The MSI Evo C has been thoroughly tested and evaluated in this review, with a focus on its cooling performance and design. The test results show that MSI is doing worse than Sapphires in terms of memory and VRM thermals, which can be attributed to their cooling design. Specifically, the memory modules are cooled using only half of a thermal pad, resulting in limited contact area and poor heat dissipation.

This design choice has led to the realization that there is not enough contact area with the memory module, which is a major issue with this product. The cooling department's decision to use this design was likely made for cost-saving reasons, but it ultimately results in performance issues. In contrast, Sapphires uses a more comprehensive cooling solution on their backplate, leveraging its potential cooling advantages.

The review also highlights the importance of proper PCB layout and thermal pad placement. The MSI Evo C's PCB is identical to the reference design, which may not be the original design used by MSI. However, this similarity makes it easier for enthusiasts to attempt a transplant, although there is limited point in doing so since the test results have already been established.

One possible solution would be to extend the thermal pad area on the plate to cover the entire memory module, but this would come at a cost. The reviewer wonders if there was some manufacturing or cost-saving reason for not extending this area, which likely saved money but compromised performance.

In addition to cooling issues, the review also mentions that the MSI Evo C has an IR controller on its backplate, similar to Sapphires, and uses NCP MOSFETs. However, these components are overshadowed by the design flaws, particularly the limited contact area with the memory module. The reviewer notes that some thermal pads have been replaced with grease or glue, indicating a need for better cooling solutions.

The PCB layout is another aspect of the MSI Evo C's design that warrants attention. While it may not be identical to the original reference design, it shares similarities with it. This similarity makes it easier to evaluate and compare the two designs. The reviewer suggests that a transplant could be attempted if everything fits, although this would not provide significant benefits given that similar tests have already been conducted.

The MSI Evo C's performance is generally better than its predecessor, but it still lags behind other models in terms of cooling and design. Running 1.4 to 2% faster than the reference card may seem impressive, but it's essential to consider that this speed gain comes at the cost of increased temperatures. The reviewer emphasizes that running hotter due to poor design is not an acceptable solution.

Finally, the MSI Evo C has a limited number of changes compared to other models in the market. While some minor tweaks might be made to improve performance or cooling, these changes are largely overshadowed by the fundamental design flaws present in this product. The reviewer concludes that the design needs significant overhauls to become a more competitive option.

The MSI Evo C has been thoroughly evaluated, and its strengths and weaknesses have been identified. While it may not be the worst card on the market, its cooling performance and design are subpar compared to other models. With some tweaks and improvements, this product could potentially become more competitive, but for now, it remains a mediocre option in the market.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: eneveryone today we're tearing down the MSI 5700 XC evoke OC this card is it's already been reviewed by us it's okay on thermals it has a bit more aggressive GPU thermal target than sapphire but it runs louder to achieve that target and the memory and the vrm cooling left a bit to be desired a lot to be desired on on the memory cooling specifically so we're going to take it apart see if we can figure out why that is and look at the overall build quality of the card from the cooler standpoint before that this video is brought to you by audible audible has a massive audio book library including content that talks computers and games audible has an entire series from the official Computer History Museum which we've actually toured in the past and can support as a leader in computer education audible also hosts the ultimate history of video games something I read back when researching GN content and can highly recommend for gaming and hardware enthusiasts audibles 30-day free trial can be unlocked at audible.com slash gamers Nexus or you can text gamers Nexus one word - 500 500 where you'll get a free audiobook and two audible originals or click the link in the description below so here's the Evoque we already did the review on these cards this is the shroud for the Sapphire card and then this is the cooler for the Sapphire card but the sapphire cooling solution was interesting because they split out this plate there's just a recap of our other teardown if you missed it you should go watch it but split out this plate for the memory and BRM cooling separately and then enough airflow gets through this larger heatsink that it can still cool the components pretty directly without bridging the vrm and vram solution with the GPU solution so they're isolated in a way that it benefits everything you're not sharing a single heatsink between all the devices and enough