MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition Pro Reviews

The MSI R6950 1GB Twin Frozr III PE comes with 1GB of RAM, versus 2GB on a standard Radeon HD 6950. In all of our gameplay testing we did not miss the extra 1GB of RAM. It just didn't take away from our gameplay experience at all, running at 1080p which is the sweet spot for this video card. In fact, the higher factory overclock gave it a performance advantage over a stock 2GB Radeon HD 6950. As more and more games adopt shader AA methods like FXAA and MLAA we may see more leniency on the memory capacity. There are still some games on the horizon though, that we just don't know about yet, such as Battlefield 3. It is yet to be seen if 1GB or 2GB of RAM will affect performance in that game or not, and there are other new DX11 games on the horizon as well. We will have to keep an eye on these games and see if a 1GB Radeon HD 6950 continues to be a value or not. We absolutely love the Twin Frozr III cooling system and cannot wait to see it on more video cards from MSI. The high end Military Class II components also helped this card run quick and cool. The downfall of this card laid in one of our most important categories, overclocking. We were excited to see some high overclocks with MSI's first HD 6950 that supported triple over-voltage, but the GPU core would not budge. We were able to get a fair amount of speed on the memory but it did not correlate to the performance gain we would have received from higher GPU speeds. No arrangement of settings, BIOS switches, Afterburner versions or drivers would allow us to achieve impressive results. Overall this card has several great innovations for $234.99 and a free AMD comic book. This is a solid video card for having 1GB of memory. MSI offers a 2GB version of this same card, but it is $50 extra. Considering the performance we experienced, we think you can save those $50 and get the 1GB version and still enjoy gaming at 1080p on today's games.

MSI's entry produced the highest overall frame rates, consumed the least power, shipped with the best overclocking and fan control software in the box, and overclocked effortlessly. Our scatter plot suggests the Twin Frozr III is second-best in terms of performance per dollar at $259.99, before a $25 mail-in rebate. That makes it worthy of our TR Recommended award.

The MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III 1G/OC graphics card might only have 1GB of GDDR5 memory, but it was still a beast in the benchmarks an able to play games like a champ.

Much like on the GTX460 Hawk, multiple voltage control is enabled on the R6950 Twin Frozer III Power Edition. The three voltages tweak the GPU core, memory, and VDDCI, offering a way to push the card even further. Tweaking up the voltage is a quick way to push performance, but if the VRM circuit is not robust enough to handle it, then you can end up with the good ol' black screen of death that dignifies something has gone seriously wrong. To combat this, MSI has used its Military Class build strategy, incorporating a 6+2 Phase power circuit, Tantulum core Hi-C caps, Super Ferrite chokes, and solid aluminum capacitors to make sure the juice is stable to the core and memory. You get supported voltage control with a three year warranty. Priced competitively at $279, the MSI R6950 Twin Frozer III Power Edition offers up excellent construction and stock performance, superior cooling, excellent looks, and decent overclocking potential.

The MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC video card is available now for $299.99 at NewEgg. At this price you can get more performance for your money but I think that this card has a lot more to offer. It comes factory overclocked out of the box and I was able to overclock more without raising any voltage. This card has great potential but unlocking that potential will require a little effort.

We suspect there’s a possibility the R6950 Twin Frozr III’s street price will creep just a bit lower than its MSRP, however, once cards are available in volume. Shave a few bucks of this baby’s price tag and it’s an Editor’s Choice candidate. Regardless, the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III is still a very strong product worthy of consideration if you’re shopping for a relatively affordable, high end graphics card.

MSI's Radeon HD 6950 Twin Frozr III is a well designed version of a custom HD 6950 design. The company's new Twin Frozr III cooling solution does a good job at keeping the card cool, even though the card seems a bit more noisy than expected. This looks to be more of a BIOS fan settings optimization issue than a shortcoming of the cooler itself. Temperatures are quite low, which shows that there is some headroom left to quieten down the fan some more. In terms of performance, the HD 6950 Twin Frozr III did well thanks to its generous overclock out of the box. With 850 MHz it is one of the highest clocked HD 6950s which shows as a 5% performance improvement over the reference design.

So as a customized and factory overclocked Radeon HD 6950 card, the MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition is certainly decent and commendable. However, if you look at the bigger picture, you would find that factory overclocked GeForce GTX 560 Ti cards could be had for much lesser at around US$270. These cards might only have half the framebuffer of this MSI card, but for most people it'll suffice. And that is what's holding us back from giving this card our full and wholehearted recommendation. NVIDIA has really got their act together in recent times and are coming up with really competitive alternatives. Get this if you really need the features that only a Radeon HD 6950 can offer you, but if you want real bang for buck, there are other alternatives to consider.