Can Lightning strike twice? We take a close look at MSI’s single core flagship, the GTX580 lightning ‘Xtreme Edition’.
Product on Review: MSI NGTX580 3GB Lightning ‘Xtreme Edition’
Manufacturer and Sponsor: MSI
Street Price: £499.99
The NVidia GTX580 is everything the GTX480 should have been. Many were left with a bitter taste in their mouths after sampling the GTX480 in that while it was powerful, it was a very power hungry beast, ran very hot and that heat could only be tamed by a cooler that was far too noisy to be applauded. While the GF100 was undoubtedly one very powerful processor, the revised version, the GF110 was built using an improved 40nm process that reduced temperatures, power consumption yet increased performance. With ATI biting at NVidia’s heels with the Caymen core it was all the more important they got the recipe right this time around otherwise they could have been left floundering while ATI basked in the adulation of a very discerning enthusiast crowd.
Fortunately for the green team, they did get it right and while the GTX580 still commands the inflated prices most NVIdia cards inherit, it has proven a very popular item. Crowned the GPU king by many, it came as no surprise that manufacturers clambered to release tweaked versions, each offering their own overclocked editions complete with a variety of customised coolers to keep the increased heat under control. MSI were one such manufacturer and their Lightning edition, coupled with the exceptional Twin Frozr cooler proved to be a great success. MSI have not sat on their laurels though. Never ones to sit still, MSI continue to innovate and like their company slogan ‘Innovation with Style’, they have not only improved the performance of the GTX580 yet again, but they have enhanced the visual appeal of the card.
There are cards on the market today that have 4GB of GDDR5 on-board. Those are however dual GPU cards. The standard GTX580 has to settle with a ‘paltry’ 1.5GB. MSI have took note that the enthusiast market are now gaming at resolutions higher the 1680×1050. 1920×1080 is now the norm with 1920×1200 becoming increasingly popular. There are those who crave higher resolutions and with multiple monitor setups now being fully supported by many recent games, higher and higher amounts of Vram are required to keep pace. It’s for this reason that MSI have seen fit to employ 3GB of GDDR5 to the Xtreme Edition of their GTX580. Overclocks remain untouched but the cooler has been re-designed in the guise of Twin Frozr III.
A bit about MSI
Established in August 1986, MSI has always focused on four core values: Producing meaningful products, ensuring high product quality, the best customer service and achieving customer satisfaction. MSI’s product portfolio includes designing and manufacturing a diverse range of mainboards, graphics cards, notebooks, all-in-one PCs, server/workstations, industrial computing, barebone systems, communication devices, consumer electronics, car infotainment products and others.
“Quality Products Lead to Faithful Customers” is a motto that guides all that we do at MSI. Everyone at MSI goes all out to be the best of the best in research and development. Currently, 2,000 experienced engineers staff our research and development department. This talented team carries out its work with the latest research equipment, continuing to raise the bar on product quality and innovative product features.
Graphics Card
MSI graphics card is designed for 3D effect, heat dissipation, power control, reliability etc. With stringent design optimization to create the most reliable high performance graphics card without compromising on quality. Global acclaim made it the undisputed number one choice for magazines, website editors and players alike. MSI’s accumulated customer base exceeded 100 million users globally in the graphics card market.
MSI’s brand leadership is well established in the mind of the customers. It is this driving force that propels MSI to constantly move forward.
Established in August 1986, MSI has always focused on four core values: Producing meaningful products, ensuring high product quality, the best customer service and achieving customer satisfaction. MSI’s product portfolio includes designing and manufacturing a diverse range of mainboards, graphics cards, notebooks, all-in-one PCs, server/workstations, industrial computing, barebone systems, communication devices, consumer electronics, car infotainment products and others.
“Quality Products Lead to Faithful Customers” is a motto that guides all that we do at MSI. Everyone at MSI goes all out to be the best of the best in research and development. Currently, 2,000 experienced engineers staff our research and development department. This talented team carries out its work with the latest research equipment, continuing to raise the bar on product quality and innovative product features.
