MSI N280GTX OC HydroGen
Gaming Benchmarks
Published: 22nd January 2009 | Source: MSI | Price: £359.99 |

Unreal Tournament 3 is the highly anticipated game from Epic Games and Midway. The game uses the latest Unreal engine, which combines fast gameplay along with high quality textures and lighting effects. All benchmarks were performed using UTbench with a fly-by of the DM-BioHazard map. As usual, all benchmarks were performed 5 times, with the highest and lowest results being removed and an average calculated from the remaining three.

Race Driver: Grid is a visually taxing game that presents a challenge to any graphics system. Results were recorded using FRAPS to log the average FPS over a 2 minute race. To ensure consistency, the same track, car and general path of travel was used in each of the 5 benchmark runs for each graphics card, with an average FPS being calculated from the median three results.

Company of Heroes is Relic's first title to make use of the "Essence Engine". This engine was designed and coded from scratch by Relic in order to make use of special graphical effects, including high dynamic range lighting, dynamic lighting & shadows, advanced shader effects and normal mapping. On May 29, 2007 Relic released a DX10 patch for Company of Heroes which was applied for this test. Running the in game performance test 5 times, the highest and lowest scores were omitted with the average calculated from the remaining 3.
Results Analysis
Mirroring the 3DMark benchmarks, the HydroGen card puts its stock clocked brother firmly in its place. It also gives the GTX285 a good run for its money and thanks to the PhysX capabilities all Nvidia cards score very highly in Unreal Tournament III. GRID remains a strong point for ATI despite the high clocks of the Hydrogen and the newly released drivers from Nvidia.
Let's head over to the next set of benchmarks...
Mirroring the 3DMark benchmarks, the HydroGen card puts its stock clocked brother firmly in its place. It also gives the GTX285 a good run for its money and thanks to the PhysX capabilities all Nvidia cards score very highly in Unreal Tournament III. GRID remains a strong point for ATI despite the high clocks of the Hydrogen and the newly released drivers from Nvidia.
Let's head over to the next set of benchmarks...
Most Recent Comments
Impressive performance for a GTX 280! And the card has an interesting heatsink.
First time I seen a fine machined waterblock from a watercooled ready gpu manufacturer. Looks like it cools well too 

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Originally Posted by name='moogle'
First time I seen a fine machined waterblock from a watercooled ready gpu manufacturer. Looks like it cools well too
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Stunning performance. It's so nice to see proper paste instead of that awful white goop too. But wow what a huge performing card and block.
Shame about the bracket. The devil is in the details.
VB
Shame about the bracket. The devil is in the details.
VB
Have you tried overclocking past the limits?
At 40C that is so cool.
At 40C that is so cool.
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Originally Posted by name='Jim'
Agreed. I'd actually prefer that block (in terms of looks at least) over anything that EK could offer.
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Originally Posted by name='VonBlade'
Shame about the bracket. The devil is in the details. VB |

Or can't you buy a single bracket that will fit on it. Only problem is I think there is an LED indicator on the 2nd grill part of the bracket, so you'd have to take that off.
Those blocks are awesome.. I believe Aqua-pcs may be stocking them soon, not too sure though.
What company manufactured the blocks for them. Reminds me of aquagraFX blocks a bit.
wow, loved that block pretty cool
, and great performance, +1 for MSi.

, also wc it wont obviously wont void warrantry 

thanks for the review jim, pretty cool one
Soap.

, also wc it wont obviously wont void warrantry 

thanks for the review jim, pretty cool one

Soap.
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Originally Posted by name='AntiHeroUK'
What company manufactured the blocks for them. Reminds me of aquagraFX blocks a bit.
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Also known as heatkiller.Quote:
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Originally Posted by name='AntiHeroUK'
What company manufactured the blocks for them. Reminds me of aquagraFX blocks a bit.
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Thanks Luigi. 

How do you reckon MSI's water cooled 260's compete against the BFG variant? Granted there are marketing terms like MAXCORE and thermointelligence used, but do these actually play any part in making the cards have more bang for their buck?
-HypoG
-HypoG
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Originally Posted by name='HypoglossalXII'
How do you reckon MSI's water cooled 260's compete against the BFG variant? Granted there are marketing terms like MAXCORE and thermointelligence used, but do these actually play any part in making the cards have more bang for their buck?
-HypoG |
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Originally Posted by name='HypoglossalXII'
Granted there are marketing terms like MAXCORE and thermointelligence used, but do these actually play any part in making the cards have more bang for their buck?
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I still prefer choosing your own waterblock because when it comes to selling your card, you're limited to a small market of watercoolers rather than everyone (if you had the original cooler).
Hasn't anybody here at OC3D heard of Zotac? They've got a GTX 280 AMP clocked at CC 700, SC at 1400, and MC at 2300 on air! So MSIs N280GTX OC doesn't really impress me. I purchased two of these Zotacs just recently and current OC is 730/1536/2650...still on air! Fan is set to auto and flucs between 40 - 60 with temps rarely getting above 64C. Things are so steady and quiet, I may try pushing Core a little higher. At my current OC, I've even got the Zotac 285 AMP beat!
Of course we have heard of Zotac - we reviewed a GTX260 from them already.
MSI also have an air cooled GTX280 available which runs at the same clocks as the warercooled version. Somehow though I doubt it would run as cool, silent or indeed overclock aswell as the HydroGen. I am however, happy to be proven wrong
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MSI also have an air cooled GTX280 available which runs at the same clocks as the warercooled version. Somehow though I doubt it would run as cool, silent or indeed overclock aswell as the HydroGen. I am however, happy to be proven wrong
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Originally Posted by name='w3bbo'
Of course we have heard of Zotac - we reviewed a GTX260 from them already.
![]() MSI also have an air cooled GTX280 available which runs at the same clocks as the warercooled version. Somehow though I doubt it would run as cool, silent or indeed overclock aswell as the HydroGen. I am however, happy to be proven wrong . |
"Thermointelligence"... That's what I use when I look out the window and decide to stay inside because it's winter. I have just got myself 2 EVGA GTX280 cards. I would love to get them watercooled at a later stage. And the SLI-Set HEATKILLER® GPU-X² G200 they have at watercool.de seems spot on when the time comes 

Thats just sexy, I'll have two please.
Why stop at two? Get TRI SLI and be a man
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Originally Posted by name='w3bbo'
Why stop at two? Get TRI SLI and be a man
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http://www.overclock3d.net/gfx/artic...140623547s.jpg
MSI N280GTX OC HydroGen