ASUS DCU II vs MSI Twin Frozr IV

[locomoco321]

I'll be getting a new graphics card soon to replace my old GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores, and I've been looking into the GTX 670, because of its performance and price. I've already decided on going with after-market coolers, but I've come to a dilemma in choosing between the ASUS DCU II and the MSI Twin Frozr IV. I've looked heavily into spec and benchmarks, but the bottom line is that overclocked they will have pretty much the same performance.
So this question is really about the better cooler. Both seem to be made from high quality parts with great overclocking features (triple over-voltage with MSI, and best in class VRM design with ASUS).
Any replies will help and as quick as possible as I'm trying to get in on the Borderlands 2 sale .

 

[dudewitbow]

of the 670's awhile back, the asus dcII got the most quiet recognition sadly the msi one wasn't tested but the msi is always a good choice.

 

[sherlockwing]

DC2 is weak sauce non-factory OCed version, They do have the best cooler in cooling/noise level but read carefully they come in the standard 915/980 Clocks compared to TF4's 1019/1079(this is actually 1097, newegg misprint).

Just read through the DC2 newegg reviews, the users are stoked that they OCed past 1150Mhz ! MSI PE users will be bummed theirs run any less than 1150 Mhzout right out of the box. The DC2T is another story as they all came Factory overclocked in the Ghz range and won multiple awards but they have been out of stock for a while now.

If you are looking for a Custom Cooler design MSI PE TF4 is a good choice(remember the rebate drops your price down to 404.99), or get the Gigabyte version factory OCed to 980/1059 but reading their review on OCN their average OC are no worse than MSI PE, these are also pretty cool/quiet and comes in at the same price as reference card(399.99).

With DC2 you are paying an extra $20 over the reference card & Gigabyte and $15 over MSI after rebate for:
1. The best Cooler noise/cooling wise although the difference is not going to be noticeable to your ear during gaming or how far you can OC(non of these 3 will reach the throttle temperature of 70 C).

2. A Back plate, which is just for looks and might drop or raise your temperature by 1C. Only useful in extreme situation(i.e you drop the GPU) when it protects your GPU.

If you think these 2 are worth the extra dollars then go for it.

 

[sherlockwing]

Well, the Asus DCUII is discontinued. good luck finding it for sale.

IMO, the best one out right now is either the Gigabyte one or the EVGA FTW edition.

Correction, the DC2T 670-> Factory OCed version is out of stock and most likely discontinued. The DC2 670 with the same cooler but stock clock is still sold on Newegg($419.99).

review done by Tom's will be a good reference to you, please note when competed against the ASUS DC2T model the Gigabyte was named the Recommended Buy.

 

[killerhurtalot]

Correction, the DC2T 670-> Factory OCed version is out of stock and most likely discontinued. The DC2 670 with the same cooler but stock clock is still sold on Newegg($419.99).

you might as well as buy a Gigabyte or a EVGA FTW edition rather than spend the $20...

 

[sherlockwing]

you might as well as buy a Gigabyte or a EVGA FTW edition rather than spend the $20...

I just said it is avaliable for sale instead of discontinued, nothing about whether I would buy it. I personally bought a Gigabyte b/c it is the best value out there, but if I need to SLI in a Closed Air Flow case(Define R4) would definitely consider FTW(also this is back to $407.99, 399.99 is the lackluster LE version made from chips not good enough for FTW).

 

[locomoco321]

Are the chips used in the DCU II TOP better than that of the reference?
And I have the $450 to spend on a good after-market cooler. The reason I'm not going with AMD is because they don't have CUDA. The MSI and ASUS cards both have better VRM parts, not sure if the Gigabyte card has anything special to aid the overclock.

@killerhurtalot The EVGA card with it's reference GTX 680 design really gives me no room for further OC without fan speed adjustments and louder operation.

