With the package out the way it is time to have a closer look at the card to see what exactly MSI have done with it. Like most high-end cards these days though, there really is not much more than a sticker on the front and some stickers on the back.
Turning the card over we have a huge back plate that manages to take over most the card. We can see our normal array of stickers all over the place that show us the model along with serial number and C-Tick.
Moving around the card we have the new power connectors. While we have the standard 6-pin PCI Express connector, we also have an 8-pin connector. Most people will find themselves without any 8-pin connector on their PSU but the good news is you do not need it. While MSI have chosen to include a convertor in their package, if you get a HD 2900 XT that does not come with one, you simply use a normal 6-pin connector and the only function you will lose is the Overdrive ability, which is ATI’s built-in overclocking program in CCC.
At the front of the card we have our Dual DVI ports along with our TV-Out port which also supports Video In. Both DVI ports are Dual Link compatible so if you find yourself with a pair of 30” LCD monitors, you are ready to go. Both DVI ports also support HDCP so if you want to play some HD-DVD or Blu Ray content in the near future, you do not have to worry about that pesky copy protection error (assuming your monitor also supports HDCP).
Clocks on the card are standard coming in at 748MHz on the core and 1658MHz DDR on the memory. MSI have got a water cooled model coming out in the near future which should see some increased clock speeds but for the moment we will just have to play with the stock clocked model.
