MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G

MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G - Introduction Recently we took a look at the MSI Gaming R9 390X and walked away very impressed with the value that card had to offer - as it offered near NVIDIA GTX 980 performance at '970 prices. By the same token AMDs 3 series lineup is not without controversy as they have carried over a lot of the 2 series models. For the most part we understand what AMD is doing and can't complain too much - as the carry overs been pushed down a notch on the AMD GPU food chain. For example, in our next installment we will look at a R9 285 that is now called a R380. For now though there is one very interesting core that has been carried over…multiple times. Specifically we will be looking at MSI's take on the R7 370 video card - in the form of the MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G. What makes this card so interesting is the history that comes with it. Way back in 2012 AMD released the HD 7850 'Pitcairn Pro' GPU that was meant to be a rather high'ish, performance orientated card. Then it was overclocked and rebranded as the "Curacao PRO" (aka R7 265), and knocked back down to lower mainstream price point. This time the Pitcairn core has been slightly refurbished, refined and called the Trinidad core…and has been further moved down the food chain to the upper entry level position. In fact, the R7 370 is in the hotly contested $150 to $200 corner of the market where value and price reign supreme. Consumers in this market niche do not mind spending $50 more than they really want to…. but they really rather only spend $150. On the surface with its 1024 shaders, 64ROPS and 32 Texture Units the R7 370 seems to be AMD's answer to the NVIDIA GTX 960 series. In fact, both have cores that boast the same features - albeit with Green or Red design philosophy - and both make use of 2GB of GDDR5 memory. Unfortunately, even with a 256-bit bus compared to 128-bit NVIDIA's GM-206 core is newer and more efficient than the GCN 1.0 based 'Trinidad' core. That is why the 960 can command a $200 asking price and the R7 370 cannot. To counteract this, AMD has given their reference models an asking price of only $145. Unfortunately, and just as with the 960 which is not a spectacular card in its default state, even with a massively reduced asking price the R7 370 has a hard time competing as the performance difference is arguably worth the noticeably large increase in price. This is where MSI enters the equation. As we have seen time and time again MSI are not afraid to think outside the box, and they have taken this free thinking philosophy and applied it to the R7 370. At its heart still beats a Trinidad core paired to 2GB GDDR5 memory, but this is about all the R7 370 Gaming 2G shares in common with a reference design. Instead of running their core at 975Mhz MSI gives their Trinidad cores a factory overclock of 75Mhz to 1050MHz. To ensure that the bus can handle the higher demands, MSI also overclocks the RAM from 5,600MHz(effective) to 5,700Mhz. Then to seal the deal they give their R7 370 a variant of the Twin Frozr V heatsink and fan design that offers much better cooling and noise potential compared to the typical R7 265 or R7 370. On their own these improvements not only go a long way to justifying the extra ten dollar price premium this model commands, but on paper makes the R7 370 vs GTX 960 a much, much more interesting proposition. So much so that if consumers can get past the whole 'rebrand' issue and actually look at the MSI card they may like what they see. This is why we are going to take the time to review it and see if it can live up to these rather high expectations and overcome the massive handicap AMD has given MSI. MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G - Specs and Features MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G - Closer Look Before we begin looking closely at this video card we do feel it necessary to explain a few things. We could wax poetically on how AMD has been able to create a GPU that offers better than NVIDIA's version at this price point (the GeForce 950 series), but that is not going to happen. Basically in some ways it is much, much harder to cut the 'Trinidad' core as much slack as the R9 390X's core. Some of this is because the Trinidad core is a cut down, lower powered design and the R9 390X still is one potent performer, some of it is because the R7 370 has to compete in one of the most crucial markets (the $150 price range) and we hate to see either AMD or NV produce a product that is less than the very best; mainly though it is because this core may have been called the Curacao in the R7 265 days, but before then it was the Pitcairn Pro that powered the HD 7850 series. In other words the R7 370 relies upon a design that has been available since 2012. This means no FreeSync support, no bridgeless CrossFire, and no TrueAudio support. Acting as a counterpoint to this is the fact that a HD 7850 was only clocked at 860Mhz, an R7 265 was clocked at 925Mhz, and a stock R7 370 comes in at a relatively blistering pace of 975Mhz. In other