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Today we are looking at a rather special card from MSI, the R6870 HAWK Edition with the new Twin Frozr III Cooler. With a 8+2 Phase PWM design and a dual fan speed profile switch connected to a new propeller blade design we have high hopes that this will be one of the finest 6870's we have tested at KitGuru.
The HD6870 has been on the market for quite some time now and it has been a strong seller for AMD, targeting the lucrative sub £200 price point. In recent months AMD partners have been working hard to push this specific model to new performance levels while dropping the emited noise as far as possible.
The R6870 HAWK Edition is supplied in a preoverclocked state with the core running at 930mhz and the memory at 1050mhz (4200mhz effective). The new Twin Frozr III Cooler is a dual fan system formed around a high density aluminum heatsink with Nickel Plated Copper Base.
| MSI R6870 HAWK | AMD HD6870 | AMD HD5870 | |
| Die Size (mm2) | 255 | 255 | 334 |
| Transistor Count | 1.7 billion | 1.7 billion | 2.15 billion |
| Memory Bandwidth | 4.2Gbps | 4.2GBps | 4.8GBps |
| Stream Processors | 1120 | 1120 | 1600 |
| Texture Units | 56 | 56 | 80 |
| ROPs | 32 | 32 | 32 |
| Core Clock | 930 mhz | 900 mhz | 850 mhz |
| Memory Clock | 1,050mhz | 1,050mhz | 1,200mhz |
| Memory | 1GB GDDR5 | 1GB GDDR5 | 1GB GDDR5 |
I am not easily impressed, but this did it.
That is one hell of a mid range graphics card. Wish they would bring out a MARS or ARES style card. my money is on that it would be better than anything asus could do.
I love their frozr coolers. buddy of mine has one of their older boards and the cooling system is the best on the market.
I love their customised solutions, the high end modded stuff they bring out. this is f*cking brilliant.
With all the extras ill be stunned if this retails for only £20 more than reference
59c under gaming load. thats specatular. my 6850 runs 10-15c higher.
I never knew they made customised cards like this. its a complete overhaul. excellent. so im waiting on the 560 modded one now 🙂
man I love this site, I was waiting on this card and didnt expect a review so soon. ordering it when I can.
Great bit of engineering from MSI, these guys can deliver smoking hot hardware when they put their mind to it. they are just slow on releasing the hardware, but worth the wait.
Biggest issue I have is that with 20-30 more than a reference HD6870, you are starting to get into the 6950 zone.
Very elaborate design. A lot of work went into this card. Nice job.
I love the metal cooler, thats radical. bet it weighs a ton.
I love my MSI 5770 HAWK
can’t wait to get this R6870.. Better start saving money..
😀
exelente review!!!! en estos dias me llegaaa y estoy feliiz!!
I bought two of these cards on recommendation. Glad I did after reading this 😀 Would love crossfire-x support tho, then i would have got three 🙂
I got two and one is bad. Card its WAY too hot 90c when playing BF3 while my other card was nice and cool max temp 52c. Cost to ship and replace under RMA was $21 Fedex. MSI sent my card back from RMA after 4 weeks and its still at 90c on load. Its like they didn’t even touch it. I can’t recommend this card due to MSI RMA. Just do a quick search on hot twin frozer cards. Its a nightmare. Run from MSI.
Sorry to hear that, ill mention it to MSI.
If your Twin frozer is getting hot.
Remove the cooler and clean the GPU form to thick thermal paste.
Ad some Artic silver paste and voila a cooler card.
Well that fixed my hot issue.
i have a this card and i would like to know something that is not explained anywhere, not even the manual.
There is a few red leds on top of de video card and i don´t know what is their function (in my case are always on). Could anyone tell me? Thanks!