MSI N450GTS Cyclone OC Edition
Different from the reference N450GTS, MSI released the MSI N450GTS Cyclone OC Edition sporting factory overclocked 850MHz GPU /1000MHz Memory clockspeed some time back. Designed for the price/performance-minded market, this graphic card can be found in Lowyat Plaza at the price around RM500. According to the official specification, this card is equipped with 9cm PWM Fan for 50% more airflow and 17℃ cooler than reference design. I did some simple testing on this card and here it goes. Let's see how it rivals with MSI own factory-overclocked Radeon HD5770 Hawk graphic card.

Product Info
MSI N450GTS Cyclone OC Edition - Click here!!

• GPU Core: GF106
• GPU Technology: 40nm
• GPU Clock Speed: 850MHz
• Memory Type: GDDR5
• Memory Size: 1024MB
• Memory Clock Speed: 1000MHz
• Bus Width: 128 Bit
• Card Dimension: 210x111x35mm
• Cyclone Thermal Design
• All Solid Capacitor
• MSI Afterburner overclocking utility

Unboxing MSI N450GTS Cyclone OC Edition



This post has been edited by Sanko: Sep 21 2010, 06:05 AM

Overview
For this round of OverClocking Test, i clocked the processor to 4.0GHz as the standard clock speed. Futuremark 3DMark06 and Vantage were used as the benchmark. Also the temperature reading was taken through MSI Kombuster Benchmarking. After returning the card to MSI Malaysia, only i realized that Kombuster Benchmarking wasn't really enough to prove stability and temperature hike during load. I truly regretted that i didn't do a 20 minutes stability test. In future, i'll definitely remember that in any graphic card benchmarking.

Testbed

• Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition
• Mainboard: MSI 870A Fuzion Power
• Memory: Corsair XMS3 TR3X6G1600C7 (2GB x 2)
• Graphic Card: MSI N450GTS Cyclone OC Edition
• HDD: Western Digital 500GB Black Caviar
• Power Supply: Enermax REVOLUTION85+ 1050watt
• Heatsink: Scythe Grand Kama Cross
• Operation System: Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit

Futuremark 3DMark06 Tests



Futuremark Vantage Tests

MSI Kombuster Benchmarking

Thoughts
During testing of the MSI N450GTS Cyclone OC Edition Graphic Card, i had not choice but to make used of the Maximum Voltage Tweak allowed to 1.162v through MSI Afterburner v2.0.0 to obtain 960 MHz clockspeed for the GPU Core. As for the Memory part, i only managed to Overclock it to 1083 MHz which is relatively low compared to peers results. It would be perfect if there was more headroom in OverClocking the card. I truly hope that this testing will benefit the OverClocking Community even a tiny bit. Last but not least, i apologize for the quality of pictures, SOMEONE STOLE MY MAHJONG PAPER TO PLAY MAHJONG!!

Special Thanks
MSI Malaysia, xixo_12 and kuntawakaw for guiding me tuning the AMD rig.

This post has been edited by Sanko: Sep 21 2010, 03:03 PM

Yes, i'll include it in my testing in future. i'm really sorry for not include it for this round of test as it was done in quite a rushing manner. as for the cooling solution you mentioned, it reminds me of zalman @ galaxy 7300gt. lol. thanks for your kind word though.

verdict: aiyo, clearly you didn't read the review. there's 5770 Hawk ss above for comparison.
geforce88: i'm not really sure to comment on this as i haven't try a HD5830 yet. i'm really sorry.
alexhwang: thanks for your kind words.
xixo_12: special mentioned to you. hehe...

This post has been edited by Sanko: Sep 21 2010, 03:02 PM

ah_khoo: yes, it's benchable but still need to tune for better stability. as i was really rushing for this review cause the card need to be sent to HWM for media review, i purposely dropped it to 4.0GHz with tighter NB FREQ and HT LINK FREQ. somehow during my testing HT LINK does affect vantage score. iirc, 4.2/4.3 GHz done by xixo is benchable with 2.5k MHz or below on HT LINK FREQ is benchable for vantage. in regards to the 890FXA-GD65, i didn't fully test cause currently it's the DEMO RIG for the MSI Dota Tournament 2010, check my sig below. lol.

Btw, most of the part of the event i didn't do anything. i believe Lacus will be posting it very soon. I'm too tired on pre-testing the 1090T before the event. thanks to xixo_12 that gave me some guidance on OC in AMD. hehe... on a side note, dblooi, xixo_12, Lacus and kuntawakaw managed to hit 4.5k NB FREQ and 6.0/6.1 GHz for 32M iirc. the SS is with Lacus now.

This post has been edited by Sanko: Sep 21 2010, 06:00 PM

tech_frix: thanks TF. really appreciate your kind words. really...

MSI Kombuster is just the basic torture test for VGA. iirc OCCT or FurMark is a better benchmark.

i'm not really good in stability test. if for me, i'll run kombuster for 1 hour. then run vantage, 3dmark06. then the final test which i believe the most, gaming of 2-4 hours like dirt2, cod2.