words, the core design may not have changed but AMD has refined this architecture to the point where they can guarantee clock speeds that no HD 7850 could ever hope to match. We will leave deciding whether or not this is enough justification to change the name of the core to 'Trinidad' and making it an x70 card instead of a x60 card. In either case, this is not the fault of MSI - nor any 3rd party manufacture, instead the blame lies solely at the feet of AMD. Instead of blaming MSI for this sorry state of affairs, we have to judge on whether or not MSI was able to take these 'lemons' and make lemonade…instead of taking cyanide and making cyanide-aid. As such personal opinions on the state of the core will have almost no impact on the MSI R7 370 Gaming 2's final score. Instead we will be judging on if MSI indeed did make a cool refreshing drink from the mess AMD handed them…or if they simply added clean water to a bucket of mud and expected the mud to become clean! As you can see the shipping container is classic MSI Gaming series. In other words its eye catching in a bold and brash way that most PC gaming enthusiast will like. The downside to this however is the fact that it is extremely similar to every other MSI Gaming video card shipping container and consumer confusion is a real possibility. So if you are looking at multiple models at your local bricks and mortar store be careful to not buy the 'wrong' model! The accessories which accompany this model are a touch on the sparse side, but are also very similar to more expensive models. Basically you can expect to find a DVI adapter, a user manual, a pamphlet that shows other MSI offerings, and a DVD with AMD drivers. You will not find any 6 to 8-pin adapters though as this unit only requires a single 6-pin connector, and as such any power adapter would be redundant. On just a cursory glance you would never guess that this is a more value oriented video card. Its custom heatsink - with multiple heatpipes, its two large fans, and its rather aggressive red and black fascia just do not scream 'budget' or 'corner cutting' like some cards in this price range. Of course, with that being said this card is not as robust as the R9 390X Gaming 6 or GeForce GTX 980 Ti Gaming 6, instead it is simply built not like a $155 dollar card and instead more like the typical $250 card. The upside to this is that the over, over, over-clocked 'Trinidad' core's temperatures are easily kept in check, in fact this card runs fairly cool and at only barely audible levels. Considering this is two of the largest negatives associated with AMD video cards, MSI has made their AMD based video cards a much more enticing proposition. In fact, even though this card is overclocked, those two large fans are not only independently cooled (just like on MSI's more expensive video cards) but can actually stop spinning during idle times. This can be disconcerting to novices who have never used such an advanced design before, but this is why there is a large 'warning' label directly on the anti-static bag that it comes in! As with other MSI Gaming video cards, the reason these large fans are able to pull off this feat is because of the Twin Frozr V heatsink that MSI have bestowed upon this card. Of course, this is not the same heatsink design which accompanies the R9 390X - as that would needlessly add to the cost of the card, instead MSI have customized their basic design so as to be more than capable of handling this 110 TDP core….even when overclocked beyond the references specifications - which are themselves overclocked beyond the 265, and 7850 predecessors. To pull this off MSI has used their large dual heatsink design that makes the Twin Frozr V famous, and simply downsized its dimensions and reduced the number of heatpipes. Specifically, this heatsink is still overly wide compared to a standard height heatsink, but is shorter than say the R 9 380 or R9 390X versions. This difference is not that much, but this card is short enough that it will not overhang the motherboard's SATA ports to the point where they are blocked - something even the R9 380 cannot claim to be able to do. Two large heatpipes are also more than enough as these two heatpipes come in direct contact with the core in a Heatpipe Direct Touch (HDT) design that many a CPU cooling solution uses! This robust and arguably over-built design certainly has many positives but also a couple negatives worth pointing out as well. Because it sits taller in a case than technically allowed, some smaller cases will not be able to accommodate it - as the side panel will be blocked by the top of the card. Most cases should still be more than capable of handling these extra dimensions, and basically as long as your case has a 120mm fan exhaust port on its side it should be able to handle this card. This issue is really not that big a deal, and neither is the extra length. You see while this card is shorter than a R9 380, it still is longer than it needs to be and this extra room has not been put to good use. We would have zero issues with the length of this card if MSI had used it for the heatsink, instead a good inch of plastic fascia overhangs