EVGA ACX vs MSI TWINFROZR

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SkuLLy|RT

Limp Gawd
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My brothers 560 is feeling a little long in the tooth, so I'm picking him up a GTX 770 for his upcoming birthday. I've had great luck with both EVGA and MSI cards in the past so I'm having trouble deciding which company to purchase from. Based on my experiences with the EVGA GTX 670 FTW I will definitely NOT be buying a blower-based cooler though.

In my mind, 2x100mm fans on the MSI card should operate quieter and cool better. The last MSI card I purchased (7970) just feels solid compared the plastic on my EVGA 670.

Thoughts?
 
vjcsmoke said:
dual fans does cool better. it's really a personal choice though. triple fans would be even better but i dunno if they make that for the 770.
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The EVGA ACX is a dual fan solution as well, but it looks like smaller fans (80mm possibly?).

Gigabyte is known for their 3-fan cooling solution. I would also assume in this case that 2 bigger fans would be less noisy and cool nearly as well as 3 smaller fans.
 
After testing the acx cooler these past two days, it has exceeded my expectations. Fans are quiet and I've yet to crack 65c on auto fan settings (stock boosts to 1084). Easily one of the best custom cooling solutions I have ever used.

I would imagine it would do the same on the 770.
 
tonyftw said:
After testing the acx cooler these past two days, it has exceeded my expectations. Fans are quiet and I've yet to crack 65c on auto fan settings (stock boosts to 1084). Easily one of the best custom cooling solutions I have ever used.

I would imagine it would do the same on the 770.
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Yes it have... Here hare: http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=02G-P4-2773-KR. I love how the "signature 2" cooler work... I think if EVGA make a FTW version of this card or the 780 with ACX that will be my next move...
 
There is back and forth on the gigabyte tri fan cooler, while it cools the core VERY well overall apparently it does not do so well for the memory and Vreg, memory can take a fair amount of heat however Vreg can get toasty very fast and that is not something you want running hot for a long time.

I really like the MSI TF design, my 7870s love em, though it would be nice if they were 100mm pr even 92mm instead of 80mm it would be quieter when running at high speeds, most I can stand is ~80% till it gets an annoying high pitch whir (to my ears)

But yeh that ACX looks nice and at least going by their spec sheet they put a lot of thought into that design and it should last awhile (maybe they are tired of fans dying out and having to replace them :p)
 
TwinFrozr.
MSIs been making them forever.
Experience prevails.
 
but first to make doesn't mean made best either :p EVGA has been at this far longer, maybe not for these style of coolers, would be nice to see a comparison between them as manufacturer lie all the time :)
 
dragonstongue said:
but first to make doesn't mean made best either :p EVGA has been at this far longer, maybe not for these style of coolers, would be nice to see a comparison between them as manufacturer lie all the time :)
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MSI older and much more diverse than EVGA. They actually engineer and manufacture their own stuff, including GPUs, motherboards and laptops.
MSI founded 1987, EVGA founded 1997...........who's been around longer?
EVGA makes nothing.
They are a seller of goods made primarily by FoxConn or others like them.
 
wrong on the "around longer" but as far as the making part, MSI and many of the other sellers(ODM and OEM) do not make many of their own things, they put the order in for a specific design, certain colors and the like and it gets shipped to them ready to go beyond a few things such as final bios programming, stickers and the like, then it gets shipped to the store, then to you. GPU very very much are like this, the one who makes GPU is at this point TSMC(chip) then shipped to a final assembly plant for the packaging on the board which is populated with the ram, Vreg etc, finally sent to MSI or whomever to slap the cooler on it or just the sticker depending, so these "custom" cards for the most part are just ordered that way, in MSI case these days it is usually a bios tweak, and a different cooler, sometimes a full custom, does not mean they "make" it either.

EVGA has motherboards, coolers, GPU as well, so there would be very little difference between them in this regard, quantity wise, you are correct, MSI does have by far the higher numbers in that regard, though EVGA is a massive reseller as well, part of the reason they got involved not that long ago in numerous things besides just Nvidia GPU. So yes MSI does make more products then EVGA does, but both of them are very high ranked among this buyers for very good reason. Either way when it comes down to it there is only so many makers of PCB, GPU and so forth, many places by all means assemble them, but very few bother to "make" their own as you put it, the added cost is not worth it, ask 3DFX :p
 
Wrong.