Graphics Card
MSI graphics card is designed for 3D effect, heat dissipation, power control, reliability etc. With stringent design optimization to create the most reliable high performance graphics card without compromising on quality. Global acclaim made it the undisputed number one choice for magazines, website editors and players alike. MSI’s accumulated customer base exceeded 100 million users globally in the graphics card market.
MSI’s brand leadership is well established in the mind of the customers. It is this driving force that propels MSI to constantly move forward.
The card on review today has a multitude of features, some similar to the original GTX580 lightning and some new features but the jewel in the GTX680 Lightning Xtreme editions crown is its overclocking prowess which we will cover in-depth later in the review. For now, let’s see if the specifications have changed…
Specification
The GF110 chip shares a lot of its roots with the GF100 core. The GPU still packs an impressive 3.2 billion transistors in a die seize 520mm squared. Its default internal configuration has been ported from GF100 in that the GPU features 512 CUDA cores or shader processors as we are more accustomed to. There are organised in a 4x16x32 block where 16 denotes the number of stream multi-processors (SM) and 32 being the number of cores on each SM. Each SM has its own L1 Cache and a common L2 Cache is shared by all 16. The GPU is still manufactured on the 40nm process.With the GTX480, only 15 of the total 16 SM were enabled to give it 480 CUDA cores and consequently, it boasted 60 texture units. The GTX580 uses a fully-fledged GF110 GPU and thus retains all 16 SM with none being disabled. The result is 512 fully operational CUDA cores and since the number of texture units is based on the number of stream-multiprocessors, the GTX580 sports 64 units instead of the 60. The number of ROPs has remained the same at 48 and the L2 Cache is still 768 KB. In terms of shader and texturing power, having 512 CUDA cores boosts performance by 6.6% over 480 CUDA cores. Nvidia have gone further with the GTX580 though. Not only have they increased the clock speed on the GTX580 compared to the GTX480, but they have also employed the GF104’s superior texture filtering capabilities in their tweaked GF110 GPU. Improvements have also been done to the tessellation engine so the already very capable performance that is expectant of the Fermi architecture has gone a step further.
MSI nGTX580 Lightning Xtreme Edition
MSI raised the bar with the Lightning Edition overclocking the core to 832MHZ as opposed to 772MHz on the reference card. This in turn raised the shader processing clockspeed 100MHz over stock to 1664MHz. Memory clockspeed had also been tweaked by just under 200MHz from 4008 to 4200 MHz (QDR). The Xtreme Edition of the lightning we are reviewing today keeps the same clockspeeds of the original lightning, indeed it utilizes the same PCB design. Perhaps the biggest difference between the two cards is the addition of a further 1.5GB of GDDR5 making a whopping 3GB total, the highest amount a single core card carries. The MSI GTX280 Xtreme Edition (or XE as known in the U.S) is not however the fastest clocked (core) GTX580 at present, that banner is held by the Gigabyte S0C version but the additional memory should in theory make the card a serious player for those who game at the highest resolutions.
High resolutions, especially when coupled with filters such as Anti-Aliasing, require huge amounts of memory bandwidth and with the average screen size being reported (by Steam) as 1920×1080 it is clear why cards with a 2GB framebuffer are rapidly becoming the norm. Adding huge amounts of memory though does not always solve this issue as the core architecture also needs to have the power to make use of the masses of bandwidth available. We will see later in the review whether the MSI card has got the core power/memory bandwidth balanced later in the review although I fear even a massive 2560×1600 resolution won’t be enough to fully saturate the 3GB framebuffer of the MSI card.
