14 DAY TRIAL // The Radeon R9 270X graphics card may not be the best of AMD's single-GPU adapters, but it's close enough that it's not too shocking to see it factory-overclocked and custom-cooled beyond recognition.
Well, maybe not beyond recognition because the box still has “R9 27X” proclaimed in large, bold letters. White ones.
Although, admittedly, the rest of the name, Mini-ITX Gaming, is written in even bigger and thicker font.
It's quite a strange name really. Mini-ITX is a motherboard form factor, not a graphics card one. However, the moniker does perform its job properly: state that the new card can be used with mini-ITX motherboards and, by extension, in mini-PCs.
Normally, the PCB (printed circuit board) would not be short enough for this particular video controller. MSI had to jump through a few hoops to get it done.
In the end, though, it managed to achieve its goal: create a strong video card that can be installed in a miniature PC that still has gaming-grade capabilities.
In fact, the company has even managed to institute a factory overclock of 30/20 MHz, bringing the GPU clocks to 1030 / 1070 MHz Base/Boost instead of 1000 / 1050 MHz.
And all the while, the temperature has been reduced by around 30%, as seems to be customary for MSI Gaming graphics cards.
Moving on, Micro-Star International included the XSplit Gamecaster program, which lets you live stream or record your gameplay. All you need to do is hit CTRL + TAB to bring up the in-game overlay. After that, you just need to click start or stop/pause.
Furthermore, you can draw in-game annotations, selecting parts of the gameplay. Pretty useful in a replay of the file, or if you're just joining a game as an observer. We imagine that StartCraft players in South Korea will appreciate this feature, especially if they're teaching others how to play.
You can use drawings or highlights to enhance your commentary. Moreover, if you factor XSplit Gamecaster into the mix, you can add your webcam feed to the whole things, even using a green screen transparency effect by hitting the Chroma key.
All in all, for a miniature video card, the MSI 270X GAMING 2G ITX is pretty packed with enthusiast gaming assets. Now if only we had a price. It can't be of just $200 / €200.