the heatsink and is for all intents and purposes wasted space. We understand that this was done so that the fascia would be symmetrical but it is a case of form over function. Also of interest is that this version of the Twin Frozr does not make use of a secondary heat plate underneath the heatsink. In larger models, this secondary heatsink is used to keep the memory cool. Unfortunately, by not including such a feature MSI was unable to use 7,000Mhz GDDR5 RAM ICs. Instead they had to use 5,600 GDDR5. On the positive side MSI has overclocked these RAM ICs to 5,700 and this does help boost the effective memory bandwidth. However, with a 256-bit wide memory bus this card may still be memory starved. We shall see if this is the case during overclocking section. Speaking overclocking, this video card makes use of Military Grade power delivery system that consist of 4+1 all-digital design. For this price range a 4+1 design is more than enough, especially considering these components are all extremely high grade components that are used in MSI high end motherboards. Specifically, MSI has used Super Ferite Chokes, Hi-C Cap, and Solid Caps. Interestingly enough MSI felt that the reference single 6-pin connector was enough power for this card, and while an 8-pin would have been overkill…we doubt many would have complained about it being over-designed . By the same token a 6-pin connector is capable of providing up to 75 watts and this in conjunction with 75watts via the PCIe slot itself, is more than enough power for even this overclocked card. Because this card is based upon a GCN 1.0 GPU architecture MSI has had to include an old fashioned CrossFire connector tab. This is unfortunate as GCN 1.2 cores do not need such a connector for CrossFire but this issue is neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things. A more serious issue that all R7 370 video cards suffer - and one MSI was not able to work around, is that this card does not support FreeSync. This is a more serious issue, but with FreeSycn still unproven technology it is not a deal breaker. If you do own a FreeSync monitor you may wish to move up to a R9 380 video card. As this is a more value orientated card it is not surprising to see that MSI has not included a backplate. Considering this Twin Frozr V heatsink is smaller than others we have looked at in the past, this is not that large a deal either. You may feel differently, but we doubt this card will every bow or warp from the lack of a backplate! The ports on the rear cover the bases nicely. The bottom row you get a single mini-DisplayPort, a single full size HDMI port, and a DVI-D port; while the top row is split nearly evenly between exhaust slits and a single DVI port. Overall it is a very nice selection that should satisfy most consumer's needs nicely. MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G - Testing Methodology To fully test the abilities of a given video card, we have used a blend of in-game benchmarks and custom recorded real world game benchmarking. For custom game play we have used FRAPS to record the minimum and average frame rates and to do so for a set period of time. All tests were run a minimum of four times and the scores are the average of all four runs. All games were patched to their latest version. The OS was a fresh clean install of Windows 7 with all latest hotfixes, patches and updates applied. All games were tested at the two of the most popular resolutions of 1080P (1920x1080) and then again at 1440P (2560x1440). This means each game’s tested was run a minimum of 8 times: 4 @ 1080P and 4 @1440P. Before testing Unigine’s Valley benchmark was run for 15 minutes to ‘warm up’ the video card. This was done to ensure that long term performance and not short term performance is being illustrated. The games used for testing were: Sleeping Dogs Metro: Last Light BioShock Infinite Crysis 3 Batman: Arkham Origins Tomb Raider Battliefield 4 Assassins Creed: Black Flag Call of Duty: Ghosts Witcher 3 For stress testing we used Unigine’s Valley benchmark. For overclocking we used either the manufactures included software overclocking program or if necessary EVGA’s Precision X program. Drivers: GeForce 353.30 AMD Catalyst: 15.7 Main Test System Processor: Intel i7 5930K Memory: 32GB (4x8GB) Crucial Ballistic Elite Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth X99 Cooling: Noctua U12S SSD: 1x Intel 750 1.2TB NVMe SSD Power Supply: Corsair AX860i Monitor: Dell U2714H OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64 SP1 Synthetic Game Benchmarks (SGB) In the Synthetic Gaming Benchmarks section we will show a number of benchmark comparisons of the test card and other comparable GPUs, using various benchmarks which come included with five popular modern PC games. This will illustrate how much performance this card has to offer. To ensure that long term performance is and not short term performance is illustrated 15 minutes of Unigine’s Valley benchmark was run to ‘warm up’ the video card. Only then were any tests run on the now warm video card. Real World In-Game Benchmarks (RWGB) In the Real Gaming Benchmarks section we will show a number of