Product Specifications
Graphics Engine: GeForce GTX 580
Bus Standard: PCI Express x16 2.0
Memory Type: GDDR5 Memory Size(MB) 3096
Memory Interface: 384 bits
Core Clock Speed(MHz): 832
Memory Clock Speed(MHz): 4200
DVI Output: 2 D-SUB Output 2(optional, via DVI to D-Sub adaptor)
HDMI-Output: 1
HDCP Support: Y
HDMI Support: Y
Dual-link DVI: Y
Display Output (Max Resolution): 2560×1600
RAMDACs: 400
DirectX Version Support: 11
OpenGL Version Support: 4.0
SLI Support Y 3-way SLI: Y
Card Dimension(mm): 305x127x45mm
Graphics Engine: GeForce GTX 580
Bus Standard: PCI Express x16 2.0
Memory Type: GDDR5 Memory Size(MB) 3096
Memory Interface: 384 bits
Core Clock Speed(MHz): 832
Memory Clock Speed(MHz): 4200
DVI Output: 2 D-SUB Output 2(optional, via DVI to D-Sub adaptor)
HDMI-Output: 1
HDCP Support: Y
HDMI Support: Y
Dual-link DVI: Y
Display Output (Max Resolution): 2560×1600
RAMDACs: 400
DirectX Version Support: 11
OpenGL Version Support: 4.0
SLI Support Y 3-way SLI: Y
Card Dimension(mm): 305x127x45mm
Features
3D Graphics•Full Microsoft® DirectX® 11 Shader Model 5.0 support: o NVIDIA PolyMorph Engine with distributed HW tessellation engines
•BC6H and BC7 texture compression formats
•Gather4 extensions
•OpenGL 4.1 support
•Advanced image quality features: o 32× coverage sample antialiasing
•Transparent multisampling and transparent supersampling
•16× angle independent anisotropic filtering
•128-bit floating point high dynamic-range (HDR) lighting with antialiasing; 32-bit per-component floating point texture filtering and blending
•Interactive ray tracing support
•Full-speed frame buffer blending
•Full-speed FP16 texture filtering
•Advanced lossless compression algorithms for colour, texture, and zdata
•Support for normal map compression
•Adaptive z-cull
•Early-Z
GPU Computing
•NVIDIA CUDA™ technology—allows the GPU cores to provide performance improvements for applications such as video transcoding, gaming, ray tracing, and physics. API support includes: o CUDA C
•CUDA C++
•DirectCompute 5.0
•OpenCL
•Java, Python, and Fortran
•Third Generation Streaming Multiprocessor (SM) o 32 CUDA cores per SM
•Dual Warp Scheduler simultaneously schedules and dispatches instructions from two independent warps
•64 KB of RAM with a configurable partitioning of shared memory and L1 cache
•Second Generation Parallel Thread Execution ISA o Unified Address Space with Full C++ Support
•Optimized for OpenCL and DirectCompute
•Full IEEE 754-2008 32-bit and 64-bit precision
•Full 32-bit integer path with 64-bit extensions
•Memory access instructions to support transition to 64-bit addressing
•Improved Performance through Predication
•Improved Memory Subsystem o NVIDIA Parallel DataCacheTM hierarchy with Configurable L1 and Unified L2 Caches
•Greatly improved atomic memory operation performance
•NVIDIA GigaThreadTM Engine o 10x faster application context switching
•Concurrent kernel execution
•Out of order thread block execution
Nvidia Technology
•NVIDIA SLI® technology—patented hardware and software technology allows up to four NVIDIA GeForce GPUs to run in parallel to scale performance and enhance image quality on today’s top games.
•NVIDIA PhysX™ technology—allows advanced physics effects to be simulated and rendered on the GPU.
•NVIDIA 3D Vision™ Ready— GeForce GPU support for NVIDIA 3D Vision, bringing a fully immersive stereoscopic 3D experience to the PC.
•NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround™ Ready—scale games across 3 panels by leveraging the power of multiple GPUs in an NVIDIA SLI configuration. Combine with 3D Vision technology for the ultimate 3 panel stereoscopic 3D gaming experience.
Advanced Display Functionality
•Two pipelines for dual independent display
•Two dual-link DVI outputs for digital flat panel display resolutions up to 2560×1600
•Dual integrated 400 MHz RAMDACs for analog display resolutions up to and including 2048×1536 at 85 Hz
•HDMI 1.4a support including GPU accelerated Blu-ray 3D support, x.v.Color, HDMI Deep Color, and 7.1 digital surround sound. See www.nvidia.com/3dtv for more details.