Look at a video or article of MSI sometime.

They manufacture and design the PCB, apply the components, package and ship their own product.
Of course they buy the chip from NVidia's chip fab, and the memory and related components from others, but the actual manufacture and design is theirs.
"Micro-Star International Co., Ltd (MSI) (Chinese: ：微星科技, "Micro-Star Technology") is a Taiwanese electronics company based in New Taipei City. It is one of the world's largest information technology manufacturers with its Baoan Plant in Shenzhen and research and development facilities in Kunshan."

EVGA does just what you said. They buy EVERYTHING from someone else. The product comes to them fully assembled with just their sticker.

MSI is a full figured manufacturer.:D As is Gigabyte and ASUS.
 
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will not argue on things I do not fully know about, I do know however that Nvidia and AMD have their own "rules" when it comes to their designs many of them being made by 1 of 2 different companies to avoid quality control nightmares, motherboards are one thing, GPU are another altogether.

Sapphire, MSI, Gigabyte, Asus are the top notch makers if you will, I do know they make their own "custom" stuff, but a lot of it is ordered ready to go more or less as it from my understanding is far less costly this way, assembly lines generally are.

Doesn`t matter either way, just wish I could remember the 2 companies that do all this, I know ATi/AMD use one of them, Nvidia generally uses the other. If there is any company out there that is wicked picky its Nvidia, they control 99% of the process from the design, bios, specific Vregs etc, even the profit margins of its partners.
 
Not really sure how we can argue on this one. Does anyone have any direct examples of the ACX vs the Frozr? Even so we are ALL at the will of the silicon lottery, so even if someone does have an example, it could just be a golden card, different voltages and temps etc etc. I guess what we can compare are noise levels. Even companies that claim to BIN their chips for the higher cards (ASUS on the TOP models for example) still have some pretty unpredictable overclocks.

Whatever clocks best at the best price is what I care about but if its close on both, then there really isn't that much of a difference other than price. I paid only $10 over a reference for a better cooler on my 780 GTX (ACX) for 1 card and never going SLI. I know for a fact I would be paying more for a Frozor but if most reviews are seeing a higher OC time after time I would go with them. I would of waited for the Frozor to compare but I can't take my AMD drivers anymore and it needs to go.
 
so true on the clocks, I have 2 different MSI 7870 and both are vastly different in overclocks they can hit, stability of voltages, memory overclocks, voltage required etc.

Now if some cards were tested to hit at least X that would be different, but there is none that I know of that do this, maybe the sick expensive ones like the ARES cards but those are highly binned cause they more or less need to be.

I am using 12.8 drivers myself, I find it the best performance for games as well as bitcoin, 13.6 look promising, but I know 13.4/13.5 break my bitcoin performance.
 
here is a review of the 770 MSI TF design LINK TO REVIEW
another discussion of the ACX vs TF LINK HERE

More seem to recommend the MSI for cooling performance based on experience with the one and of course not the other(from previous designs) though of course warranty and support is something EVGA gets ++ for. Hard to say, overall am sure both are great, EVGA might last longer, but the MSI one I believe is less costly but also may not be as "beefy" suppose it is opinion and experience overall, I love the look of both myself, have a feeling MSI might be slightly quieter the EVGA one should cool slightly better, but unless folks can compare them directly in the same system it would be very hard to say.

I can say however for single card use the dual fan ones work very good to keep the card cool if you have enough case airflow, but if you are using dual cards, one of them should be a blower style so it gets the air it needs even if it is a bit louder, at least my experience in this am using a Raven 3 with M5A99X EVO, the outer card that gets the most air is at minimum 10c cooler at 10-15% less fan speed, am sure a proper board that has at least double spacing or even triple spaced this would not matter near as much.
 
magoo said:
TwinFrozr.
MSIs been making them forever.
Experience prevails.
Click to expand...

This.

EVGA doesn't have the best history with non-reference coolers and the ACX is a new venture for them. Stick with the company that's been doing it for much longer and with much more success.
 
good point I cannot speak from overall experience in this, in your opinion who has a much better warranty support, I thought EVGA was pretty much the best in this regard, always nice to be able to send card for fix and it does get done properly and quickly with less fuss as possible. I know for me 1 of my 7870s voltages were all over the place, so sent back in, they ended up giving me another old card that I think is using the same older Vregs or something as the "new" card has the same issues the other I sent in had, so I use it as the miner and the faster more voltage stable card is the one that runs hotter because of airflow lacking I use as primary if you will. Still great cards anyways, MSI/Sapphire/Asus generally for AMD, most Nvidia people seem to use EVGA/MSI/Asus.

Warranty sux to have to deal with, but is great when the process is done effectively, fast, and thorough.
 
I have experiences with the twin frozr 3/4, windforce, dc2 and now the acx. The acx and dc2 are neck and neck to me when it comes to temperatures and noise. Evga's past coolers where always pretty crappy, but not this one. Twin frozr 3 and 4, do a
pretty good job when it comes to cooling, but the fans get quite loud at above 50-55%.

61c at 52% fan speed is the hottest temperature I've seen this card peak to, playing crysis 3 and bf3 for a bit today (temps are consistently in the high 50c). This might be my new favorite cooler.
 
my 7870s overclocked get to around 60c gaming at 65% fan or so, so yeh neck and neck would be right word, the ones I have are only 80mm fans though am sure the 100mm would make that much difference?
 
Here's my experience from a warranty standpoint:

I've had to send 3 EVGA products back for issues with broken parts.

I've had an equal or greater number of MSI products vs EVGA products and NEVER had to request warranty service.

The two have equal warranty duration, and both warranties are tied to the product, not the person.

I buy and use MSI products without reservation,on the NVidia and AMD side.:D
 
dragonstongue said:
my 7870s overclocked get to around 60c gaming at 65% fan or so, so yeh neck and neck would be right word, the ones I have are only 80mm fans though am sure the 100mm would make that much difference?
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The 100mm fans in the tf4 are slightly quieter. The build quality of the tf3, is outstanding though.
magoo said:
Here's my experience from a warranty standpoint:

I've had to send 3 EVGA products back for issues with broken parts.

I've had an equal or greater number of MSI products vs EVGA products and NEVER had to request warranty service.

The two have equal warranty duration, and both warranties are tied to the product, not the person.

I buy and use MSI products without reservation,on the NVidia and AMD side.:D
Click to expand...

Then that is ymmv. Many people have nothing but great experiences with them. I have had terrible experiences with asus... and yet I still buy their products.
 
dragonstongue said:
will not argue on things I do not fully know about, I do know however that Nvidia and AMD have their own "rules" when it comes to their designs many of them being made by 1 of 2 different companies to avoid quality control nightmares, motherboards are one thing, GPU are another altogether.

Sapphire, MSI, Gigabyte, Asus are the top notch makers if you will, I do know they make their own "custom" stuff, but a lot of it is ordered ready to go more or less as it from my understanding is far less costly this way, assembly lines generally are.

Doesn`t matter either way, just wish I could remember the 2 companies that do all this, I know ATi/AMD use one of them, Nvidia generally uses the other. If there is any company out there that is wicked picky its Nvidia, they control 99% of the process from the design, bios, specific Vregs etc, even the profit margins of its partners.
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The specs part is correct. In dealing with "reference" models, NVidia and AMD pretty much dictate the specs.
As I said, however some partners make the stuff, some just rebadge someone elses stuff.
Sapphire is another good example of a giant manufacturer of AMD GPUs for their own brand as well as a lot of others. Actually, Sapphire makes the most AMD GPUs of any manufacturer due to their OEM status.

That being said, as soon as the reference models are gone....for instance once the reference batch of GTX 780s is exhausted.....it's Katie -bar-the-door. The partners are free to design their own models and clock speeds and components. Just as we are now discussing.
In fact, there probably won't be a "reference" GTX 770 to be found.

Anyway....bottom line.....EVGA doesn't make anything. They may design something, list the specs and components, dictate colors and coolers.......but once it leaves the drawing board, some contractor takes over......that's why I'd buy an MSI Frozr over anything EVGA.
 
tonyftw said:
The 100mm fans in the tf4 are slightly quieter. The build quality of the tf3, is outstanding though.


Then that is ymmv. Many people have nothing but great experiences with them. I have had terrible experiences with asus... and yet I still buy their products.
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Never had an ASUS product go bad.......and that's over 15 years experience. Motherboards, GPUs, a couple laptops, too.:D
 
Irrespective of who makes them, which one is looking to be the better cooler, the EVGA ACX or the Gigabyte Windforce?
 
magoo said:
Never had an ASUS product go bad.......and that's over 15 years experience. Motherboards, GPUs, a couple laptops, too.:D
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Most people tend to be loyal to whomever makes the best product in their experience for each device. For instance I'll only buy WD hard drives, Asus motherboards, Liteon drives, Corsair PSU's, Crucial memory, Intel CPU's, and EVGA graphics cards.

Not knocking on other vendors as I always have a second place just in case, but I usually try to keep with what I know works and I'm sure many here do too whether they admit it or not.
 
Eureka! said:
Irrespective of who makes them, which one is looking to be the better cooler, the EVGA ACX or the Gigabyte Windforce?
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I read a bunch of reviews today and it looks like you can't go wrong with any of the aftermarket cooling solutions.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/2202/1/

In this review the MSI TWINFROZR is quieter than the ASUS DCUII, but the ASUS is running a much more aggressive fan profile and as such is cooling a bit better than the MSI card. I wish they had increased the fan speed on the MSI card until it reached similar temps to the ASUS to see how the noise was.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_770_Direct_Cu_II_OC/31.html

Techpowerup reviews show that noise between the ASUS and GIGABYTE cards are virtually the same (GB is ~1dbA lower during load), however idle temps on the ASUS are lower (29 v 34C).

I haven't found any decent looking reviews of the EVGA card yet, but I suspect the ACX is just as capable a cooler as the rest.

So yeah, not really a helpful conclusion. As others in the thread have been saying, I think you could pick up whatever card is cheapest/appeals to you aesthetically/you've had the best support with in the past and it'll be a solid choice. For me it'll be whatever card shows up on Amazon w/ Prime shipping availability first.
 
Just get the one that is the cheapest. The twin frozr 4 version is currently selling for $399.99 at the egg. I'd assume it will be the same price at amazon.
 
magoo said:
Never had an ASUS product go bad.......and that's over 15 years experience. Motherboards, GPUs, a couple laptops, too.:D
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They've had very well documented video card issues so it's not like it doesn't happen just because you've been lucky.
 
Yeh the DCII this generation was so not like the previous designs. But as far as overall documented vid card issues, I wouldn`t imagine Asus with non vanilla cooler(which are more or less reference boards) being any different then any other maker?

I have had fans go bad, and their voltage control not work for many many months(and more or less did nothing for my 6870) but beyond that I also have more or less used Asus period for many years, mostly for motherboards(8 total I believe were all Asus) 2 gpu(4870-6870) soundcard(xonar DX) never had a problem with Asus, and they always shave given me proper support and answered questions fast. I went MSI this time around for my 7870s however I was not fond sending a card back and getting the same one back(or at least an identical one with the same issue)

Ahh well.
 
I'd go with MSI on this one. Their non-reference designs are amazing and usually offers the most features. It can switch between silence and high performance modes and if it's anything like the previous generations the card will have neat stuff like dust removal and LEDs that adds a little more bling to your investment.
 
Long ago were the days of caring about 5-6 degrees from coolers. At max load on these cards they are going to hit the high temps, they are engineered to, and there isn't an air cooler that can really keep them from getting that high. Durring stress tests these coolers come to their knees, but durring normal gaming, a cooler isn't really going to matter much. Just get something that is quiet and cheap. They will all perform practically the same. If you really care about 2-3FPS (which you wont notice really...) then you're looking at numbers too much and not enjoying the game. Sheesh... Like someone said above, the "PCB Lottery" hit the nail on the head. You just can't say a manufacture is going to be better, it's all a toss up. Just treat your card good and give it the beans that it can make. It'll be fine. Stop stressing over a small bit of unnoticable performance.
 
I will not agree with the temps part, but the overclocking side, yes, a chip is only as good as it is, they are made to do a certain % of speed, anything above that is luck mostly. Temperatures wise, take a reference cooler and compare it with a non reference decent dual fan cooler, there is usually a pretty large difference between the 2, my 6870 and 7870 I can say this without a shadow of a doubt, they are built more efficient so less is lost in heat, they still produce it, but a card running at 80+c vs a card running 62c or so in a given situation does matter depending on whom you are talking to of course.

Noise, cooling potential, cost these matter quite a bit, overclocking well that's very rarely a given % anyways.
 
Were can I get those double or triple fan cooling HSF? I want to upgrade my eVGA but dont want to get the accelero; its too big
 
Zalman makes one, but to get the most out of it you have to use their heatsinks(or Enzoteck) which I believe come with the dual fan http://.com/?id=595&Itemid=62&option=com_content&task=view to get the most out of this apparently you just chop the little wings off that go over the 2 fans it makes it quite a bit quieter and improves its cooling or so I have read.

By all means though, not all cooler will fit all cards, some are semi to full custom PCB and standard coolers are designed for reference PCB`s. The one I used on my 6870 which my brother is now using is the S1 rev 2 I zip tied 2 120mm fans on it, used a pack of the zalman ram sinks(dab of super glue and small dot of thermal paste) and it works like a charm, highest load I have ever seen on it is 67c overclocked to the limit in a cramped case., average ~58c game loaded

Anyways, there is only so many choices and Artic while usually quite compatible and decent performing are also quite expensive, The zalman one I linked are apparently pretty decent, but they most certainly are not as good as from the factory TFIII coolers from MSI and the others that do similar ones, the gigabyte tri-fan is another good one, which if I recall is made by Artic but is also quite expensive for aftermarket and to get the most out of it you would need to do some modding possibly (for ram sinks and vregs to get them sufficiently cooled down)
 
Warrior said:
Long ago were the days of caring about 5-6 degrees from coolers. At max load on these cards they are going to hit the high temps, they are engineered to, and there isn't an air cooler that can really keep them from getting that high. Durring stress tests these coolers come to their knees, but durring normal gaming, a cooler isn't really going to matter much. Just get something that is quiet and cheap. They will all perform practically the same. If you really care about 2-3FPS (which you wont notice really...) then you're looking at numbers too much and not enjoying the game. Sheesh... Like someone said above, the "PCB Lottery" hit the nail on the head. You just can't say a manufacture is going to be better, it's all a toss up. Just treat your card good and give it the beans that it can make. It'll be fine. Stop stressing over a small bit of unnoticable performance.
Click to expand...

That may be true, to an degree.
But.......
When I look at graphics cards made with various coolers, I'm looking for the most quiet I can buy.
Many of the AIB partners make dual or triple fan coolers, but most are very noisy compared to the Frozr.
I've had XFX, EVGA, ASUS and Sapphire, not to mention the Frozr and the lot was noisy except the Frozr. It had noise levels comparable to the Accelero.
The Accelero is the best aftermarket cooler, but it will make your 2 slot card a 3 slot.:D
 
For the 7870 at least the MSI one is a tad quieter at stock fan profiles sapphire a touch cooler, when running at high rpm the TF is definitely noisier and not quite as potent a cooler, both are =/- equal to each other, now of course this does not apply to the TFIV and the 100mm bladed ones, love the cooler on the MSI but I can say ~70% tops it is a gentle whoosh, above this it starts to make a higher pitch whine, while I can deal with it, I do notice it though it definitely cools well. 81c at max overclock 77% fan(sandwiched card if I make it do 85% it never tops 70c even when it was HOT in my room)
 
Just wanted to follow up here.

I ended up with the EVGA GTX 770 SC w/ ACX. It was the first 770 available on Amazon w/ Prime. I received it yesterday and popped it into my brother's PC. Playing BF3 the fans ramped up to maybe 54% and kept the card at 60C. It was barely audible at all. Idle the fan sits at 40% and keeps the card at 30C. I imagine the fans would ramp down a little more if he didn't have 3 monitors running off of the card. This is all in a Corsair 550d with less than stellar cooling.

So to echo what others in the thread have said, the EVGA ACX cooler seems to not only be very capable, but more importantly very quiet.
 
I completely agree with the comments about the ACX cooler. I have a GTX 780 SC ACX and it performs incredibly. Even with the fan around 55-58% I could hardly hear it over the other fans in my build (140mm Fractal fans running at 7v and 2 Gentle Typhoon 1850s running at 7v). Very impressive.
 
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