MSI Radeon HD 7850 2GB Power Edition Overclocked Video Card Review

Shane Baxtor — Thu, 24 May 2012 08:23:19 PDT

Introduction

AMD's Radeon HD 7850 is a model we haven't had a huge look at since its launch earlier in the year. With a number of models launching around it from both AMD and NVIDIA and then a new CPU and chipset launch from Intel meant that the HD 7850 probably didn't get quite the attention that it deserved.

Today, though, we're looking at one that grabbed our attention straight away. The HD 7850 we're looking at today from MSI comes in as part of the Power Edition series, a series that has looked good every time we've tested one.

The HD 7850 is a good model to fall under the Power Edition series, though, due to the fact that out of the box we don't get voltage adjustment on the HD 7850. Adding the ability to adjust the voltage on the core along with a few other areas should bring with it strong overclocking ability.

As always there are a few things we need to do before we cover the overclocking side of things. The first thing we want to do is take a closer look at the package to see what MSI is giving us with this model here today. Once we've done that we'll then move onto the video card itself to see what it's able to offer us.

Once we've taken a look at the video card we'll take a closer look at the specifications and see what kind of clocks we get out of the box from MSI before we then cover the overclocking side of things. Of course once we've done that we'll take a quick look at the testbed and then get into the performance side of things to see just how this Power Edition model from MSI goes.

Package

Looking at the box we get a good idea of some of the main features that are on offer here today. The big one with the Power Edition series is of course the Triple Over-Voltage feature that brings the ability to increase the voltage of the Core, Aux and memory which in turn should bring with it a stronger overclock compared to a video card that doesn't include this ability.

Along with that we've got the Military Class III components which bring Hi-c CAP, Super Ferrite Choke and Solid Capacitors. Finally the other big feature to the video card is the Twin Frozr IV cooler which we'll take a closer look at in a moment when we move onto the video card.

As for the bundle we've got the normal line up of paperwork and the standard driver CD. Along with that we've got a dual Molex to 6-pin PCIe power connector, DVI to VGA connector and MiniDP to DisplayPort connector to round the bundle off. Overall we've got a nice bundle and the inclusion of the MiniDP to DP connector is a good inclusion that we continue to see most companies skip nowadays.

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MSI Radeon HD 7850 2GB Power Edition Overclocked Video Card Review

Introduction

Package