•DisplayPort 1.1a support
•HDCP support up to 2560×1600 resolution on all digital outputs
•10-bit internal display processing, including support for 10-bit scan out
•Underscan/overscan compensation and hardware scaling
Video
• NVIDIA® Pure Video® HD technology with VP4 programmable video processor
•Decode acceleration for MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile, H.264, MVC, VC1, DivX (version 3.11 and later), and Flash (10.1 and later)
•Blu-ray dual-stream hardware acceleration (supporting HD picture-in-picture playback)
•Advanced spatial-temporal de-interlacing
•Noise reduction
•Edge enhancement
•Bad edit correction
•Inverse telecine (2:2 and 3:2 pull-down correction)
•High-quality scaling
•Motion Compensation
•Video color correction
•Dynamic contrast enhancement and color stretch
Digital Audio
•Support for the following audio modes: o Dolby Digital (AC3), DTS 5.1, Multi-channel (7.1) LPCM, Dolby Digital Plus (DD+), MPEG2/MPEG4 AAC
•Data rates of 44.1 KHz, 48 KHz, 88.2 KHz, 96 KHz, 176 KHz, and 192 KHz
•Word sizes of 16bit, 20bit, and 24bit
Power Management Technology
•Advanced power and thermal management for optimal acoustics, power, and performance based on usage:
•ASPM power management
•Adaptive Clocking
•Adaptive Power States
•Advanced fan control
•Power and temperature monitoring
MSI Exclusive Innovations:
• MSI Exclusive Fan Design on Xtreme Edition
– Dust Removal Technology removes dust buildup on heat sink for optimal cooling performance.
– Smart Temp Sensor Technology dynamically changes the color of the fan blades from blue to white to signal high operating temperature conditions.
• Power4 Architecture
– World’s first 16 phase PWM on GTX 580.
– Independent Memory Power support.
– Copper MOS with 2x high current capacity.
– Proadlizer*4 to optimized power supply.
• Triple Overvoltage & Triple Temp Monitor
– Voltage adjustment of GPU/Memory/PLL.
– The overclocking capability can be boosted 34% up!!
– Temperature Monitoring of GPU /Memory /MOSFET.
• Top Quality Components
– Military Class II Components for longer product lifespan.
– LPL (Lightning Power Layer) for the stable power supply.
• MSI Exclusive Fan Design on Xtreme Edition
– Dust Removal Technology removes dust buildup on heat sink for optimal cooling performance.
– Smart Temp Sensor Technology dynamically changes the color of the fan blades from blue to white to signal high operating temperature conditions.
• Power4 Architecture
– World’s first 16 phase PWM on GTX 580.
– Independent Memory Power support.
– Copper MOS with 2x high current capacity.
– Proadlizer*4 to optimized power supply.
• Triple Overvoltage & Triple Temp Monitor
– Voltage adjustment of GPU/Memory/PLL.
– The overclocking capability can be boosted 34% up!!
– Temperature Monitoring of GPU /Memory /MOSFET.
• Top Quality Components
– Military Class II Components for longer product lifespan.
– LPL (Lightning Power Layer) for the stable power supply.
Packaging & Contents
Box Front
The first thing that will hit you about the packaging is that the box is much larger than we are used to seeing, even for a high-end graphics card. The front of the box is dominated by a fighter jet the aptly named F35 ‘Lightning’. Green lightning is bouncing of the fighter which frames pretty much all of the packaging, back to front. A small run down of the cards features is to be found in the upper right of the box along with the product title in large metallic font emblazoned across the bottom.
Box Rear
Flipping the box over we see the same picture as found on the front but a greater run down of the product specifications and minimum system requirements. Of particular interest is that MSI recommend a 700w or greater power supply unit with a 12v current rating of 42A.
Box lid
Flipping the box back over I find there is a lid to the box held fast with Velcro. I must say I do like it when manufacturers packaging their component up well. Many times have I purchased expensive equipment that was presented in a package that quite frankly could have been designed by my six year old daughter. I am happy to report MSI have pulled out all of the stops on this one.
Box Lid Top
Inside the lid is a very good feature list with brief but adequate explanations of what the main features of this particular graphics card are including 16 Phase PWM design, Proadlizer and a wealth of ‘military Class II components.
Box Window
The inner/top of the main box has a plastic window affording a glimpse of the graphics card stored within. This window is framed by yet more spiel, this time concentrating on the features of the new Twin Frozr III thermal cooler.
Inner Foam
Sliding out the stiff, Styrofoam tray which houses the graphics card on test today I was pleased to see that the card was held tight and enclosed in an anti-static bag. For further protection a rigid plastic sheet covers the whole of the inner packaging.
