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- Date:
- Tuesday , March 24, 2009
- Author:
- Mark Warner
- Editor:
- Brent Justice
- Google +1
MSI R4870 MD1G Video Card Evaluation
MSI is back under the spotlight with a slick new video card with a sleek new cooler. MSI claims a 20 degree temperature reduction on this Radeon HD 4870 1GB, but is that accurate or just a lot of hot air? We'll find out exactly what potential buyers can expect out of this low-priced dynamo!
Introduction
Microstar International, known more commonly as MSI, is one of the largest and most successful manufacturers of PC hardware. Their product lineup includes motherboards, video cards, notebooks, server and desktop barebones, and other accessories. They manufacture both Intel and AMD compatible motherboards and offer both NVIDIA and AMD/ATI based video cards. In 2005, their sales totaled $2.4 billion US and ranked number 26 in the top 1000 Taiwanese companies. Recently MSI has refreshed their own logo giving them a sleek new look.
Today, we are going to be examining one of their AMD Radeon HD 4870 1GB based video cards, the MSI R4870 MD1G with 1GB of GDDR5. This video card sports a custom cooling solution for reduced noise and temperatures.
AMD ATI Radeon HD 4870
The AMD ATI Radeon HD 4870 GPU (also known as RV770) was officially launched on June 25th of 2008. The GPU itself features 800 streaming processors, 40 texture units, and 16 raster operators (ROPs.) The GPU core is configured as 10 SIMD cores, each with 80 32-bit streaming processors, 4 texture units, and 16KB of local cache memory. Unlike NVIDIA, AMD does not have a separate clock speed for its streaming processors and ROPs. The RV770 GPU reference design calls for the clock rate to be set to 750MHz.
The Radeon HD 4870 was originally launched with 512MB of GDDR5 on board, clocked at 3.6GHz. Approximately four months after the initial launch, the first 1GB version of this GPU was released. The only change was the inclusion of an additional 512MB of GDDR5, for a total of 1024MB of local video memory. The memory clock speed remained at 3.6GHz.
When the newer version launched, the increased framebuffer proved that it could provide a tangible benefit in some games, while other games proved less capable of utilizing the full 1GB of memory. For the most part, 1GB of memory has been very beneficial to the Radeon HD 4870.
MSI R4870 MD1G
The R4870 MD1G is one of four Radeon HD 4870 based video cards offered by MSI. Other models include a 512MB model, another 1GB model which is overclocked, and an X2 model with two RV770 GPUs and 1GB of memory per GPU also overclocked.
The MSI R4870 MD1G came to us with the GPU and memory clock rates set to AMD's reference design of 750MHz on the GPU core, and 3.6GHz for the memory. The thing that sets this video card apart is the 3rd party cooler design. Instead of the large, heavy heat-sink, there is a radial shaped heat-sink featuring two heat pipes with some very thin fins attached.
The outer packaging features MSI's new lower-case logo and a large armored monster, as well as various icons describing some of the video card's features. Of prominence is a large label describing the cooling fan on this video card, and promising a 20 degrees Celsius lower temperature. One side of the box features the model label, indicating that the video card includes a fan, is HDMI ready, and misspelled "CorssFire" (should be CrossFire) compatible. The back of the box contains rather a lot of data in several languages, a basic feature list and system requirements list. There is also a picture of a PCI bracket indicating that the contained video card has an HDMI port, a D-Sub VGA port, and a DVI port.
The bundle included with this video card is remarkably slim. It contains only an "MSI Multimedia Beyond 3D" CD-ROM disc containing drivers and utilities, and two quick user's guides. Conspicuously absent is a DVI to VGA adaptor, a DVI to HDMI adaptor, and the hitherto ubiquitous Molex to 6-pin auxiliary power adaptors.
As you can plainly see, the familiar red plastic shrouded heat-sink is gone from the R4870 MD1G, and has been replaced by a svelte aluminum heat-sink with 2 copper heat-pipes and a copper base. There is also a large milled aluminum heat-sink mated to the power management circuitry. Just like other Radeon HD 4870s, this video card requires two 6-pin auxiliary power supply connectors. The PCI I/O bracket is also different. Instead of a row of uniform ventilation slots, the slots on this video card are interrupted in the middle by the letters "MSI" which have been punched out of the metal bracket.
It is worth noting here that there is no duct to direct hot air to exit the computer via the ventilation slots on this video card. As such, more warm air will be exhausted into the interior of the PC enclosure, which will raise ambient temperatures. As with any other indirectly exhausted cooling device, proper air circulation is important with this video card to ensure that hot air produced by this video card is removed from the inside of the case.
As we can see from the side view, the copper heat-pipes extend out from the heat-sink base and fan out around the core heat-sink, and have thin heat-sink blades attached to help remove heat from the heat pipes themselves and the liquid inside.
The memory chips on this video card are from Hynix, and are labeled "H5GQ1H24MJR." A search of the Hynix web site does not list this chip as a current model, but it does appear in the company's 2008 product catalog (link to PDF.) It is a 1Gbit model rated at 5Gbps. There are 8 chips total with 128MB in each chip for a total of 1024MB.
On the business end, we can see that there is a single DVI port, a 15-pin D-sub VGA port, and an HDMI port. With these connections available, you should not need an adaptor if you are using a single monitor. But if you want to plug in 2 monitors with the same type of connector, you will need to find an adaptor of some kind.
The Competition
For this evaluation, we are going to compare the MSI R4870 MD1G to a standard 512MB Radeon HD 4870, and a standard NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260. Since the MSI R4870 MD1G does not deviate from AMD's reference clock rate, there will be no actual performance difference between it and a reference Radeon HD 4870 1GB. Therefore, we will not include one in our gameplay evaluation. However, for comparing temperature and power we will include a reference Radeon HD 4870 1GB with reference cooler to see the differences.