timed real world game play results using FRAPS and five popular modern PC games. This will illustrate how much performance the card being tested has to offer, and do so in a way which cannot be unduly skewed by driver ‘optimizations’ which have been included for the sole purpose of improving benchmark results. While not as common as it once was such optimizing is still not unheard of by either AMD or NVIDIA. Once again Unigine’s Valley benchmark was run for 15 minutes to ‘warm up’ the video card prior to testing. MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G - Sleeping Dogs (SGB) Sleeping Dogs is an open world action-adventure video game developed by United Front Games in conjunction with Square Enix London Studios and published by Square Enix, released on August 2012. Sleeping Dogs has a benchmark component to it that mimics game play and an average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are the Extreme display settings and a resolution of 1920x1080. World density is set to extreme, Vsync disabled, high-res textures are enabled, and shadow resolution, shadow filtering, screen space ambient occlusion, and quality motion blur are all set to high. With an average 7.5% increase in performance the MSI R7 370 Gaming 2 comes out of the gate swinging for the fences. This level of performance obviously still does not allow it to compete against $200 video cards, but for an extra ten dollars you do get a lot more power for your money. MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G - Metro: Last Light (SGB) Metro: Last Light is a DX11 first-person shooter video game developed by Ukrainian studio 4A Games and published by Deep Silver released in May 2013. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic world and features action-oriented gameplay. The game has a benchmark component to it that mimics game play. Scene D6 was used and an average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are Very High for quality and a resolution of 1920x1080. DirectX 11 is used, texture filtering is set to AF 16X, motion blur is normal, SSA turned on and tessellation is set to high. Once again the MSI R7 370 Gaming 2 easily justifies its minor increase in price with much more palatable performance numbers. MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G - BioShock Infinite (SGB) BioShock Infinite is a first-person shooter video game developed by Irrational Games, and published by 2K Games released in March 2013. The game has a benchmark component to it that mimics game play and an average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are UltraDX11 (option 3) for quality and a resolution of 1920x1080. BioShock Infinite is not what we would call a hard game to drive properly, but even in rather easy games the MSI R7 370 Gaming 2 acquits itself very nicely. For ten dollars you really will get noticeably better frame-rates and that does make it harder to justify spending even more for a GTX 960. That is a sentence we did not think we would ever utter with regards to a R7 370! MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G - Tomb Raider (SGB) Tomb Raider is an action-adventure video game published by Square Enix and released in March 2013. The game has a benchmark component to it that mimics game play and an average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are Ultimate default settings for quality (sans 'hair' shading), VSync disabled and a resolution of 1920x1080. In what is almost becoming anticlimactic the MSI R7 370 Gaming 2's modest increase in price produces noticeable improvements in frame rates. MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G - Batman Arkham Origins (SGB) Batman: AO is an action-adventure video game published by Warner Bros and released in October 2013. The game has a benchmark component to it that mimics game play and an average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are highest settings for quality, VSync disabled and a resolution of 1920x1080. Anti-Aliasing is set to TXAA (high). Motion blur, Distortion, Lens Flare, Light Shafts, and Reflections set to On. Geometry, Dynamic Shadows, Depth of Field, and Ambient Occlusion all set to DX11 Enhanced. Interestingly enough Batman: AO produces the second lowest improvements of any of our tests. By the same token 'only' getting 6.9% better frame rates for a mere ten dollars is still a bloody good deal. MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G - Battlefield 4 (RWGB) Battlefield 4 is first person shooter video game, published by EA Digital Illusions CE and released in October 2013. Unlike most, this games does not include an in-game benchmark. This makes it perfect for more real world gaming tests. To obtain repeatable results we have used FRAPs and recorded the first 90 seconds of the single player Tashgar level. An average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are Ultra pre-set for quality, with VSync disabled and a resolution of 1920x1080. Battlefield 4 may be getting old, but it still is a great benchmark for judging performance. Not only does it stress the cores it also stresses the memory and memory controller. In this rather difficult