MSI N460GTX Cyclone 768D5/OC Video Card Review

The MSI N460GTX Cyclone 768D5/OC (Cont’d)

In Figure 4, you can see the video card with its cooler removed, while in Figures 5 and 6, you can see the cooler by itself. The cooler uses a 90-mm fan, two heatpipes, and a base made of nickel-plated copper.

Figure 4: Video card with the cooler removed

Figure 5: GPU cooler

Figure 6: GPU cooler

The reviewed card uses six 1 Gbit GDDR5 chips, making its 768 MB video memory. If you pay attention in Figure 4, you can see that the printed circuit board is the same one used by the 1 GB model, which has eight 1 Gbit GDDR5 chips instead of six. Each chip is connected to the GPU using a 32-bit data lane, and this explains why the 768 GB model has a 192-bit memory interface (32 bits x 6 = 192) and the 1 GB model has a 256-bit memory interface (32 bits x 8 = 256).

The chips used are K4G10325FE-HC05 parts from Samsung, which support up to 1 GHz (4 GHz QDR) and since on this video card memory is accessed at 900 MHz (3,600 MHz QDR), there is a good margin for you to increase the memory clock rate while keeping the chips inside the maximum they support.

Figure 7: Memory chips

In Figure 8, you can see the accessories that come with the reviewed card: two power adapters, one DVI-to-VGA adapter, and one DVI-to-HDMI adapter. The product doesn’t come with any games.

Figure 8: Accessories

Before seeing the performance results, let’s recap the main features of this video card.