MSI GeForce GTX 660 HAWK review

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The turtle on its back. You can see one SLI connector, the 660 (non-Ti) series is allowed to work with up to two cards in SLI mode. For proper scaling and little driver issues as possible we always recommend to stick to 2 cards in multi-GPU mode anyway. We'll show you some reference SLI results in our article as well.

Nice to see is the top metal bracket and a backplate, it makes the flexible PCB feel real sturdy and will not bend. 

 

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Here we can see the backside, the cards will fit pretty much any chassis. Obviously rather visible is the blue round GPU reactor. The GPU reactor functions as a power supply module which, when installed on the back of the GPU increases current volume by 88%, reduces power supply noise by 13%, and should improve overall overclocking stability. It actually is an add-on board which you can remove. Let's do just that.

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If you remove the plastic cap then you'll see a small PCB, it hosts a battery of 6 tantalum capacitors that are used to filter and stabilize GPU voltage much like the NEC/Tokin Proadlizer film capacitors we all know. 

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Interesting, you'll need to power the card with two 6-pin PCIe PEG leads from your power supply. Most card will have just one PCI Express Graphics 6-pin connector.


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If you like to monitor voltages, you can. Just attach a digital multi-meter to the connectors (extension cables included) and you may monitor the GPU, Memory and AUX voltages in real-time.

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Arguably not the greatest photo, but once powered up at the backside you can see the GPU reactor light up, as well as phase LEDs located at the rear of the card.

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