MSI Radeon HD 7970 Lightning review - Introduction

MSI decided to create a product that combines both shock and awe. They took the Radeon HD 7970 Tahiti XT GPU and threw the rest away, the result is a new PCB board design and a card loaded with features. Yes, the MSI R7970 Lightning has landed at the Guru3D test facility -- you know the one in area 51 !

What a product to look at, the R7970 lightning has a very rare design, comes with only the best components, has voltage monitoring headers, comes pre-overclocked (extensively) and allows to be voltage tweaked at many levels.

To pursue Eyefinity they have made the card Eyefinity6 compatible, by use of four DisplayPort connectors and two single link DVI connectors you can get six monitors running. Though realistically nobody does that as you have that ugly bezel from left to right smack down in the middle of you field of view.

There's another feature though, to give the product a little more 'niche' MSI implemented a small add-on board that is called a GPU-reactor which 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.

MSI is back in da house this time with the Radeon 7000 series cards, armed with a customized PCB and the popular Twin Frozr III cooler they have launched their Radeon HD 7950 model.

Obviously there isn't a Lightning board without some special cooling, in this round MSI again revert towards the Twin Frozr cooler revision IV. Located under its aluminum cooling body, you can find a high density fin grid array that provides heat dissipating area that is fed by heat-pipes.

New in this series is that MSI also incorporated Dust Removal Technology -- that means that the fans are running in reverse for 30 seconds after booting to remove dust from the heat sinks.

The GPU empowering this 3GB graphics card was developed under codename "Tahiti XT". Let's have a look at this Southern Island family member. Next page where we'll startup the technology overview first.

The product reviewed today comes from MSI, the R7970 Lightning edition. It is locked and loaded with 3GB of graphics memory and and has the looks to kill. Have a peek before we dive into the review.