Accessories
The contents are held in two areas, some in the cut outs of the foam which frames the main unit with the remaining manuals and driver disks hidden in a compartment underneath the Styrofoam GPU holder.
The included accessories are as follows: Two extended SLI bridges, 2x6pin to 8pin PCIe power connectors, a DVI to VGA adaptor, 3 multi-meter cables and the usual quick user guide, driver/utility. To round the accessory list off, MSI have also included an installation guide both for the product and some of the features of the DVD such as MSI’s Live Update.
Box Perspective
The overall package is presented very well throughout. I would have perhaps preferred a more sturdy outer box as this is easily torn if not carefull but nevertheless, the package and contents should arrive to you in perfect condition, such is the quality of the packing by MSI.
Closer Look Pt.1
MSI GTX580 3GB Lightning ‘Xtreme Edition’
When I first cast eyes on the MSI GTX580 Lightning Xtreme I must confess I wasn’t that impressed, certainly for a card which costs near £500 (at the time of writing). Sure, it’s a fine looking card but I can’t help feeling the card would have been more appealing were it adorned with plain black fans rather than the glossy blue affairs on the new Twin Frozr III cooler. There is however, a reason for not using black fans as we will see later.
Card Top
The black brushed aluminium frame covers the heat sink hidden beneath and has a smooth, quality feel to it and will no doubt be much more durable that Gigabytes ‘Windforce’ custom cooler and is more aesthetically pleasing than the opaque IceQ coolers HIS use.
Card Rear
Surprisingly, MSI have opted not to make use of a protective/cooling back plate on their product. Instead all of the highest quality soldering is on display which I must confess does certainly look the business. Just be sure not to catch any of those exposed chips when installing beneath the huge CPU air coolers we have today. We will cover the finer points of the back of the card shortly.
I/O Connectivity
The rear of the MSI GTX580 Lightning Xtreme Edition sports 2x Dual-Link DVI ports coupled with a HDMI port and a DisplayPort. Rather than the DVI ports being adjacent to one another as with the reference design, MSI have stacked them on top of one another to make room for the DisplayPort. Taking up the remaining space is the vent which allows hot air to escape from the card.
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PCIe Power Ports
Unlike the reference GTX580, the MSI GTX580 Lightning Xtreme Edition requires 2x 8pin PCIe power sockets as opposed to an 8+6pin configuration. Fortunately, should your PSU not have 2 x 8pin PCIe power cables, 2x 6-8 pin convertor cables are provided as part of the accessories. It should however be stressed that the 12v line on your PSU should be capable of provided 42A. Indeed, MSI recommend a 700w PSU as a minimum to run this card.
SLI Tabs
The MSI GTX580 Lightning Xtreme Edition officially supports 3 way SLI but I see no reason why a 4th card could not be added to the fray assuming you have a motherboard which supports this configuration. The two SLI tabs though are nestled behind an interior cooling plate so place be aware you will not be able to make use of a rigid 2/3 way SLI bridge. Instead you will be forced to use the extended SLI bridges MSI provide which thoughtfully have taken this into consideration.
BIOS Switch
Looking closer on the back side of the card we see that the dual BIOS switch seen in previous incarnations of the GTX580 lightning is still present. This dual BIOS setup allows the end user to configure his their own BIOS settings without the risk of ‘bricking’ the card as with the flip of a switch you can load the stock BIOS back allowing for peace of mind which let’s face it , is worth its weight in gold when dealing with a £500 card. The second BIOS is preloaded with aggressive voltages specifically aimed at the Xtreme cooling end of the market and certainly not recommended for air cooled configuration.
Voltage Dip-Switches
Below and to the left of the BIOS switch are three dip-switches unlock the following: Memory Voltage, GPU Voltage and PLL voltage unlockers/tuners allow for instant voltage adjustments. The PWM Clocktuner switch; this overclocks the PWM to 310MHz from stock 260MHz thereby eliminating ripple and finally OCP unlocker which allows the GPU core to bypass restrictive (safe) power limits based upon it. There is also a fourth dip-switch named XtremeCool which allows for extreme cooling such as LN2 bypassing the cold bug stock GTX580s suffer from.