test the MSI R7 370 Gaming 2 comes out smelling like a rose. While yes it still can not compete against a card that costs in excess of $200 it still blows past any other video card in the $150 price bracket! Based on these results, you would have to be a glutton for punishment to opt for a stock / reference R7 370 instead of this silent running, value orientated card. MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G - Assassins Creed: Black Flag (RWGB) Assassins Creed: BF is an historical action-adventure video game, published by published by Ubisoft and released in October 2013. Like Battlefield 4 this games does not include an in-game benchmark. This makes it perfect for more real world gaming testing. To obtain repeatable results we have used FRAPs and recorded a custom run through Havana’s marketplace. An average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are highest settings for quality, VSync disabled and a resolution of 1920x1080. Environment quality was set to very high, Anti-Aliasing was set to TXAA 4X, Ambient Occlusion set to HBAO+ (high), Shadow Quality set to ‘soft shadow’, Motion Blur and Volumetric Blur both set to On. Texture Quality, Reflection Quality, and God Rays all set to High. Due to the sheer number of complex computational tasks this test demands of a video card, it comes as little surprise that the MSI R7 370 Gaming 2 posted the lower improvement in any of our tests. By the same token ten dollars will net you nearly 6% better performance - and that still is a good deal. MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G - Call of Duty: Ghosts (RWGB) Call of Duty: Ghosts is a first person shooter video game, published by Activision and released in October 2013. Since it does not include an in-game benchmark, it perfect for more real world gaming testing. To obtain repeatable results we have used FRAPs and recorded 90 seconds of the single player ‘Ghost Stories' level, starting as soon as we resume control of Logan back on Earth. An average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are highest settings for quality, VSync disabled and a resolution of 1920x1080. Image Quality, Textures Resolution, Normal Map Resolution, and Specular Map Resolution set to Extra. Screen Space Ambient Occlusion and Antistrophic Filtering set to High, Terrain Detail set to ON, and Anti-Aliasing was set to TXAA 4X. With Shadows, Distortion, Motion Blue and Depth of Field set to Yes. Call of Duty: Ghosts is another game that favors higher speed memory and wide memory busses. It is for this reason that this is where we saw the third largest improvement over a reference R7 370 video card. Color us impressed with what ten dollars can get you nowadays. MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G - Crysis 3 (RWGB) Crysis 3 is a first person shooter video game, published by Electronic Arts and released in February 2013. While older than some of the others it is one of the most visually stunning games released to date and puts a lot of demands on the GPU. This makes it perfect for more real world gaming testing. To obtain repeatable results we have used FRAPs and recorded 90 seconds of the single player ‘Post Human' level, starting as soon as soon as prophet is handed a Hammer II pistol by Psycho. An average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are highest settings for quality, VSync disabled and a resolution of 1920x1080. Texture Quality, Game Effects, Objects, Particles, Post Processing, Shadows, Shading, Water, and System Specs all set to Very High. Motion Blur was set to High and Lens Flare was set to On. Anti-Aliasing was set to MSAA 8X and Antistrophic Filtering was set to 16x. Crysis 3 is another game that absolutely demands the widest fastest memory bus you can find, and thanks to the overclocked RAM it allows the MSI R7 370 Gaming 2 to post the second highest performance improvement over stock R7 370s. This still is only moderate performance, and if you can afford a $200 card you should spend the extra money, but for consumers on a tight budget this card should be on your short list. MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G - Witcher 3 (RWGB) Witcher 3 is an action role-playing video game set in an open world environment, developed by Polish video game developer CD Projekt RED and released on May 2015. Our test uses a real world timed benchmark that consists of three minutes of game play during the 'Beast of the White Orchard' quest. This section of the game incorporates everything from grass, to water, to hair, to numerous NPCs. An average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are Ultra display settings, but with HairWorks off and Vsync disabled, at a resolution of 1920x1080. Witcher 3 is a darn difficult game to drive on these settings, and even though this card does post double digit performance improvements over a stock R7 370 you still will have to turn the eye candy down to get playable frame rates. By the same token you will get a much better looking game with this R7 370 than you would with a reference R7 370! MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G - Temperature, Noise, and Power Analysis