 

[killerhurtalot]

Are the chips used in the DCU II TOP better than that of the reference?
And I have the $450 to spend on a good after-market cooler. The reason I'm not going with AMD is because they don't have CUDA. The MSI and ASUS cards both have better VRM parts, not sure if the Gigabyte card has anything special to aid the overclock.

@killerhurtalot The EVGA card with it's reference GTX 680 design really gives me no room for further OC without fan speed adjustments and louder operation.

You do realize that the reference GTX 680 design has better cooling than the reference GTX 670 design right?

The review said that they oced it to about the same as the DCII (they only raised the voltage to 1.15V though) (but the better cooler on the DCII allowed the boost to go a little bit higher than the FTW version at that overclock...) with slightly louder results. (my case fans on the HAF 922 are louder at max speed than the GTX 670 FTW at load...)

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/40613-evga-geforce-gtx-670-ftw/?page=10

And the since the chips they use for the DCU II now are stock clock, there's no guarantee on the quality of the chips themselves.

At least there's a been a lot of overclockers that's been able to get the GTX 670 FTW to 1150+ without tweaking much and just adjusting the voltage and using the boost.

 

[amuffin]

EVGA, that is all.

 

[timarp000]

Now the MSI 670 is cheaper : 410$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127685&Tpk=msi%20gtx%20670%20pe

 

[locomoco321]

@killerhurtalot
I know about the better parts in the GTX 680, but both the MSI and ASUS card have custom PCB (ASUS based on the GTX 680, MSI completely custom), so they both better PCBs than the GTX 680 stock.

@amuffin, killerhurtalot
I understand that the chips in the EVGA FTW card are the best of the batch, but the overclocking can only go so far on the stock cooler, while the ASUS and MSI cards can go much farther, cooler and quieter.

If it is about chip quality, then wouldn't the MSI card factory OC be better, as they come with higher clocks from the start?

 

[badestass]

Aren't those both 3 slot cards? bad for sli. I got the DC2T 680 and it was annoying to sli the second one. just get a standard card and add another one later, or three.

 

[Motopsychojdn]

There are dual slot variants of the DCII shroud, but the triples rock
the only thing to watch with them is that your mobo has good spacing on the Pcie slots
Moto

 

[locomoco321]

@badestass Nope, they are all 2-slot.
@badestass, Motopsychojdn My motherboard is spaced out to allow 2 3-slot cards.

@Everyone
I noticed that on ncix.ca, they hace a GTX 670 DC2 TOP, but for $480.00 approx., is the price worth it?

 

[sherlockwing]

@badestass Nope, they are all 2-slot.
@badestass, Motopsychojdn My motherboard is spaced out to allow 2 3-slot cards.

@Everyone
I noticed that on ncix.ca, they hace a GTX 670 DC2 TOP, but for $480.00 approx., is the price worth it?

Unless the price of Gigabyte Windforce 3X 670 is within $20 of that price, I am not taking the Top as you are only guaranteed 4 things:
1. Slightly better cooling(Both are top class here, and neither will cause you to throttle down during OC(70 degree Celsius, and the ambient in Canada is what? 15 C?)
2. Slightly lower idle noise (both of those are in the 3% range and both noise should be inaudible over your chasis fan/Cooler anyway)
3. A Back Plate( it will protect your PCB in case you drop it or something, but otherwise not that useful)
4. You spent more money than you needed to(plus this cost doubles when you SLI).

OCing is with these factory OC models is 90% silicon lottery luck and maybe 10% manufacture related, just go read the user feedback on Overclock.net if you are not sure, there are just as many 1.3Ghz stable overclock with Windforce/EVGA as there are Top over there.

 

[locomoco321]

Unless the price of Gigabyte Windforce 3X 670 is within $20 of that price, I am not taking the Top as you are only guaranteed 4 things:
1. Slightly better cooling(Both are top class here, and neither will cause you to throttle down during OC(70 degree Celsius, and the ambient in Canada is what? 15 C?)
2. Slightly lower idle noise (both of those are in the 3% range and both noise should be inaudible over your chasis fan/Cooler anyway)
3. A Back Plate( it will protect your PCB in case you drop it or something, but otherwise not that useful)
4. You spent more money than you needed to(plus this cost doubles when you SLI).

