdivision of polygons into smaller and finer pieces, so that developers can gain a more detailed look of their games almost free of charge in terms of performance. Thanks to this procedure, the elaboration of the rendered image finally approaches the boundary of veridical visual perception: the virtual reality transcends conjured by your hand.

Although Heaven-2.1 was recently released and used for our DirectX-11 tests, the benchmark results were extremely close to those obtained with Heaven-1.0 testing. Since only DX11-compliant video cards will properly test on the Heaven benchmark, only those products that meet the requirements have been included.

• Unigine Heaven Benchmark 2.1
  • Extreme Settings: (High Quality, Normal Tessellation, 16x AF, 4x AA)

Cost Analysis: Unigine Heaven (1680x1050)

Test Summary: Unigine heaven is also quite hard on video cards, only the best video cards will be able to run it smooth at the highest settings, certain parts of this benchmark put more work on the GPU than others. With the exception of the GTX 460 and MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC results we see nearly perfect scaling in the line-up. The high overclock on the MSI GTX 560Ti Hawk certainly makes a lot of difference in our tests. In the following sections we will report our findings on power consumption and overclocking.

MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC Temperatures

Benchmark tests are always nice, so long as you care about comparing one product to another. But when you're an overclocker, gamer, or merely a PC hardware enthusiast who likes to tweak things on occasion, there's no substitute for good information. Benchmark Reviews has a very popular guide written on Overclocking Video Cards, which gives detailed instruction on how to tweak a graphics cards for better performance. Of course, not every video card has overclocking head room. Some products run so hot that they can't suffer any higher temperatures than they already do. This is why we measure the operating temperature of the video card products we test.

To begin my testing, I use GPU-Z to measure the temperature at idle as reported by the GPU. Next I use FurMark's "Torture Test" to generate maximum thermal load and record GPU temperatures at high-power 3D mode. The ambient room temperature remained at a stable 28°C throughout testing. FurMark does two things extremely well: drive the thermal output of any graphics processor higher than applications of video games realistically could, and it does so with consistency every time. Furmark works great for testing the stability of a GPU as the temperature rises to the highest possible output. The temperatures discussed below are absolute maximum values, and not representative of real-world performance.

As previously stated my ambient temperature remained at a stable 28°C throughout the testing procedure, the Twin Frozr III cooler is so efficient that a heavy load from FurMark raises the temperature from 37°C (41% fan speed) idle to only 64°C load with an automatic fan speed of 59%. Putting the fan on manual and cranking it up to 100% saw the temperature drop to 59°C but the noise level at max speed is too much, a 5°C drop in temperature is all well and good but I would have to reserve using full fan speed for temps in the 80°C region.

In the next section we will look at power consumption figures, let's go.

VGA Power Consumption

Life is not as affordable as it used to be, and items such as gasoline, natural gas, and electricity all top the list of resources which have exploded in price over the past few years. Add to this the limit of non-renewable resources compared to current demands, and you can see that the prices are only going to get worse. Planet Earth needs our help, and needs it badly. With forests becoming barren of vegetation and snow capped poles quickly turning brown, the technology industry has a new attitude towards turning "green". I'll spare you the powerful marketing hype that gets sent from various manufacturers every day, and get right to the point: your computer hasn't been doing much to help save energy... at least up until now.

For power consumption tests, Benchmark Reviews utilizes an 80-Plus Gold rated Corsair HX750w (model: CMPSU-750HX) This power supply unit has been tested to provide over 90% typical efficiency by Ecos Plug Load Solutions. To measure isolated video card power consumption, I used the energenie ENER007 power meter made by Sandal Plc (UK).

A baseline test is taken without a video card installed inside our test computer system, which is allowed to boot into Windows-7 and rest idle at the login screen before power consumption is recorded. Once the baseline reading has been taken, the graphics card is installed and the system is again booted into Windows and left idle at the login screen. Our final loaded power consumption reading is taken with the video card running a stress test using FurMark. Below is a chart with the isolated video card power consumption (not system total) displayed in Watts for each specified test product:

At Idle the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC consumes 54 (166-119) watts at idle and 227 (346-119) watts when running full load using the test method outlined above. Contrary to what we see in the GPU-Z screenshot below the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition OC uses 0.899v when idle, when under load it uses 1.149v.

In the next section we will be discussing our overclocking results and analysing the performance benefits of the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition OC.

MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC Overclocking

Before I start overclocking I like to get a little bit of information, firstly I like to establish operating temperatures and since we know these are nice and low we can quickly move on. Next I like to know what the voltage and clock limits are, so I fired up the bundled MSI Afterburner utility. I established that vCore was adjustable between 0.825v and 1.350v and clock speeds were limited to 900MHz max on the GPU and 1325MHz (5.3GHz effective) maximum frequency for the memory. As I stated in my intro, there isn't much an AIB partner can do with a 6950 GPU overclocking wise without eating into sales of their HD6970 stock. The only downside to this is that you will have to try to unlock your HD6950 to get additional overclocking headroom and performance. Tweaking this particular card wasn't difficult, my preferred weapons are MSI Afterburner (v2.2.0 Beta 3) for fine tuning while using FurMark (v1.9.0) to push the GPU.

