Introduction
MSI R7 370 GAMING 2G
While waiting on AMDs news Polaris based products to arrive on the market we have some time to kill. Today we take a look at an entry level to mainstream product, the AMD Radeon R7-370 series in the form of the MSI Radeon R7 370 GAMING 2G. The R7 370 means 1080P gaming is in reach at a price under the affordable 149 Euro/ USD marker. We test the MSI's latest that is armed with their TwinFrozr design cooler.
The Radeon R7-370 as tested today is fitted with a total of 1024 Stream processors and comes with a single precision compute performance of 2 TFlops. This model is toed towards 2 GB of GDDR5 memory (256-bit) and a relatively TDP of 110W which will be supplied through a single 6-Pin power connector. For those that get a bit of a deja-vu, yes that is very comparable to Pitcairn Pro aka the Radeon HD 7850. It's a similar yet slightly revised GPU being used, yet tweaked on the clocks and seated onto a new PCB. The clocks are set at a maximum of 975 MHz boost for the graphics core on the reference product, this MSI model is running 1050 MHz. The memory operates at 5.7 GHz effective clock speed alongside a 256-bit memory interface. The card is PCI-Express 3.0 compatible. Equipped with AMD’s Graphics Core Next Architecture the R7-370 is ready for gaming on a budget, this is a sub 150 USD product. The AMD Radeon R7-370 graphics card is AMD CrossFire compatible as well AMD Eyefinity Technology and AMD ZeroCore Power ready. The card would be a nice HTPC card as well, but you can certainly play games with it as well if you stay away from the highest resolutions of course.
| |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Name | R9 380 GAMING 2G | R7 370 GAMING 4G | R7 370 GAMING 2G |
| GPU | AMD Radeon™ R9 380 | AMD Radeon™ R7 370 | AMD Radeon™ R7 370 |
| Core Clock (Base/Boost) |
1000 MHz | 1020 / 1070 MHz | 1000 / 1050 MHz |
| Memory Speed | 5600 MHz | 5700 MHz | 5700 MHz |
| Memory Size / Type | 2 GB / GDDR5 | 4 GB / GDDR5 | 2 GB / GDDR5 |
| Cooling | Twin Frozr V | Twin Frozr V | Twin Frozr V |
| Backplate | √ | x | x |
| Connectivity | DisplayPort / HDMI / DL-DVI-I / DL-DVI-D | DisplayPort / HDMI / DL-DVI-I / DL-DVI-D | DisplayPort / HDMI / DL-DVI-I / DL-DVI-D |
| Dimensions | 268x138x40 mm | 258x132x37 mm | 258x132x37 mm |
As stated these product have been injected into the 149 USD price bracket, much like the similar specced R7 265 was introduced at 149 USD two years ago. Have a peek at the card first though. We received a model from MSI running slightly higher clock frequencies, of course. This is the gaming model. Let's head on-wards into the review.