airflow is getting down there that it still keeps components that can run except ibly hot at good temperatures so like the MOSFETs can run except ibly at a higher temperature than the GPU could or the memory could as an example so that's the Sapphire one the msi one dual fan also let's get a measurement on the fans probably a hundred millimeters to mean ninety not a hundred but it's a 90 millimeter fan two of them and different from the old gaming xdesign that actually works pretty well they've gone the champagne look we don't need to talk about that too much it's over the toolkit we are going to use our GN teardown toolkit which you can get on stored at Cameron's excess net comes with 10 tools all four specifically picked for GPU video card disassembly and customized like we ground down the heads here so that they can clear capacitors when you're working on that video cards for example and we also used a CRV for the metal for the other tools the other eight tools and it comes in a sick bag with a GP diagram on it alright so first thing four screws for the GPU heatsink and there's a warranty void if remove the sticker on it which is illegal in the US to have that sticker so that's bad and MSI should get rid of it and also they should feel bad we don't like these warranty void if removed stickers its infringing on right to repair and also not enforceable and also illegal in the US anyway take the screws out actually I think MSI may have been on a list with ACS for people getting in trouble for those Asus was definitely on the list that'll free the heatsink but we need to get out from under the shroud which is probably gonna require taking out a few more screws so you can see that this screw and the backplate is going through the PCB and to the base plate and let's true in a few places so let's pull those out I think these are probably same sized cups we're just using a pH one screwdriver from our tool kit again on the store there's my two screws back here you can see screws coming in through the base plate on the other side into these locations this four locations we might need to take some more out okay there we go that's free I don't think the plate the IO plate had to come off but it made it a bit easier when you have to pull the cables so there's a fan cable down here right there might be one more cable somewhere remember not to pull by the actual wires it is very likely that you ripped the fan header off the PCB if you do that only Paul by the header itself sometimes you can use a flat head to make that easier okay so that's freed but we're actually still stuck up here by what's holding us glue oh it's tape Wow okay that's interesting interesting choice tape double-sided tape not really it doesn't really seem necessary whatever there's a lot of screws in there already so they probably holds it a bit tighter to keep these flush so if you never open it it's fine this is not gonna really stay sticky anymore now that it's been open so what if you open it you'll have to replace that or just peel it off and ignore it what's over there probably won't be quite as flush there's the card this is a pretty liquidy thermal paste actually more than we normally see so the Chinatsu stuff doesn't really a lot of the common pastes are not that liquidy once you pull the shroud off for the heatsink off and we now we now see the biggest problem man this is this is so bad so if you remember our biggest complaint with this card was the memory thermals it was like it was the difference between saying you know what it really doesn't matter if you buy sapphire MSI and saying buy sapphire which is what we said look at that that's not because half of it came off on the heatsink when I pulled it off that's how they made it that's not even 50% of the memory they didn't even get the the hottest spot of this memory module it's not the left side it's dead center so if anything if you're gonna only cover part of it at least cover like the center sixty seventy percent that's terrible that's a bad design so I'm thinking MSI was trying to avoid retooling I don't know I'm not sure the details but maybe they had this plate too old from a different card previously maybe Polaris maybe something else and didn't want to retool it and if that's the case it would be a cost-saving measure and then you just go with good enough which is what they did here you can see that only part of the memory module is contacting the heatsink which is dumb that's a very bad design it saves cost but it's going to cost them in sales because the card as comparatively bad memory thermals to their competition so bad bad MSI don't do that you guys know better than this at this point MSI has made really good coolers the gaming X dual fan design for those Nvidia cards like the 1080 is was one of the best that we tested for noise normalized thermals so it's really disappointing to see this regression and design approach but let's look at why they did it or what they've got here I would like to separate the rest of the shroud I think from the heatsink if it's easily done just so that we can look at it more easily and it looks like that is secured maybe by the fans there are some other screws in here holding in this plate stuff like that which is just plastic pH one size screw what the fan blades are too tight so we can use a a pH zero zero it's the way sapphire did this was with one screw was it one or two one screw in there one up there and then it sockets in a pins to pin out I guess instead of having a cable we'll see what MSI does once we get this third screw out no it's a cable that's kind of annoying I think I got it there's some small screws up here yep okay that is it so some smaller screws up here but go into the plastic that house the fans and mount them to the heatsink pull those out it's gonna be the two probably on the other side okay fan cable goes through this heat pipe so the shrouds loose and we've got the fan assembly that's what you would do if you wanted to replace the fan you take all this off and then you would get down to the fan remove that there's a cable here they bridge to each other and then plug into the PCB and if you care about it the fan is a power logic pen we actually have a video at power logics booth that a Computex or CES Computex I think one year they make a lot of the fans for most these companies EVGA I think is included in that list so it is a model PL d0 9 2 1 0 s 1 2 H H if you want to replace it and it is listed as 12 volts 0.4 amps so that would be what you do to replace it go do that ok so now our heatsink is loose into a comparison here sapphire to msi so first of all msi has gone with a nickel plated copper cold plate right there in the center so that is that's what that is and then on the outer edge there sharing a cooling solution with the GPU and that appears to be aluminum yes that is not steel and that's connected to be a solder to the thin stack and so what's happening here is the memory is sinking at the same solution as GPU so they will jointly the the heatsink is responsible jointly for cooling more participating more heat and Watts than something like this would be which there's not necessarily a better or worse design universally it just it depends designed to design card to card sapphires happens to work better in this instance but what they're doing is isolating the two so this stuff isn't really sinking and to hear too much it is a bit you get some contact with the heat pipes but mostly it's a standalone solution get schooled by the air through the top in terms of heat pipes they're not too different but they are different so sapphires got one two three four five heat pipes going through the cold plate sapphires or sorry msi is running one two three four through the cold plate but what really matters is the contact area to the actual GPU more so than how many heat pipes doesn't really win anything that's it's how well are they used so in terms of size these are six mill and these are also six mill heat pipes but ultimately we've already tested the two and we know objectively that MSI is doing worse for memory and vrm thermals and we can see why memory is very obvious this is avoided using the word earlier but this is just stupid the way this is cooled with half of a thermal pad on half the memory module so that they didn't have to make it any taller on this plate and bring it up to here not sure what the reasoning was for that but it's what they decided to do and the vrm ran acceptable in terms of temperature it was a bit warmer on average than sapphires okay so there's similar PCBs but they're not identical it seems like ultimately the real problem with this is just not enough contact area with the memory that's that's the big issue I have with the design it's it probably saved some money there's probably some manufacturing and cost-saving reason to do it this way it's not the right way to do it it's for the performance that is and we now understand very clearly why this is objectively worse and some cooling departments and the competing model plus the backplate isn't even leveraged I've got a metal backplate that's coated to protect it against shorts obviously but no no thermal pad connection so you're not leveraging the potential cooling advantage which is minor but present it's an IR three five to one seven controller on the back which is the exact same as what sapphire is using on the back there's and then the front side is using NCP on their it season on semi MOSFETs that if build would does a thing for us on this we'll talk about separately but all we really care about is the this weird all we really care about is the co installation and some reason there's like it was just thrown pad grease that's pretty greasy very greasy some up here - actually that's glue oh that's probably from this thing it's probably from the shroud being double-sided tape down there with this fit that would be interesting okay the PCB is the layout it's basically identical as I think we're working with a some form of reference design probably not the original original reference which looks like this much different but anyway this would actually fit it with the screw holes line up would I have I have an idea for this if everything fits we could do a transplant although there's not much point to it because we've already done this test which was with two different PCBs but it would give us a proper a B comparison I guess if we wanted to do it anyway it fits I might consider that so that's the MSI of OCO C as we said in the review it's not the worst card it overall does okay it's better than reference but it's worse than the pulse and acoustics in thermals evidently in cooler design which should have been obvious by losing in acoustics and thermals it's got a higher stock frequency it runs 1.4 to 2% faster and frame rate that's not because it's not running hotter because it's running 2% faster that doesn't really make any sense running hotter because the design is bad so this cooler could be much better without that much more effort bigger throw all pads covering the whole I mean this area there's no excuse you can cover the whole service area of the memory module and it would fit on that part of the plate this top area maybe there's some tooling excuse I don't know about it's always going to come down to cost but there might be an excuse here where they didn't extend this because it would have cost more money stupid reason but it'd be a lot more money than a bigger thermal pad which is negligible so yeah we'd like to see this plate bigger we'd like to see thrown pads cover the whole surface area of the memory modules and maybe some other changes but those are the big ones just kind of not great design in general also this kind of limited contact area now that I'm looking at it to the fins but anyway that's the msi evo Cosi you can watch the review if you want to see our other conclusions on it but now you'll have more information as to why the thermals were what they were thank you for watching if you want to support us directing for this type of video we would encourage you to go to store now Cameron's excess net to pick up one of our tool kits comes in a sweet bag like this it's got ten tools that we made custom for video card disassembly some of them are not in here because we were just using them but you can get more information on the store about the rest of the kit and also has some instruction cards included in the zipper pouch for how to take apart the average video card a couple of them so thanks for watching subscribe for more I'll see you all next timeeveryone today we're tearing down the MSI 5700 XC evoke OC this card is it's already been reviewed by us it's okay on thermals it has a bit more aggressive GPU thermal target than sapphire but it runs louder to achieve that target and the memory and the vrm cooling left a bit to be desired a lot to be desired on on the memory cooling specifically so we're going to take it apart see if we can figure out why that is and look at the overall build quality of the card from the cooler standpoint before that this video is brought to you by audible audible has a massive audio book library including content that talks computers and games audible has an entire series from the official Computer History Museum which we've actually toured in the past and can support as a leader in computer education audible also hosts the ultimate history of video games something I read back when researching GN content and can highly recommend for gaming and hardware enthusiasts audibles 30-day free trial can be unlocked at audible.com slash gamers Nexus or you can text gamers Nexus one word - 500 500 where you'll get a free audiobook and two audible originals or click the link in the description below so here's the Evoque we already did the review on these cards this is the shroud for the Sapphire card and then this is the cooler for the Sapphire card but the sapphire cooling solution was interesting because they split out this plate there's just a recap of our other teardown if you missed it you should go watch it but split out this plate for the memory and BRM cooling separately and then enough airflow gets through this larger heatsink that it can still cool the components pretty directly without bridging the vrm and vram solution with the GPU solution so they're isolated in a way that it benefits everything you're not sharing a single heatsink between all the devices and enough airflow is getting down there that it still keeps components that can run except ibly hot at good temperatures so like the MOSFETs can run except ibly at a higher temperature than the GPU could or the memory could as an example so that's the Sapphire one the msi one dual fan also let's get a measurement on the fans probably a hundred millimeters to mean ninety not a hundred but it's a 90 millimeter fan two of them and different from the old gaming xdesign that actually works pretty well they've gone the champagne look we don't need to talk about that too much it's over the toolkit we are going to use our GN teardown toolkit which you can get on stored at Cameron's excess net comes with 10 tools all four specifically picked for GPU video card disassembly and customized like we ground down the heads here so that they can clear capacitors when you're working on that video cards for example and we also used a CRV for the metal for the other tools the other eight tools and it comes in a sick bag with a GP diagram on it alright so first thing four screws for the GPU heatsink and there's a warranty void if remove the sticker on it which is illegal in the US to have that sticker so that's bad and MSI should get rid of it and also they should feel bad we don't like these warranty void if removed stickers its infringing on right to repair and also not enforceable and also illegal in the US anyway take the screws out actually I think MSI may have been on a list with ACS for people getting in trouble for those Asus was definitely on the list that'll free the heatsink but we need to get out from under the shroud which is probably gonna require taking out a few more screws so you can see that this screw and the backplate is going through the PCB and to the base plate and let's true in a few places so let's pull those out I think these are probably same sized cups we're just using a pH one screwdriver from our tool kit again on the store there's my two screws back here you can see screws coming in through the base plate on the other side into these locations this four locations we might need to take some more out okay there we go that's free I don't think the plate the IO plate had to come off but it made it a bit easier when you have to pull the cables so there's a fan cable down here right there might be one more cable somewhere remember not to pull by the actual wires it is very likely that you ripped the fan header off the PCB if you do that only Paul by the header itself sometimes you can use a flat head to make that easier okay so that's freed but we're actually still stuck up here by what's holding us glue oh it's tape Wow okay that's interesting interesting choice tape double-sided tape not really it doesn't really seem necessary whatever there's a lot of screws in there already so they probably holds it a bit tighter to keep these flush so if you never open it it's fine this is not gonna really stay sticky anymore now that it's been open so what if you open it you'll have to replace that or just peel it off and ignore it what's over there probably won't be quite as flush there's the card this is a pretty liquidy thermal paste actually more than we normally see so the Chinatsu stuff doesn't really a lot of the common pastes are not that liquidy once you pull the shroud off for the heatsink off and we now we now see the biggest problem man this is this is so bad so if you remember our biggest complaint with this card was the memory thermals it was like it was the difference between saying you know what it really doesn't matter if you buy sapphire MSI and saying buy sapphire which is what we said look at that that's not because half of it came off on the heatsink when I pulled it off that's how they made it that's not even 50% of the memory they didn't even get the the hottest spot of this memory module it's not the left side it's dead center so if anything if you're gonna only cover part of it at least cover like the center sixty seventy percent that's terrible that's a bad design so I'm thinking MSI was trying to avoid retooling I don't know I'm not sure the details but maybe they had this plate too old from a different card previously maybe Polaris maybe something else and didn't want to retool it and if that's the case it would be a cost-saving measure and then you just go with good enough which is what they did here you can see that only part of the memory module is contacting the heatsink which is dumb that's a very bad design it saves cost but it's going to cost them in sales because the card as comparatively bad memory thermals to their competition so bad bad MSI don't do that you guys know better than this at this point MSI has made really good coolers the gaming X dual fan design for those Nvidia cards like the 1080 is was one of the best that we tested for noise normalized thermals so it's really disappointing to see this regression and design approach but let's look at why they did it or what they've got here I would like to separate the rest of the shroud I think from the heatsink if it's easily done just so that we can look at it more easily and it looks like that is secured maybe by the fans there are some other screws in here holding in this plate stuff like that which is just plastic pH one size screw what the fan blades are too tight so we can use a a pH zero zero it's the way sapphire did this was with one screw was it one or two one screw in there one up there and then it sockets in a pins to pin out I guess instead of having a cable we'll see what MSI does once we get this third screw out no it's a cable that's kind of annoying I think I got it there's some small screws up here yep okay that is it so some smaller screws up here but go into the plastic that house the fans and mount them to the heatsink pull those out it's gonna be the two probably on the other side okay fan cable goes through this heat pipe so the shrouds loose and we've got the fan assembly that's what you would do if you wanted to replace the fan you take all this off and then you would get down to the fan remove that there's a cable here they bridge to each other and then plug into the PCB and if you care about it the fan is a power logic pen we actually have a video at power logics booth that a Computex or CES Computex I think one year they make a lot of the fans for most these companies EVGA I think is included in that list so it is a model PL d0 9 2 1 0 s 1 2 H H if you want to replace it and it is listed as 12 volts 0.4 amps so that would be what you do to replace it go do that ok so now our heatsink is loose into a comparison here sapphire to msi so first of all msi has gone with a nickel plated copper cold plate right there in the center so that is that's what that is and then on the outer edge there sharing a cooling solution with the GPU and that appears to be aluminum yes that is not steel and that's connected to be a solder to the thin stack and so what's happening here is the memory is sinking at the same solution as GPU so they will jointly the the heatsink is responsible jointly for cooling more participating more heat and Watts than something like this would be which there's not necessarily a better