GPU Phase LEDs
The card has 16+1 power phases in all: 12 for the GPU, 3 for the memory and a further phase for the PLL/VDDCI power. The card has a bank of activity LEDs on the edge of the card towards the rear which depict the GPU phase activity and light up red or green depending on the stress of the card.
Proadlizers
The last section of particular interest on the rear of the card are the Proadlizer solid state ‘super’ capacitors courtesy of NEC/Tokin. These capacitors have a decoupled circuit design allowing high capacitance and ultra low ESR which ultimate provides extremely stable power. In Layman’s terms these capacitors are a high speed switching capacitor array which work together to reduce impedance (up to 9x lower) and act to clean the power signal. Less circuit noise is better for the overclockers as this should allow for higher overclocks and as 3 or used for the GPU with the remainder set aside for the memory, overclocking should be a breeze with this card.
Closer Look Pt.2
Removing the Twin Frozr III cooler was a relatively simple affair and this allows us to delve a little deeper into the innards of the card. First though we will look at the method by which MSI are keeping the Xtreme Edition cool, the Twin Frozr III.Heatsink
The heat sink is mammoth, stretching the full length of the card and cross linked with 5 heat pipes. These heat pipes are strategically placed to dissipate the heat evenly across the heat sink, rather than saturating one area.
Heatsink baseplate
The heat pipes begin the heat transfer process by being welded to the core base plate. This heat is then transferred from the base plate to the heat pipes which dissipate heat to the finned aluminium heat sink in various places along the heat sink.
Heatsink Fin array
There are 3x 6mm and 2 x 8mm heat pipes within the heat sink structure. Each nickel coated copper heat pipe is spot welded to the aluminium finned heat sink in various places. I would have preferred to have seen the welds being complete along the heat pipe as this method is perhaps not the most efficient. While the heat pipes certainly will be transferring heat through radiation, convection by direct contact would be much more efficient.
Heatsink Contact
The contact of the heat sink core plate and the core itself I found to be excellent. While the contact area was a little off centre, the amount and consistency of the thermal interface material was near perfect which as we will see, made for some very good temperatures.
Heatsink Fan Assembly
After removing the aluminium frame from the cooler we get to see the fans and heat sink in much better detail.
Fan Profile
The dual 90mm PWM fans are an MSI exclusive feature which MSI claim are 20% more efficient than a traditional fan design and create 40% more airflow than the Twin Frozr II. As you can see, the fan blades are of dual design with the pitch of the blade increased towards the end. More airflow generally means higher noise so it remains to be seen if this design generates high volumes of noise or is whisper quiet.
Fan SMD
Another unique feature of the fan setup are the SMD’s hidden near the fan hub which light up blue, enhancing the cards visual appeal. These SMDs give off a sublime blow glow beneath the fans imitating the coolness of the fans performance. Unfortunately, the SMD colours do not change with the heat of the card which I believe would have been ‘ultra cool’ but MSI have used a different design to visually analyse the cards heat output.
Heat reactive fans
The fans fade from blue to cyan through to white depending on how hot the heat sink is getting. The picture above shows the effect imitated by the use of a hairdryer to heat up the plastic. I do like it when manufacturers add little gimmicks like this as it sets the card apart from the norm. I would however call the usefulness of this feature into question as the blue SMD that shines on the card will all but eliminate the detection of the change in colour. Add to this the fact that the only people who are likely to see this colour change are those who have a test bench where the fans can be seen and the whole escapade becomes void. I would think it is safe to assume those who will be testing this card in the open are most likely to remove the stock cooler and replace it with mouse pots for LN2 use. Which for all intents and purposes, this card is certainly directed towards.
So while it is certainly a ‘nice-to-have’ feature, it is one which will only appeal to those who keep the air cooler in situ AND be able to see the fans in such a position where the SMD will not camouflage the cool effect of the fans.
One very cool feature of the fans is the dust removal technology. This technology works by spinning the fans in reverse on system boot up for 30 seconds which will pull any dust from the heat sink and expel it into the case. While some of this dust will inevitably be sucked back into the heat sink when normal operation is resumed, it should ensure your graphics card keeps cleaner for longer.
