MSI

T.O.P Tech gets an update

We’ve truly fallen in love with MSI’s T.O.P. Tech cooling solutions, which are designed to provide optimal cooling performance without sacrificing too much performance in the process. The real beauty of T.O.P Tech though is noise level – MSI has got buildng quiet cards down to a fine art. In our GeForce FX 5900 XT roundup earlier this year, we found their FX5900XT-TD28 board operated quieter than any other 5900 XT board we tested.

This makes these cards ideal for use in applications where quiet operation is important, such as in use in a bedroom or in a small form factor or HTPC setup, which can often be found in the living room.

For their GeForce 6800 line, MSI takes T.O.P Tech to the next level but not only continuing to provide heatsinks that are constructed completely of copper, but by also providing fan speed adjustment, which can be toggled via a small lever on the top edge of the board. MSI refers to their new cooling system as “Copper Ultra”.

Custom coppler cooling on the MSI GeForce 6800 card

Slider to adjust fan RPMs

Another shot of the 6800 board

Adjustable fan speeds on Copper Ultra range from 2800 RPM (which dishes out 30 decibels) to 4,000 RPMs (39 decibels). This is a handy feature for those of you who may want to keep the card quiet for normal desktop operations, then crank up the RPMs once you’re ready to overclock. Unfortunately, this dynamic cooling technology is hardware-based only, MSI doesn’t provide a software solution to accomplish this task, so you will need quick and easy access to the inside of your case if you plan to use this feature frequently.

MSI claims their all-copper cooling unit outperforms NVIDIA’s reference design by 10 degrees Celsius on the core at the 4,000 RPM setting and 40 degrees Celsius on the memory.

In addition to RPM adjustment, MSI will also provide dynamic overclocking capability with their 6800 board. When enabled, MSI’s dynamic overclocking technology will automatically overclock your graphics card anywhere from 6-10%, depending on temperature and load. The hardcore crowd will probably shun this technology, but this takes the guessing work out of overclocking for inexperienced users.

PCI Express and AGP X800 compared

MSI X600 XT

Keep in mind that everything we just mentioned applies to NVIDIA’s GeForce 6800 card only, for the 6800 Ultra and GT, MSI must buy their boards direct from NVIDIA, just like all the other card manufacturers. Therefore, MSI’s early GeForce 6800 Ultra boards will be based on NVIDIA’s reference designs, although MSI would like to implement this technology onto their 6800 Ultra card in the near future, so be on the lookout for MSI’s second generation 6800 Ultra card if these features interest you.

Note the TSOP memory on the X600 PRO board

MSI PCI Express-based PCX 5750-TD128

On the ATI side, MSI plans to stick with ATI’s reference design for now. X600 cards will get traditional T.O.P. Tech coolers to ensure quiet operation, although the first generation X600 boards won’t have video input capabilities. MSI will be providing video input on their X800 XT and PRO boards however.