AMD wasn't kidding when it said that we'd be seeing quite a few custom Radeon HD 6800s in January and February. We've already seen models from HIS, XFX and Sapphire - among others - and now MSI is having a go with the latest addition to its overclocking friendly Hawk family.
Although the HD 6870 got some love from MSI in November when the company kitted it out with the Twin Frozr II cooler, this new model has been upgraded to the all-new Twin Frozr III. A big part of this cooler is the new 'propeller blade' design that's used on the two 80mm PWM fans. By using a grooved surface, the manufacturer claims that air flow has been increased by 20 per cent and that it also covers a larger area than traditional designs.
Combined with the new heatsink, temperatures should be up to 21 degrees lower than the reference design, while keeping the volume up to 7dB lower. If that doesn't work for you though, it's possible to manually switch the card between 'silent' and 'performance' modes to suit your needs.
The card also boasts an 8+2 phase PWM design - up from 4+1 on reference boards - and the ability to adjust GPU, memory and VDDCI voltages independently with voltage check points for all three. In addition, the board gets the benefit of MSI's military class components, which claim to increase efficiency by 10 per cent while improving stability under pressure.
As for speeds, the GPU's 1,120 shaders have been bumped up to 930MHz (from 900MHz) while the 1GB GDDR5 has been left at the stock 4,200MHz. The overlock is small, but the Hawk series has always been more of a DIY option for enthusiasts looking to hit the highest clock speeds on their own.
Unfortunately, MSI hasn't given any indication on pricing or availability, but expect to see the R6870 Hawk in the next few weeks for a small premium over stock HD 6870s.