Closer Look Pt.3
Aluminium mid-plate
Back to the card itself we see that under the main cooler is a further aluminium plate which covers the memory chips and the Vrms. The thermal pads used are of high quality and should be able to be used multiple times thanks to their sticky, yet firm structure.
Naked Card
Here we see that the PCB is almost identical to the standard lightning version save for the larger memory chips. The PCB uses what MSI refer to as LPL (Lightning Power Layer). This design of PCB is 10 layers thick which isolates the separate power circuits in turn preventing circuit noise. This configuration should effectively enhance the stability of the components making for higher overclocks.
Voltage read Points
Should you have a multimeter to hand, like the original lightning, the XE edition also incorporate three voltage read points by the use of included (detachable) multi meter cables. These read points measure PLL, GPU and memory voltages. The pictures above were taken while the card was in factory stock settings.
SFC and MOSFET Profile
A card of this nature is built on power and this power needs to be regulated effectively for it to be efficiently utilised. Thankfully, MSI have kept to the tried and tested method of using Super Ferrite chokes (SFC) which provide a 10% power efficiency improvement and 30% higher current capacity over standard chokes.
Super Ferrite Chokes
Coupled with the SFCs are copper based MOSFETs. These MOSFETs use double sided copper cooling both above and below the passivated die. This allows for rapid heat dispersion resulting in a 20% reduction in temperatures but more importantly an increase in current capacity from 20A to 40A.Hi-c CAP (Highly Conductive Capacitors) are also used throughout the PCB which incorporate a Tantalum core resulting in extremely high conductivity and 15% less leakage. Used in conjunction with the Hi-c Caps are more traditional solid capacitors with an aluminium core, rated with a 10 year lifespan.
Voltage Controllers
Managing these components we see that MSI have seen fit to place two voltage controllers (uP6225AM and uP6207A1 product numbers) on their card which enable MSI’s triple voltage change feature. As we will see with MSI’s own utility ‘Afterburner’, fine tuning of the GPU, Memory and Aux power can all be individually tweaked.
Dedicated Memory Input Path
Yet another feature the MSI GTX580 Lightning XE brings to the fore is the dedicated memory input path. The 3-phase PWM draws its power from one of the 8pin PCIe power connectors instead of gaining current traditionally from the PCIe slot.
Hynix Memory IC’s
The memory chips on the GTX580 Lightning are manufactured from Hynix and bare the product number H5GQ2H24MFR-T2C. These chips are rated to run at 1250 MHz (5000Mhz QDR). The 12 chips are arranged in a reference style, framing the GPU core but what differs from the reference 32×32 array design is that instead of using 128MB ICs, MSI have increased these to 256MB and incorporated a 64×32 array.
GF110 Core
Last of all we arrive at the GF110 Core itself, the heart of the graphics card on test today. As with the reference design we see the core has an integrated heat spreader which is nickel alloy coated copper. This provides exceptional protection to the core, ideal for those who will be using a pot and LN2 instead of a tradition cooling designs.