The GPU-Z screenshot above serves as a reminder of the temperatures and speed the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition OC video card at its default settings. Raising the GPU and memory to their maximum values of 900MHz GPU and 1325MHz Memory didn't require any voltage increase whatsoever, the only way you can get more headroom in afterburner is by unlocking the card to a 6970. I made a commitment in my MSI GTX 560Ti Hawk article to revisit overclocking and I also fully intend to try unlocking this video card to a 6970 and re-asses it's performance. Keep your ear to the ground for an article exploring the full potential of these GPU's in the near future.

With a 50MHz GPU overclock (100MHz over reference design) and a 25MHz memory overclock (75MHz over reference design) we went back to the bench and ran through the entire test suite. Overall there is an average 4.56% increase in scores (at 1920x1080 resolution). We also re ran temperature tests at the overclocked speeds at the same ambient temperature of 28°C, and saw only a 1°C increase in GPU temperature.

That's all of the testing over for now, in the next section I will deliver my final thoughts and conclusion.

Twin Frozr Final Thoughts

The MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition OC is a very good video card but the overall performance in our tests really doesn't justify the price. Sure there are more games out there where this video card will shine through, and the 2GB memory will help when driving multiple monitors but from a price/performance point of view this card is somewhat expensive. A standard HD6950 costing $249.99 costs an average $5.53/FPS, and the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC costing $299.99 costs an average $6.34/FPS.

The Twin Frozr III is essentially the same as the Twin Frozr II. The main differences between the two are; 1) Improved 'Propeller Blade' fans, 2) MSI's 'Form-in-one' heatsink covering all of the memory and power circuitry, and 3) An improved shroud design that not only enhances the aesthetic qualities of the cooler, but also covers the aluminum fin array much better. These enhancements culminate to make the overclocked HD6950 PE/OC run cooler than a HD6950 with a reference design cooler when under load.

MSI R6950 Conclusion

Important: In this section I am going to write a brief five point summary on the following categories; Performance, Appearance, Construction, Functionality and Value. These views are my own and help me to give the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC Video Card a rating out of 10. A high or low score does not necessarily mean that it is better or worse than a similar video card that has been reviewed by another writer here at Benchmark Reviews, which may have got a higher or lower score. It is however a good indicator of whether the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC is good or not. I would strongly urge you to read the entire review, if you have not already, so that you can make an educated decision for yourself.

The graphics performance of the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC is very good indeed and in four out of our ten tests it is easily able to beat the GTX 560Ti (including an NVIDIA supported game - Metro 2033). I am a little let down by the overclocking headroom offered by MSI afterburner as this card should be able to hit higher clocks with ease.

The appearance of the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC is, as I'm sure you will agree, very nice indeed. The side view is given extra attention thanks to the anti-warp edge support and shroud design that provide both function and aesthetics. These additions are relatively simple but it makes all the difference once you install the card into your system. There are some that will surely disagree but thanks to the graphic nature of this review you can easily make your mind up for yourself. One thing is for sure, the Twin Frozr III design really makes the Twin Frozr II look ugly.

Construction is excellent as you would expect from a company with a good reputation like MSI, there some areas missed during the cleaning process but it is nothing major as it only hurts the aesthetics and not the performance. Taking the card to pieces and reconstructing it was a breeze and everything lined up perfectly, the Twin Frozr III cooler is solid and really adds some weight. This gives the feel of confidence when handling the card that you won't break it.

Functionality is very good, I can't help but keep singing praise for the Twin Frozr III cooler, it really is so good. The MSI Afterburner and Kombustor utilities are very handy when it comes to overclocking and stress testing your video card. The fan profile switch allows you to switch between Performance (louder fans) and Silent (warmer GPU) simply and negates the need to set up fan profiles in afterburner.

The MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC video card is available now for $299.99 at NewEgg. At this price you can get more performance for your money but I think that this card has a lot more to offer. It comes factory overclocked out of the box and I was able to overclock more without raising any voltage. This card has great potential but unlocking that potential will require a little effort.

Pros:

+ Twin Frozr III cooler is excellent
+ 6+2 Phase Design
+ Very nice looks
+ Excellent build quality
+ Fan profile switch
+ CrossFireX Support
+ Overclocking neede no extra voltage
+ Variety of outputs: D-SUB, mini Display Port, DVI-I and HDMI

Cons:

- Hot air from GPU exhausted into case
- High power consumption
- 27cm long, could be an issue for some
- Not the best value
- Not much O/C headroom in Afterburner

Ratings:

• Performance: 8.75
• Appearance: 9.50
• Construction: 9.50
• Functionality: 9.00
• Value: 8.00

Final Score: 8.95 out of 10.

Quality Recognition: Benchmark Reviews Silver Tachometer Award.

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