The GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 video cards have been out for quite a while now. With that passage of time comes the realization that this old workhorse needs a little pep to keep delivering the same performance as games continue to evolve and demand more and more processing power. And offering factory overclocked cards is one way of giving a refresh to a true performer. Some manufacturers just give a small bump to the GPU and call it an overclock model and leave it at that. Others take a few steps further with improvements on all the clock speeds and a marginally better cooling solution, while only a few go whole hog and slap on an massive heatsink along with much higher clock speeds. - Overclockers Club

MSI GeForce GTX 260 OCCore 216 Style Card Review

The GeForce GTX 260 OverClock edition is just one of the overclocked versions that MSI has to offer. It features an increase in clock speed on the shader cores, the GPU and the GDDR3 memory to boost performance as well as an massive heatsink that contains five heatpipes and dual fans to make sure that heat will not be an issue during an all night frag fest. The outer packaging of the graphics card shows an ogre ready for battle on a dark green background. The amount of cores is prominently displayed to make sure there is no confusion as to how many this card uses. That this is an overclocked edition is shown at the bottom.

On first glance you notice that this isn't your ordinary reference GeForce GTX 260. The tip-off is the massive cooling solution that contains five heatpipes and two fans to keep it cool, something needed with a factory overclocked video card. MSI has built this card to run at higher clock speeds of 655MHz on the core and 2100MHz on the memory. Now the clock speed increases are pretty substantial. Since the motherboard cannot hope to supply enough voltage to run this board additional power is required in the two 6-pin power connections on the rear spine of the card. It would be interesting see how these cards do in 3-way SLI mode.

When the time comes to spend your money on an upgrade, many people really want to feel they got their money's worth. With the GeForce GTX 260 OverClock, MSI has hit an home run when it comes down to price as well as performance. Currently you find this graphics card for $159 online after rebate. And an factory overclocked card with a massive heatpipe cooler that works for well under $200, is a heck of a deal. Overclocking is not the only strong suite, as MSI has made cooling the card a priority. The heatsink does its job very well. While the cooling solution works well, it does get a bit loud once you increase the fan speed.

The MSI GeForce GTX 260 OverClock is one of several boards in the OC lineup and falls just below the Lightning Black edition that runs at these same clock speeds, but includes native HDMI connectivity. This means you just have several different overclocked cards to choose from, but only the OverClock and Lightning featuring the five heatpipe cooling solution. They deliver excellent performance in both stock and overclocked trim for a price point that really can't be beaten by any GeForce GTX 260 with non reference cooling right now.