Asus DirectCu II vs MSI Twin Frozr III

[Stealth3si]

Which gives lower temps & higher OC headroom on a single 7850?

Asus - 870/1200
MSI - 900/1200

[Mr.Scott]

There is no correct answer, It depends on the core and vram you get on the card. The cooling solutions are equal.

[Nagoshi]

My vote goes for the Twin Frozr III. The DiCUII is mostly a huge marketing fad. The heatsink is nothing short of huge, it re-circulates warm air in the case and makes it hot instead. No air at all is blown through the back of the card/case. On top of that it only sits on the board using the 4 GPU screws. It also only cools the GPU core, and unless they changed the design... nothing else.

Cards using that cooler are known to have BSOD or random issues, due to the weight of the cooler literally twisting the PCB and components.

I bought a GTX560 Ti 448 for my friend, with that cooler, 1st card seemed good, but past a certain temp (I htink 81C), the computer was shutting down. Made the same thing in my rig, so I RMA'ed and the next one worked... luckily. HAd to attach the loose end to the hard drive bays, else the card wouldve snapped in 2 simply by moving the case around.

[Stealth3si]

Originally Posted by Nagoshi

My vote goes for the Twin Frozr III. The DiCUII is mostly a huge marketing fad. The heatsink is nothing short of huge, it re-circulates warm air in the case and makes it hot instead. No air at all is blown through the back of the card/case. On top of that it only sits on the board using the 4 GPU screws. It also only cools the GPU core, and unless they changed the design... nothing else.

Cards using that cooler are known to have BSOD or random issues, due to the weight of the cooler literally twisting the PCB and components.

I bought a GTX560 Ti 448 for my friend, with that cooler, 1st card seemed good, but past a certain temp (I htink 81C), the computer was shutting down. Made the same thing in my rig, so I RMA'ed and the next one worked... luckily. HAd to attach the loose end to the hard drive bays, else the card wouldve snapped in 2 simply by moving the case around.

+1

Thank you for your very helpful review.

[Nagoshi]

Originally Posted by Stealth3si

+1

Thank you for your very helpful review.

No problem!

I just want to add, while the Twin Frozr III still looks like it blows most of the air back inside the case, at least it doesn't look like it's main design goal was to shear the PCI-E straight out of the motherboard. I also prefer the way the heatpipes are used on the Twin Frozr III.


OC-wise Im not sure which one would be able to go the furthest.

[kow_ciller]

I'd say get whatever card you can find cheaper.

They will overclock the same more or less and it is all luck of the draw for max overclocks.

As far as cooling, that is roughly the same as well. Temps might be cooler by1-2*C in favor of one or the other but it is certainly not a deal breaker for either one.

[Mr.Scott]

Originally Posted by kow_ciller

I'd say get whatever card you can find cheaper.

They will overclock the same more or less and it is all luck of the draw for max overclocks.

As far as cooling, that is roughly the same as well. Temps might be cooler by1-2*C in favor of one or the other but it is certainly not a deal breaker for either one.

Same thing I said.

[Stealth3si]

THe MSI one is considerably cheaper.

Also, what does the inside of the MSI 7850 TF look like? I want to see if if it has heatsinks/spreaders on its VRM mosfets.

[Mr.Scott]

Then you have your answer.

[buttons]

Ive read more negative then positive about the asus DirectCU II. I personally would avoid it, plus the MSI is cheaper.

[Stealth3si]

I found a good deal on the MSI for $214.99 AR No Tax and also got in a $20 rebate bringing it down to $194.99!



Additional Comment:

I finally isntalled the video card but windows still says it's asus eah5450 but i uninstalled old drivers before though.

looke below

red is the old, black is the new

[bravotsx]

close everything, uninstall the drivers, reboot, install drivers, reboot~

[Stealth3si]

still show the same thing

[_DOM_]

did you remove the old card from the motherboard ?

[Stealth3si]

cool i fixed it! this is waht i did

1. unisntalled drivers
2. reboot safe mode
3. ran driver sweaper
4. ran driver cleaner PE
5. ran CCleaner
5. ran windows 7 manager registry tools and deleted all "eah5450" entries
6. reboot normal mode
7. ran atiman uninstaller
8. reboot normal mode
9. everything shows amd radeon 7800 series even though I didn't install the drivers yet??!?
10. device manager shows the driver version is 8.961.0.0.

Do I need to install the latest ATI drivers/CCC?

[_DOM_]

Yes w7 will install drivers but not the latest