Video Card Temperature Results For all temperature testing the cards were used in an open test bed environment. Ambient temperature was kept at a constant 20°C (+/- 0.5°C) and if the ambient room temperatures rose above 21°C or dropped below 19°C at any time, all benchmarking was stopped until proper temperatures could normalized. For Idle tests, we let the system idle at the Windows 7 desktop for 25 minutes and recorded the peak temperature. For Load tests, we ran Unigine’s Valley benchmark for 20 minutes. Considering this GPU core is an overclock, of an overclock…of an overclock these temperatures are blood marvelous. Yes this version of the TF V heatsink is cut down compared to its higher priced siblings but for this core it is more than enough to keep temperatures well in check. Sound Level Test Results While everyone "hears" noise differently there is one easy way to remove all subjectivness and easily compare different fans: use a sound level meter. This way you can easily compare the various fans noise envelopes without us coloring the results and see what fans fit within your personal comfort level. Of course, we will endeavor to try and explain the various results - which are taken at a 15 inch distance from the GPU’s fan(s) - to help you gain an even better understanding of how loud a cooler's stock fan is, but even if you discount our personal opinions, the fact remains numbers don't lie. For Idle tests, we let the system idle at the Windows 7 desktop for 25 minutes and recorded the peak dB. For Load tests, we ran Unigine’s Valley benchmark for 20 minutes and recorded the peak dB. This is one area that MSI has down pat, and if you are worried about this hotter running core causing the R7 370 Gaming 2 to be too loud to use…. don’t. It’s a non-issue thanks to Twin FROZR V heatsink and dual fan combination. We truly hope that this silent performance during idle becomes the standard for the industry. System Power Consumption To obtain accurate results we have connected the system to a Power Angle power meter that has in turn been attached to a 1500watt UPS. This ensures only 120volt power is supplied to the PSU and removes an variances that could potential crop up because of brownouts and power spikes. In order to stress the video card we have once again used Unigine’s Valley benchmark and ran it for 20 minutes to determine peak system power consumption. For idle results we have let the system idle at the Windows 7 desktop for 25 minutes and recorded the peak idle power consumption. As this is a relatively low powered card these results are pretty darn good for what it is. Yes a reference R7 370 will indeed require a couple watts less performance, but in the grand scheme of things this really is not enough of a difference to worry about. The same holds true for this card vs NVIDIA 960 models - as it would take years and years for difference in price to be made up for in lower power consumption. Instead, you will have to justify an R7 370 vs GTX 960 the old fashioned way: and make a decision on how much you can legitimately afford to pay (and justify) for a single video card. MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G - Overclocking Considering the fact that the R370 is an overclocked version of the R265's Curacao, which in turn was an overclocked version of the 'Pitcairn Pro'…and this R370 comes factory overclocked by an extra 75Mhz by MSI it is not surprising that there was not much overclocking headroom left to find. After all, this is a very mature and refined architecture that MSI's engineers know like the back of their hand and if there was more to be found…they would have done it. Instead don't expect to find any extra MHz and rather consider the factory overclock the most you will find. That way if you happen upon a 'golden' chip it will be a nice little bonus. This is how we approached the overclocking section and as such finding only 90 more MHz was not that unexpected nor all that disappointing. This still represents 165Mhz more than a reference R370's clock speed. Put another way we got an additional 16.9 percent of 'free' performance over a reference R7 370. Much like the NVIDIA GTX 960 we knew that 'Trinidad' core did not have much gas left in its tank and rather it was going to be the GDDR5 RAM that would show the largest improvements. While these RAM ICs are certainly not capable of 7,000+ speeds boosting it from the factory overclocked level of 5,700 all the way to 6010 is still pretty darn nifty. To be honest, this 256-bit wide memory bus is still starved at even this improved level and if MSI - or some other manufacture - does equip their R370 with 7010 (effective) GDDR5 ICs that would make for one heck of a value orientated card. In the end our overclocking efforts did net tangible results that are for all intents and purposes some of the cheapest performance boosts you are going to find in this price range! Not too shabby for an architecture that came out in 2012. MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G - Performance Summary and TL;DR In an effort to make sorting through all the results as easy as possible we have combined the results all of all