MSI R7970 Lightning Graphics Card Review (Twin Frozr IV)

The MSI R7970 Lightning is a no compromise video card which has been built from the ground up to deliver the ultimate performance in highly overclocked situations.

In a similar fashion to the Sapphire HD7970 Overclock Edition, the focus has been on improving the reference cooling solution as much as possible, by lowering noise emissions and dropping temperatures.

The Twin Frozr IV cooler is the most impressive HD7970 cooler we have tested to date, maintaining 61c under gaming load. This is around a 2C improvement on the Sapphire Dual X cooler which we reviewed last week. The combination of low noise emissions and fantastic temperatures mean the Twin Frozr IV is the new benchmark for other manufacturers to beat.

MSI have released the card in a highly overclocked state and out of the box, it is even faster than the VTX3D HD7970X Edition, which ships at 1050mhz core clock speeds. By using MSI Afterburner I was able to push the core clock even higher, to 1260mhz.

Obviously this will vary from card to card, but we are seeing good potential headroom, even with these aggressive out of the box settings.

Right now there are quite a few custom cooled HD7970's which offer noticeable improvements over the reference card. The VTX3D HD7970 X Edition is the cheapest, at £429.99 inc vat, from DABS and it still offers a tempting price to performance ratio, if you can live with the gaudy red cooler. Sapphire have several models available between £450 and £500 inc vat.

The MSI HD7970 Lightning is more expensive, available now on pre-order from Overclockers UK for £499.99 inc vat. For such a strong solution we feel it offers good value for money, especially when factoring in the class leading Twin Frozr IV cooler.

Pros:

• Twin Frozr IV cooler is the best solution on the market.
• overclocked to 1070mhz out of the box.
• quiet
• built like a tank.

Cons:

• It is £500.

Kitguru says: One of the finest HD7970's on the market today.

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