When the time comes to buy a new graphics card we all have our wants that are tempered with our needs. This usually comes down to the price we ultimately put as the limit for the purchase. And many times the needs will win out with some reasoning and we buy a model just lower than we want. So then we will spend some money to make improvements to the cooling to try and overclock to reach a higher level of performance for the dollars we spent. What if a manufacturer has added a cooler that was capable of meeting the cooling needs right out of the box with a price tag that was reasonable? Would you allow the want to override the need, since you have plans for additional cooling? - Overclockers Club

MSI GeForce GTX 275 Twin OCFrozr Graphics Review

If so MSI has you covered with their new GeForce GTX 275 Twin Frozr version. This card comes with an massive heatpipe based cooling solution that uses five large heatpipes to reduce the operating temperature of the GPU as well as the rest of the heat generating components. On top of that, the card has been given a bit of a performance increase by way of a reasonable overclock to 666MHz on the core, 1476MHz on the shaders and 2322MHz memory clock speed. With the cooling and overclock these Twin Frozr looks to have some serious performance credentials, which will offer some great gaming feeling and experience.

The packaging of the MSI GeForce GTX 275 Twin Frozr features a creature that looks earily familiar to one in a benchmark we used to run and could be an orc or ogre. The name of the card Twin Frozr is in silver lettering. The fact that this card is an overclocked model is seen at the bottom right of the front panel. Supported technologies are listed as well as the amount of processor cores and that this graphics card is part of MSI's gaming series. The rear panel lists features and the minimum system requirements. Also a handle is part of the deal when you get this card, so that you have less of a chance of dropping it.

The MSI GeForce GTX 275 Twin Frozr is a bit different from the reference cards out on the market. First off, the card sports a factory overclock of 33MHz on the core to bring the core speed to 666MHz. The second and most obvious difference is the massive heatsink with two fans to cool this card down. The GeForce GTX 275 needs additional power as the PCI Express slot will just not supply nearly enough to run this board. This additional power is brought in via two 6-pin power connections on the top spine of the PCB. And it can be used in both a 2-way and 3-way SLI configuration for additional gaming or benchmarking horsepower.

Though when overclocked as high as it would go with the fan speed at 100% the temperature dropped while allowing the card to run at 742MHz on the core and 2600MHz on the memory. Now that is amazing, though the only downside we see with this Twin Frozr design is that if your chassis is not adequately vented the heat will be building up inside your case. And performance wise, their Twin Frozr is also a winner. The price tag on the MSI GeForce GTX 275 comes in at $259 while the Radeon HD 4890 Vapor-X runs about $40 cheaper. Though with the volatility of pricing nowadays its hard to tell where the pricing may end up.

The customized cooling solution adds a bit to the cost of these Twin Frozr, but what is one of the first upgrades for components? Better cooling. If you subtract the cost of about $35-65 you would spend for cooling enhancements, the price of these GeForce GTX 275 is right about where a reference version is priced. The value of the card and improved cooling solution can't be denied with the numbers it delivers on both the cooling and performance fronts. If your next video card for your rig is an GeForce GTX 275, the MSI offers factory overclocked performance with a cooling solution that delivers great results. All with a competitive price!