While the GeForce GTX 280 might be the most powerful single cored graphics card on the market at the moment, it didn't seem to be greeted with welcomed arms. A high price tag and small to no gains over its older dual GPU brother, the GeForce 9800 GX2 meant that people didn't get all that excited about it. Today we're going to take the time to see what MSI have done to the card. We know they've decided to overclock the card, but we wonder if they've done anything else with it to let it stand out from the pack. While we haven't fallen head over heels for the GeForce GTX 280, there's no denying that it's a very fast single core card and it's difficult not to be impressed by the performance. - TweakTown

MSI GeForce GTX 280 OverClock Style Video Review

There isn't too much going on with the front of the box. Across the top we see that it is of course an MSI card, while the top right corner gives us some NVIDIA logos. Across the bottom we have the game with MSI logo along with another sticker that mentions the card is overclocked. The picture on the box is some kind of Orc while to the right of that we have the model which is of course the GeForce GTX 280. Below that we have the mention of 1GB of GDDR3 memory, support for 3-way SLI and support for PhysX. Turning the box over, we go into some more detail of the features that the GeForce GTX 280 offers.

With the package out of the way, it's time to move onto the card. Out of the box it looks like every other GeForce GTX 280 with the reference cooler managing to take up the whole card. We can see that the only thing MSI has done to the card is place its own sticker on it. We have a branded sticker of the fan along with another sticker that shows what we saw on the front of the box along with the brand and model. We also again see the game with MSI logo at the bottom. Turning the card over, there isn't a whole lot going on. We have some vents to let the hot air out, but apart from that it's a sea of black.

As you would expect, looking around the card we have the two power connectors located at the top of the card. One being a 6-pin and the other an 8-pin. Next to these connectors we have another port for the loop back cable included in the box so that you can get sound through the HDMI convertor included. Continuing across the top of the card, we have our two SLI connectors which of course give us support for up to three cards if your budget stretches that far. As we have mentioned before, the card is of course an overclocked one. Instead of the stock 600MHz core, MSI have chosen to bump this to 650MHz.

MSI's decision to offer an out of the box overclock straight away is great. The extra MHz on the core and memory give us a nice little bump in performance, making it constantly faster than the stock model and faster than the older GeForce 9800 GX2 in most situations. While it would have been nice to have seen a full version game in the package for such an expensive card, it isn't the end of the world. We get everything we need to get up and running along with the inclusion of a DVI to HDMI adapter. The thing that we really have to think about is if we looked at this card a few weeks ago we wouldn't have liked it as much.

Today, though, paints a different picture. With aggressive price drops and the same fast performance, the GeForce GTX 280 card looks like a better option for people who are willing to stretch their budget and don't want to go a dual card solution. If you find yourself looking for a GeForce GTX 280 that packs a bit more punch out of the box over the standard GeForce GTX 280, the MSI looks to be a good option with an aggressive price tag and great out of the box performance.