Gaming on a budget these days looks pretty good
Earlier in June, AMD launched its new 300-series of Radeon cards and MSI has been quick to move in with the launch of the R9 390X Gaming 8G, R9 380 Gaming 2G and the card we're looking at today, the R7 370 Gaming 2G. The R7 370's GPU first appeared as the driving force behind the Radeon HD 7850, which was a pretty decent budget gaming card some years ago. The GPU was then resurrected for the R7 270 sometime later and is now once more resurfacing with a new lease of life in the R7 370.
The Pitcairn GPU isn't going to set the world alight with it sheer power, but it's a decent enough processor to enjoy most modern gaming titles. With a core base clock of 1000MHz and core boost to 1050MHz there's a reasonable amount of grunt in the old GPU to keep up with you. The 2GB of GDDR5 memory, with a memory clock frequency of 1425MHz is good too, as are the 1024 Shaders, 64 Texture Units and 182GB/S memory bandwidth. It's the baby of the new 300-series, but good for gaming on a budget thanks to the £119 asking price.
As with most MSI products the attention to detail and manufacturing processes, as well as the components used are of very high quality. For example, the Twin Frozr V fans that cover the large heatsink and three 6mm heat pipes; it may seem a little like overkill on a GPU that never really heated up all that much in the past, but it does offer a higher degree of overclocking and peace of mind for those who want to tweak the card.
To that end, the new Gaming App for the 300-series allows the user to fine-tune the card to their own tastes. The three pre-set modes allow for silent running, a gaming mode for the best balance between performance and heat, and an overclock mode that boosts the GPU and increases the RPMs on the fans. Within the app you’ll also be able to control the LED effects and colours, as well as a few other tweaks here and there for balancing blue light and gamma adjustment for movies.
Connectivity for the R7 370 includes HDMI, DisplayPort,DVI-I and DVI-D ports. It's a CrossFire capable card and you'll also find a single six-pin power plug at the end of the board. On the whole then, a simple enough setup.
The emphasis, though, is clearly budget gaming. As we already said, the R7 370 will be able to play a wealth of current games on medium to high settings well enough - and depending on how demanding the game is you might be able to get away with the odd instance of ultra-settings. Don't expect it to perform as well as its siblings though. Having said that, when we tested it with an Intel i7-4790K at 4GHz, 8GB RAM and Windows 8.1 it managed to score a respectable 8702. Which is enough to run the likes of GTA V on maximum settings at 1080p at an average of around 50FPS.
Although the MSI R7 370 Gaming 2G may appear at the bottom of most recent benchmark graphs that doesn't mean it couldn't be a wise choice of gaming card for a certain type of user. As we said, those on a budget will certainly appreciate its worth and those who dally with light gaming won't be too fussed by big benchmark numbers.
In short then, a good, reasonably priced, entry level graphics card. With that MSI extra-quality touch added for good measure. David Hayward
An entry level gaming card, but a well balanced one for light gamers.