MSI GTX 680 Lightning 2GB Graphics Card Review

MSI have been a company that have been a bit of a dark horse for us, as we’ve only just started working on a bigger scale with them, as of late, and everything we’ve taken a look at has turned to gold and this card is no different. We knew that the Lightning series of cards were good, but I guess we just didn’t realise how good they were when you look at the big picture.

Starting with the styling, it’s certainly a gorgeous looking card, and with an mPower motherboard arriving into market soon, we should see some cross platform style tips being shared between the motherboard and VGA team. Couple all of this with a yellow chassis, and you’ll be well on your way to your system looking like Bumblebee from the Transformers movie franchise. The cards styling mainly comes down to the large Twin Frozr cooler which covers the whole card and does an excellent job of keeping the card cool and quiet, and it certainly does that.

Just from the tests we ran, you can see that the cooler has a big impact on keeping temperatures down, and when looking at the noise output, we can see the card isn’t the quietest on the market, but based on the performance you get, it’s definitely not noisy, not in the slightest. This is down to the cooling solution and twin PWM fans which simply offer so much more by use of high-density fins and a unique propeller blade design. It even has dust removal technology, and while a lot of this may end up seeming like marketing talk, it actually makes a difference, and that’s clear, from what we saw today.

Performance was the clear winner here today, as we saw this card at the top of the pile in every test, even if only by 1FPS. Whether it be ahead by 1FPS or 100FPS, it still goes to show that they aimed to be the best, and have simply done it. When we took a look at some of the other cards in our charts, we were amazed by the likes of the GTX 670 from Inno3D and the GTX 680 EX OC from KFA2, but the MSI GTX 680 Lightning has stolen the crown and wins hands down.

Another aspect to also look at the card is putting all of the results together and taking a look at how well the cooler performed again. With this information in front of you, just think what results you could receive from overclocking the card even further, as this card only comes included with a modest overclock that in our opinion, doesn’t even scratch the surface of what’s possible, and that’s definitely something that we’d like to explore further. With that in mind, all we can ask you to do is to watch this space carefully.

Now the bit that we all hate, especially our partners, and that is of course; price. Coming in at £439, we find it to have recently had a price drop as it was one of the most expensive GTX 680’s on the market, but now sees it fall in line with other similar cards. When you compare this card to similar GTX 680’s, you’ll end up paying around another £30, but there are features that this card comes with that we didn’t even scratch the surface on, and that’s why we’re keen to see how far we can overclock things, to really push this card from MSI, to the limits.

With this being the top-level card from MSI, we’re definitely keen to see what’s going to come next as we explained earlier. Everything we’ve had from MSI has simply been amazing, and in case of this card; lightning fast, and that’s why we’re happy to award it with our Editor’s Choice Award, as even with the hefty price tag, we simply can’t find fault with this card. Now if only we could get some more for some overclocked SLI action.