Review: msi r7850 power edition 2gd5 / oc

- Meets the MIL-STD-810G standard to ensure the best quality and stability.

- Adopt Hi-c CAP, SFC and all Solid Capacitors

MSI Afterburner Overclocking Software

- MSI exclusive software for overclocking.

- Kombustor support to test graphics cards.

- Supports real-time video capture to record scenes during the game to be able to share later.

Afterburner is an application jointly developed by MSI and Rivatuner. This application enables all MSI graphics card users to increase their performance and monitor all types of data in real time. Afterburner is free software compatible with most MSI graphics cards.

MSI Live Update 5 is simple software that automatically detects BIOS, driver, and utility updates and installs them for you, which can save you time searching and minimize risk while performing an update.

HDMI + DVI Ports HDMI and DVI ports are the most comprehensive high definition video display devices on the market today. MSI has opted for these two devices to provide users with the best option to enjoy the latest in HD videos such as blu-ray movies.

MSI graphics cards offer HDMI functionality to give you high-quality digital quality. HDMI connectivity enables the most demanding gamers to connect their LCD monitor seamlessly to enjoy the ultimate multimedia experience. (Only one cable is required to play video / audio on your plasma / LCD television, projector…)

The card is protected in an aesthetically pleasing safe. In the back we have all the characteristics of the graphics card.

What does the packet include?

• Graphics Card R7850 Power Edition 2GD5 / OC Instruction manual and quick guide. Cable minidisplayport and molex thief to PCI Express. Installation CD with drivers and software.

The card has a very attractive design with brushed black and electric blue.

Back view.

The card incorporates a DVI connector, an HDMI and two mini displayports.

The card needs two PCI slots for installation on our computer. We can also see the 3 aluminum heatpipes.

The fans are 80mm in size and are PWM. The heatsink has a large number of aluminum fins. This will improve dissipation.

You only need a 6-pin PCI power cable. Of course it is appreciated, for a card of low consumption but very powerful.

Once we open the card we find three parts. Main heatsink, secondary heatsink and card.

The first heatsink is completely aluminum and the base is nickel-plated copper. It is designed with 3 heatpipes and two high speed 80mm fans.

The second heatsink is in charge of cooling the phases and memories of the card. Includes Thermal PAD for an efficient connection between heatsink and chips.

Image of the R7850 Power Edition OC PCB.

Here we have the 28nm ATI chip.

The Military Class III supply phases are of the highest quality. Since they are able to bear

Refrigeration details.

PWM connection for the two fans.

The memories are Hynix H5GQ2H24MFR-T2C prepared to work at 1250 MHz and 5000 MHz effective GDDR5. All together they make a total of 2048MB GDDR5.

To evaluate the performance of the graphics card we have used the following applications:

• 3DMark11.3DMark Vantage.The Planet 2.Resident Evil 5.Heaven benchmark 2.1

All our tests have been carried out with a resolution of 1920px x 1080px.

What are we looking for in the tests?

First the best possible image quality. The most important value for us is the average FPS (Frames per second), the higher the number of FPS, the more fluid the game will be. To differentiate the quality a little, I leave you a table to assess the quality in FPS:

Let's not fool ourselves; there are games that can have an average of 100 FPS. It may be because the game is quite old, does not require excessive Graphics resources or that the graphics is the most powerful on the market, or we have GPU systems for thousands of euros. But the reality is different, and games like Crysis 2 and Metro 2033 are very demanding and do not usually give high scores.

The MSI R7850 Power Edition 2GD5 / OC comes with a slight overclock as standard. As we can see in the previous image, we have practiced the May overclock that the card has allowed us, with a great result. The temperature in this test is misleading, since we have created a variable profile of 70-100% to have a very safe graph in this test.

As we see in the following table, the temperatures are very cool and this is due to its interesting Twin Frozr IV heatsink.

And the card consumption:

The MSI R7850 Power Edition 2GD5 / OC is a solid graphics card, well designed and with efficient performance. Aesthetically we like it a lot, thanks to its brushed black and electric blue.

Its cooling is very effective when using the Twin Frozr IV heatsink, this new model was added for the first time to the 7970 Lightning. The Twin Frorzr system is made up of two heatsinks (the first for the graphics chip and the second for the memory and power supply phases) and two 80mm high-speed fans controlled by the graphics card. Its temperature at rest oscillates at 32º and fully loaded at 64ºC.

We would have liked the graphics to include a somewhat more powerful Overclock. Once we have raised it to 1050mhz in GPU CLOCK and 1450MHZ in the memories we have increased by more than 200 Points in 3DMARK11 (P6604). We have also checked the consumption of the card with an i7 2700k, a TOP board and a Thermaltake 1350W source, at rest the equipment oscillated near 100w and full power over 165W.

In short, if you are looking for a graphics card with a power similar to the 7870, well cooled and with quality phases. The MSI R7850 Power Edition 2GD5 / OC must be among its candidates. Its price ranges from € 220.

The Professional Review team awards you the Recommended Product Badge and the Gold Medal: