Overall and FV
Going into this review we had a good idea of what to expect from the MSI R7770 Power Edition as far as performance. What really peaked my interested was the modular cooling design that allows you to run one or two fans in three total configurations. This ended up being really useful and interesting, but at the end of the day I would pick to go with the dual side by side fans each time. Not only were they quieter, but they performed considerably better than the other options as well. The R7770 Power Edition may lack the all-aluminum design of the XFX, but it makes up for it in pure creativity.
Being the Power Edition, MSI went all out to make sure that this card was set to outperform a reference card in overclocking above and beyond the overclock they provide. Part of how they went about this is with their Triple Over Voltage (GPU, Memory, and Aux) in Afterburner, meaning you can bump your voltage up to get the best overclock possible. To help support this they have also adjusted the PWM on the card to give a 25% boost over the reference card. Put together we did get a little time to push the R7770 Power Edition with Afterburner. The highest usable overclock we were able to reach was 1178MHz on the GPU core and 1450 with the memory. This was a nice increase over the cards speeds (1100 MHz GPU and 1125MHz Memory). This was with a small bump in voltage on both the GPU and Memory, but was as high as I could push it without issues.
When factoring price into it all it gets even more interesting. The MSI R7770 Power Edition has an MSRP of $149, and is listed close to that today on Newegg. But it also has a rebate that will take it down to $119.99 and they have also tossed in a copy of Dirt Showdown, a recently released title that retails for a whopping $50. Together this makes the card an amazing value as long as you have a use for the game. Add in its flexibility in cooling and overclocking features you really get your money’s worth.