A Closer Look – Tear Down
Taking the card apart was pretty easy, with the first step being the nine screws holding the backplate, of which two wrap around to the sides of the card. A single thick thermal pad is in place that sits behind the core. This is because the PCB doesn’t really have much going on with the rear side of it, so no pads are really needed there.
There are then another 12 screws attaching the cooler to the PCB, and it’s here where, like most 50 Series cards, you get a sheer sense of the size of the cooler in comparison to the PCB, which definitely feels like it’s getting smaller, or maybe the coolers are getting bigger.
At the heart of the heatsink is a vapour chamber with eight heatpipes passing through, which are flattened in some areas to help increase the surface area. The vapour chamber makes direct contact with the GPU core, while extra plates have been installed for the memory ICs on top. Other aluminium blocks are positioned around the large heatsink to make contact with the VRM circuitry, and again, make contact with the heatpipes to help dissipate heat.
One thing I will say is, after taking the card apart, it’s clear that the heatsink makes up the bulk of the card’s weight, which is also a testament to its durability and quality. When you couple that in with the metal backing bracket of the fan shroud, everything feels really well-engineered and like it should last the test of time.
Despite all of the cooling hardware, as mentioned, the PCB is still pretty compact, at just 180mm long—but then again, all of the RTX 50 series cards have a surprisingly small footprint. The added benefit of this can be seen in the cooler design and the backplate, which have holes to allow a lot of airflow to pass directly through the cooler, greatly improving airflow and heat dissipation.
In terms of power, the Vanguard has 15 phases for the GPU core and a further three phases for the memory. All phases for both GPU and memory are MPS MP87993 DrMOS phases with a rating of 50A each, with the GPU core phases using a Monolithic Power Systems MP29816 controller, while the memory uses a smaller MP2988 controller, again from Monolithic Power Systems.
Finally, MSI has included high-quality thermal pads, which are thicker and have a higher heat transfer rate, to help that big heatsink unlock even more performance, at least in theory, and that’s what we’ll find out next.
