Product Showcase

Product Showcase

The GeForce GTX 780 will have a maximum power design of 250 Watts, but they are made to overclock as well so MSI is extending the power limitation a little bit. As such you will also see two 150W 8-pin PEG connectors. Another 75 to 150 Watts is delivered though the PCI slot and thus motherboard. This should be plenty for a decent overclocking session.

The Lightning is 29 cm in length by the way. Included in the bundle is a small manual, flexible SLI connector, power connector converters, manuals and a driver CD oh and one card. Also included are small connectors which you can use to monitor voltage with a digital multi-meter.

If we rotate the card and look at the backside we can see two SLI connectors, three cards in SLI GPU mode are supported. Very visible is the black round GPU reactor module. The GPU reactor functions as a power supply module which, when installed on the back of the GPU, it increases current volume by 88%, reduces power supply noise by 13%, and should improve overall overclocking stability. It is actually an add-on board which you may remove. Let's do just that.

 You can remove the plastic cap and then see a small PCB. That's actually removable as well:

The reactor PCB itself hosts a battery of tantalum capacitors that are used to filter and stabilize GPU voltage much like the NEC/Tokin Proadlizer film capacitors we all know.

Be careful when you plug it back in. Once powered on the Reactor module also features a few blue LEDs onboard, so when it is installed with the GPU Reactor cap in place, it has a nice blue glow emanating from it. The GPU Reactor can be removed completely if needed or preferred. The GTX 780 Lightning is armed with MSI Military Class IV components, so you'll spot some interesting things like nickel plated capacitors, Hi-c CAPs, Copper MOS and acoated solid state chokes. Really, these are not your average components right there. This is all used to ensure longevity and better tweakability.