the game results into an easy to digest summary format. By comparing it to similar products in all the games you will be able to easily find the game(s) you are interested in, see the improvement and decide if it is the worth the investment. This end of the market is not overflowing with performance, but MSI has done an excellent job with what they were given. Honestly, it may not be able to take on $200 video cards, but given what MSI had to work with they made very tasty 'lemonade' indeed. Color us moderately impressed. Score Card and Summary Packaging & Accessories :9 out of 10 MSI's included accessories are every bit as good as what comes with more expesnive MSI Gaming cards and so too is the shipping container. Given the price of this card that is indeed impressive when you think about it. Functionality & Aesthetics : 19 out of 20 As expected the aesthetics are typical MSI Gaming series, that is to say a bit on the aggressive side for our personal tastes, but still good. On the functionality side of the equation there is no argument that this TWIN FROZR version is overbuilt and more than capable of handling an overclocked 'Trinidad' core. Build Quality & Warranty : 18 out of 20 MSI builds very good cards and the R7 370 is no exception. In fact MSI really has shown what can be done on a tight a budget. Performance : 20 out of 30 Thanks to a very decent factory overclock this card is a lot better than its older core would lead you to believe. For its price there is not much to argue about on the performance side of coin. Of course if you can afford $200 or more you will get better performance from an MSI Gaming 380 or MSI GeForce GTX 960 Gaming series. Value : 17 out of 20 When it comes to MSI and R7 370's ten dollars gets you a lot of improvements. Better cooling, better noise levels, and even better performance. That is indeed a lot to like. On the other hand AMD has significantly handicapped MSI by simply using a retreaded 265 video card. But given these limitations MSI has done much better than we thought they could! Final Score : 83 out of 100 On the one hand this card is easily one of the better R7 370's available today; on the other it still is a R7 370. This means even when heavily overclocked it still is not able to keep up with a NVIDIA GTX 960 on either the performance, or price to performance equations. By the same token it still is better than any NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950, and its combination of silent operation and decent performance does make this a pretty darn good card for its class. MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G - Closing Statement There are two ways to look at the MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G. On the one hand consumers who can afford $200 and purchase an overclocked NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960, such as the extremely good MSI GTX 960 Gaming 2G, should . They provide noticeably better performance and it will be forty five dollars well spent. On the other hand, consumers who really only want to spend $150 will find stretching their budget to the MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G's $155 asking price downright easy. Its performance is so much better that saving $10 and going the 'stock' R7 370 route is a less than optimal solution to say the least. More impressive still, is unlike typical R7 370's, comparing this R7 370 to a stock 960 is not nearly as easy a choice as 'should' be. In fact, there is a very good argument to be made for opting for this card and saving $35 and putting that into a bigger SSD (or a SSD instead of a SSHD). After all this card is Crossfire compatible and that opens up a lot of possibilities for the budget limited. In a cold hard dollars and sense calculation this one little addition - something a GTX 950 can't do - means for only $120 more than a single stock 960, budget constrained consumers can get two of these little cards, overclock the hell out of them and beat the ever living tar out of a 960, or maybe even a 970. Conversely, they can purchase one now, wait for them to get cheaper and purchase a second one later as their needs grow. That is a very decent argument. Yes, we know this is a rebadge of a rebadge but that is not MSI's fault. They, like all video card manufactures, were dealt a rather crappy hand by AMD. However, they have taken lemons and made lemonade - instead of bitching and moaning about how AMD needs to get the lead out and release some truly new GPUs! So there you have it, the R7 370 is still a fairly low powered card, but the MSI Gaming 2 R7 370 is a hell of a lot better than expected. Honestly, if the $150 price bracket is your budgets sweet spot, AMD is still the place to be. If you can afford more, but don’t really want to, there still is an argument to be made for not spending more. That however will be up to you to weigh the pros and cons for your needs - and that is still a stroke in the win column for MSI and their not so itty-bitty R7 370 Gaming 2G. Forum comments found here: MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G Comment

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