OCing is with these factory OC models is 90% silicon lottery luck and maybe 10% manufacture related, just go read the user feedback on Overclock.net if you are not sure, there are just as many 1.3Ghz stable overclock with Windforce/EVGA as there are Top over there.

Would the Windforce X3 fit in a COrsair 650D? The thing that turns me off about the card is the blue PCB, as I am a little on aesthetics.
Here in Canada during this summer we have hit 25-30C, but in the winter it really drops.
The thing I'm concerned about is the stock cooler, wouldn't it get loud?\
The Gigabyte card seems to run cooler, but the MSI card just seems to have better parts. Is this true, because from what I've read it is?

 

[sherlockwing]

Would the Windforce X3 fit in a COrsair 650D? The thing that turns me off about the card is the blue PCB, as I am a little on aesthetics.
Here in Canada during this summer we have hit 25-30C, but in the winter it really drops.
The thing I'm concerned about is the stock cooler, wouldn't it get loud?\
The Gigabyte card seems to run cooler, but the MSI card just seems to have better parts. Is this true, because from what I've read it is?

650D with 13.5" expansion card clerance(with top HDD cage attached) can easily fit a full 12" 7970, it shouldn't have any problem fitting a 11" Windforce 3X.

MSI's "military grade" parts aren't better than Gigabyte's in standard operating conditions, if you want to bash it with a hammer maybe the MSI parts have a better chance of survivial.

You obviously haven't seen this graph if you are worried about noise with the Gigabyte.

For reference, GTX 670 FTW with stock 680 cooler clocks in at 38.8 db.

 

[Frozenoblivion]

Aren't those both 3 slot cards? bad for sli. I got the DC2T 680 and it was annoying to sli the second one. just get a standard card and add another one later, or three.

No, they are both dual slot cards. The old DCII on the 7950s and stuff, were triple slot. The new DCII design is quieter and lighter than the old one.

 

[locomoco321]

650D with 13.5" expansion card clerance(with top HDD cage attached) can easily fit a full 12" 7970, it shouldn't have any problem fitting a 11" Windforce 3X.

MSI's "military grade" parts aren't better than Gigabyte's in standard operating conditions, if you want to bash it with a hammer maybe the MSI parts have a better chance of survivial.

You obviously haven't seen this graph if you are worried about noise with the Gigabyte.

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GeForce_GTX_670_Windforce/images/fannoise_load.gifhttp://tpucdn.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_670_Power_Edition/images/fannoise_load.gif

For reference, GTX 670 FTW with stock 680 cooler clocks in at 38.8 db.

I'm not worried about noise on the Gigabyte card, that would be defeating the purpose of the triple fan configuration on it. I'm worried about the noise on the EVGA GTX 670 FTW as it uses a stock GTX 680 cooler. Perhaps you read my post wrong, or I wrote it more complicated than it should have been. Anyway, thanks for the chart, and I'll consider the Windforce card as it seems to have many great reviews, but for now, I'll eliminate either the ASUS card, or the MSI one based on the poll, and then see how the Gigabyte one does.

 

[locomoco321]

Just a quick thought, for those guys picking either card, could you tell me why even if you don't want to reveal your vote, please?

 

[Motopsychojdn]

I squeezed two 6950 triple slots together on an AsRock 890 deluxe5 and load temps were mid 80's, then I modded Wc blocks into them keeping the DCII covers and fans and both cards idle same temp as Cpu now, load is around 50'c with no top card penalty
The newer DCII's are improved upon the original design so they should be good as well, plus I prefer the look of them
Moto

 

[locomoco321]

Thanks to all of you guys for your assistance!

 

[Motopsychojdn]

No problems man, enjoy your choice of new card
Moto