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MSI Announces The GTX 970 Gaming 4G Golden Edition

VR World Staff — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 08:51:16 +0000

MSI just announced that they are making a special limited edition version of the Nvidia GTX 970 Gaming 4G, with with an all copper heatsink and heatpipes. MSI calls it the Golden Edition and it is available in the US exclusively through Newegg.com.

MSI (TPE:2377) has released the Nvidia GTX 970 Gaming 4G Golden Edition and is available in limited quantities in the US and APAC regions. The sole retailer in the US is Newegg.com where the card is currently in stock and available for $399.99. This means it is commanding a $50 premium over the standard 970 Gaming 4G that goes out of stock as soon as they replenish the inventory. Nvidia GTX 970 is sure the hot item in the industry this last month or so and that is rightfully so since the card is a great buy in the mid $300 range and it performs like a champion. Not to mention that with these cards users have huge overclocking potential, making their money go farther in terms of performance. Speaking of performance this new Golden Edition also comes with a base clock of 1165MHz and a boost clock of 1317MHz and opposed the the standard Gaming 4G’s 1140/1279. But really with a full copper Twin Frozr V cooler this card should be able to run much higher while staying safe and cool. The cooler is less than two slots wide and should be ideal for use in multi-card SLI setups. To top things off the heatsink has been treated to prevent any tarnish on the beautiful finish.

Name	GTX970 GAMING 4G Golden Edition
GPU	GM204-200 (Maxwell)
Core clock (Base/Boost) MHz	1165 / 1317
Memory speed	7010 MHz
Memory size / type	4096MB GDDR5
Cooling	Twin Frozr V
Connectivity	DL-DVI-I/DL-DVI-D/Display port/HDMI
Dimensions	267x137x43 mm

This new Golden Edition follows in the footsteps of the N465GTX Twin Frozr II Golden Edition. In 2010 MSI released a special limited release of GTX 465 GPUs with all copper heatsinks and heatpipes. In 2010 they were a big hit and owners soon found out that they could flash them to a GTX 470. Here in the US, MSI cards are the preferred brand for those who like to modify the cooling by replacing the thermal interface material or using a watercooling block. The US office is pretty nice about letting people do this as long as users do not physically damage the card in any way.

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Sapphire’s 4850X2 shows some promise…

Theo Valich — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:30:19 +0000

Time for custom-designed X2 boards has come. Sapphire Technologies is getting close to release of its own 4850X2, featuring no less than four DVI ports for connection to four possible displays.

Rather long design with 4 DVI connectors...

My colleagues from VR-Zone got a hand on a review sample and published first scores. The board scored a index of P12741 and X5728 in 3DMark Vantage, but bear in mind that the test system was Intel Core i7, so naturally the scores are a bit higher than current Core 2 setups.
All in all, another interesting product arrives. But unlike Sapphire Atlantis 2600X2, which featured quite similar layout, this time AMD/ATI is standing behind 100% with driver support and future scalability improvements.

I haven’t seen the board live, but I have to say that there is just one thing I don’t like… all of the heat generated by two hot chips (as we all know, RV770 GPU is not exactly the coolest kid on the block) will go back in the case. Other than that, the design is really clean.

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AMD and Celsia sign agreement for next-gen GPU cooling

Theo Valich — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 07:00:51 +0000

I’ve just read a piece on X-Bit Labs about agreement between AMD GPG and Celsia Technologies. The two companies are developing new generation of coolers for future ATI Radeon graphics cards.
After Sapphire successfully used vapor chamber cooling on their Atomic 3870 card (with a certain glitch, described here), ATI took a limited risk and introduced vapor chamber on Radeon 4870X2. As you can see on picture above, GPU0 on 4870X2 is cooled by vapor-chamber cooler, while GPU1 is cooled by the same copper cooler present on 3870X2.

Proof of concept - picture courtesy of X-Bit Labs

Now, Celsia Technologies is developing new coolers that will send conventional heat-pipe technology into oblivion. On paper, vapor chamber provides up to 30% higher performance. If you combine 30% higher performance cooling with thermal advancements by TSMC in upcoming 40nm and 32nm processes, you don’t have to be a genius to conclude that next two or three generations of ATI GPU will feature even more dramatic performance increase than between 3800 and 4800 series of cards.

ATI already used vapor chamber cooling on 4870X2 - pic courtesy of Digit-Life.com

You want to hear the best part? NanoSpreader (market name for Celsia’s vapor chamber cooler) actually costs less than conventional heatpipe design, because it uses less material. Less material also equals less weight. Finally, graphics cards are going on a diet.
One thing is certain – with this technology, ATI can freely push single-slot or light dual-slot designs with their next-generation hardware. This is some food for thought for engineers at Nvidia.

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