It feels like it has been ages since we have tested a video card. Unfortunately we were then quick to realize that it has only been a little over a week, and became concerned that ten days felt like an eternity. To get back into the swing of things, though, we fired up the Raeon HD 6950 from MSI which has just gotten the Twin Frozr treatment. These Radeon HD 6900 series runs just a little warmer than the previous generation Radeon HD 5800 series, so it's good to see MSI attacks the model with the Twin Frozr cooler. Out of the box the focus has never been about a pre-overclock on this model instead it's been all about the cooling and making sure the core is running as cool as possible but not too loud. - TweakTown

MSI Radeon HD 6950 2GB TwinFrozr Graphics Review

Looking at the card itself, there's nothing too unusual. We've seen the Twin Frozr cooler before and you could easily mistake this board for one of the many others that are part of the Twin Frozr series. Sure, that massive heatpipe configuration and dual fan setup is the highlight of the cooler and hopefully it does a good job of handling the Radeon HD 6900 core. Taking just a spin around the card, you're going to continue not to see anything too new. We've got two 6-pin PCI Express power connectors at the back, our two CrossFire connectors at the front. While this card carries better cooling, there's not really an overclock on offer.

The Radeon HD 6950 Twin Frozr shows us why we love this series so much. Not only does it run a lot cooler than the reference designed AMD offering, but it is also a little quieter. Now to be cooler is great, but to be cooler while also being slightly quieter is just fantastic, and that's what makes this series so great. But outside of this cooler, performance doesn't show us anything unusual with that small 10MHz overclock just making it overall ever so slightly faster than others reference cards. Of course, the big advantage that this graphics card gives you is the ability to overclock better thanks to the card running cooler at stock.

One of the more stand out features of the video card is the inclusion of the mini DisplayPort adapter. For a lot of people this just won't matter, but if you are using a DisplayPort monitor, there's nothing more frustrating than buying a nice new card like the Radeon HD 6950 to then discover no adapter is included. To date, MSI and Sapphire are the only two companies to include them and we're seeing on forums that it's swaying people's decision on what brand to buy, because you want to know that when the card arrives you can use it straight away without the need to purchase a separate adapter, which is just excellent added value.

Overall, this Twin Frozr version of the Radeon HD 6950 is a fantastic model and a great addition to this much loved series. If you are looking for something that is going to run cooler and quieter, this is the card you should be looking for. It will be interesting to see if MSI give the same treatment to a 1GB version, as that will really help push the value of the model even more north. For now though, if you're keen on a 2GB version that runs cool and quiet, this is the card you should be looking out for and at around $300 the model carries great value considering that some reference cards carry a slightly higher price tag in some instances.