or worse design universally it just it depends designed to design card to card sapphires happens to work better in this instance but what they're doing is isolating the two so this stuff isn't really sinking and to hear too much it is a bit you get some contact with the heat pipes but mostly it's a standalone solution get schooled by the air through the top in terms of heat pipes they're not too different but they are different so sapphires got one two three four five heat pipes going through the cold plate sapphires or sorry msi is running one two three four through the cold plate but what really matters is the contact area to the actual GPU more so than how many heat pipes doesn't really win anything that's it's how well are they used so in terms of size these are six mill and these are also six mill heat pipes but ultimately we've already tested the two and we know objectively that MSI is doing worse for memory and vrm thermals and we can see why memory is very obvious this is avoided using the word earlier but this is just stupid the way this is cooled with half of a thermal pad on half the memory module so that they didn't have to make it any taller on this plate and bring it up to here not sure what the reasoning was for that but it's what they decided to do and the vrm ran acceptable in terms of temperature it was a bit warmer on average than sapphires okay so there's similar PCBs but they're not identical it seems like ultimately the real problem with this is just not enough contact area with the memory that's that's the big issue I have with the design it's it probably saved some money there's probably some manufacturing and cost-saving reason to do it this way it's not the right way to do it it's for the performance that is and we now understand very clearly why this is objectively worse and some cooling departments and the competing model plus the backplate isn't even leveraged I've got a metal backplate that's coated to protect it against shorts obviously but no no thermal pad connection so you're not leveraging the potential cooling advantage which is minor but present it's an IR three five to one seven controller on the back which is the exact same as what sapphire is using on the back there's and then the front side is using NCP on their it season on semi MOSFETs that if build would does a thing for us on this we'll talk about separately but all we really care about is the this weird all we really care about is the co installation and some reason there's like it was just thrown pad grease that's pretty greasy very greasy some up here - actually that's glue oh that's probably from this thing it's probably from the shroud being double-sided tape down there with this fit that would be interesting okay the PCB is the layout it's basically identical as I think we're working with a some form of reference design probably not the original original reference which looks like this much different but anyway this would actually fit it with the screw holes line up would I have I have an idea for this if everything fits we could do a transplant although there's not much point to it because we've already done this test which was with two different PCBs but it would give us a proper a B comparison I guess if we wanted to do it anyway it fits I might consider that so that's the MSI of OCO C as we said in the review it's not the worst card it overall does okay it's better than reference but it's worse than the pulse and acoustics in thermals evidently in cooler design which should have been obvious by losing in acoustics and thermals it's got a higher stock frequency it runs 1.4 to 2% faster and frame rate that's not because it's not running hotter because it's running 2% faster that doesn't really make any sense running hotter because the design is bad so this cooler could be much better without that much more effort bigger throw all pads covering the whole I mean this area there's no excuse you can cover the whole service area of the memory module and it would fit on that part of the plate this top area maybe there's some tooling excuse I don't know about it's always going to come down to cost but there might be an excuse here where they didn't extend this because it would have cost more money stupid reason but it'd be a lot more money than a bigger thermal pad which is negligible so yeah we'd like to see this plate bigger we'd like to see thrown pads cover the whole surface area of the memory modules and maybe some other changes but those are the big ones just kind of not great design in general also this kind of limited contact area now that I'm looking at it to the fins but anyway that's the msi evo Cosi you can watch the review if you want to see our other conclusions on it but now you'll have more information as to why the thermals were what they were thank you for watching if you want to support us directing for this type of video we would encourage you to go to store now Cameron's excess net to pick up one of our tool kits comes in a sweet bag like this it's got ten tools that we made custom for video card disassembly some of them are not in here because we were just using them but you can get more information on the store about the rest of the kit and also has some instruction cards included in the zipper pouch for how to take apart the average video card a couple of them so thanks for watching subscribe for more I'll see you all next time\n"