MSI GTX580 Lightning Review

Up Close

The Lightning package is definitely an eye-grabber. The F22 bathed in green lightning wont be easily ignored. The reverse manages to keep all the relevant information clearly available without becoming busy.

      

Alongside the standard SLI bridges and power adaptors if you happen to be running a PSU without a PCI-e 8pin adaptor, (if you aren’t, why?), we have some probes for the various monitoring positions on the Lightning.

Here it is in all its Twin Frozr III glory. As pretty as it always is, the brushed metal finish offset by the two large black PWM fans.

      

The back of the card is a plethora of bits and bobs. There are so many little dip-switches it took some familiarisation with the manual and the card to stop us referring to certain switches as “the thingemy doofer”. You certainly don’t want for options and tweakability with MSI’s finest.

In keeping with the extreme overclocking market that the Lightning is aimed for it even comes complete with a LN2 switch for those cold starts.

      

Naturally as a heavily overclockable GF110 the Lightning sucks power in from twin 8-pin PCI-e connectors.

Speaking of connectability, the MSI GTX580 Lightning has a DisplayPort, a HDMI and two DVIs. All gold plated of course.