Test Setup
We have recently made a slight amendment to our selection of hardware and our test setup. The reason for this is that we felt the current crop of resolutions were not stressing the latest generation of graphics cards enough. With this in mind, we have added a Dell 3007 WFP-HC to our system, allowing us to stress the cards by utilising a 2560×1600 resolution. We will however, still include 1920×1200 results as this is one of the most popular resolutions used by gamers.Display – Dell 3007 WFP-HC
Case – Lian Li PC-P80
CPU Cooler – Prolimatech Super Mega (2xProlimatech 140mm Vortex)
CPU – Intel Core i7 920 @ 4GHz
RAM – 6GB (3x2GB) OCZ Blade DDR3 1600mhz 7-8-7-20 C1
Motherboard – ASUS Rampage III Extreme
Power Supply – Enermax Revolution 85+ 850W
Hard Drive – GSkill Falcon 128GB & Hitachi 250GB
Graphics Cards:
MSI nGTX580 3072MB Lightning Xtreme Edition @832/4200MHz & 975/4400MHz Overclocked – Forceware 275.33
ASUS HD6990 @830/5000MHz & AWSUM enabled (pre-overclocked) 880/5500MHz & Further Overclock of 930/6000MHz – ATI Catalyst 11.5
HIS HD6970 2048MB IceQ Turbo @ 900/5600MHz Pre-overclocked & 1000/6000MHz Overclocked – ATI Catalyst 11.5
Gigabyte GTX560 1024MB @ 830/4008MHz & 841/5016MHz Overclocked – Forceware 275.27
MSI R6970 2048MB Lightning @ 940/5500MHz Pre-overclocked & 1010/6000MHz Overclocked – ATI Catalyst 11.4 (8.840.3.0)
Inno3D GTX560Ti 1024MB @ 820/4008MHz & 950/4300MHz Pre-overclocked –Forceware 266.66
Inno3D GTX570 1280MB @ 732/3800MHz, 800/4000MHz Pre-overclocked & 901/4220MHz Overclocked – Forceware 263.09
ASUS GTX580 1536MB @ 782/4000MHz & 903/4220MHz Overclocked – Forceware 262.99
ASUS HD6970 2048MB @ 890/5500MHz & 949/5896MHz Overclocked – ATI Catalyst 11.4 (8.840.3.0)
Driver versions are extremely important when comparing a graphics card. It is however often important to update a driver version, especially when a new GPU is released and thus any change in driver will be clearly stated.
Overclocking
For today’s review we will use the Afterburner utility from the MSI to overclock the test subject.
Games:
Crysis Warhead
Metro 2033
Dirt 3
Mafia II
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Far cry 2
Alien vs. Predator
The games above represent equal bias toward both AMD and NVidia and are among the most demanding games available at present. Future releases will be evaluated for consistency and accuracy and then potentially added to the list when they become available
Synthetic benchmarks:
Futuremark 3DMark 11
Unigine Heaven 2.5
Tessmark 0.2.2
Furmark 1.9.0
Synthetic benchmarks are used to stress each feature of a GPU which may not be present in today’s games. While nothing is certain, the benchmarks above do at least give us an insight into the possible future performance of the graphics card on test, invaluable when evaluating the potential lifespan of a graphics card.
Temperature, power consumption and acoustics:
Furmark 1.9.0
The above application is feared by most manufacturers as it has been known to destroy GPU’s. While it is not indicative of ‘real world’ performance, it does represent the maximum possible stress your GPU could be placed under making it the hardest test to pass. For that reason alone, it is worthy of inclusion in our suite of benchmarks. Power consumption will be evaluated from the wall and will be a total system draw of the specification above.
Sound will be measured from a distance of 20 cm from the actual GPU with the case open. All system fans will be set to their lowest settings. Readings will be taken at both idle and 100% load.
Software Bundle
The bundled driver CD contains a wealth of utilities either directly contained on the CD or via download links. As with all driver CDs, it is certainly worthwhile using the most up-to-date driver obtained from the manufacturer website which will likely have more fixes and updated performance than the outdated (Forceware 266.58) ones found on the CD itself.
First up we see that MSI have included there very popular Afterburner Overclocking and monitoring software. Afterburner is perhaps the best overclocking tool on the market at present and the latest version available on the MSI website caters for most popular NVidia and AMD graphics cards.
Kombuster is a tool that will stress a GPU to its absolute limits. Based on FurMark technology and created by Ozone3D, this utility synthesizes the maximum stress a GPU will be placed under. While no games are currently able to put a GPU under so much pressure, utilities such as this are a good benchmark to assess a ‘worst case’ scenario and are therefore invaluable when overclocking to judge for stability as they will pick up artifects much quicker than a game, cutting the amount of time it takes to find a maximum, stable overclock.
AIWI is a unique software that connects your PC to your iPhone/iPod touch. Once they are connected, you can use your iPhone/iPod touch as a wireless keyboard or touchpad, assist you in a presentation or anytime you wish to remote control your PC.
Included in the bundle is a trial version of Cyberlinks DVD solution; an all-in-one package allowing the user to play back, edit, burn, store and copy DVD content.
There’s also a 60 day trial of the popular Norton Internet security software should you find your own Internet security not up to the task.
There’s a free copy of TMPGEnc included too which allows the user to encode and compress video files to your chosen file format.
Finally there is the MSI Live Update utility which can either manually or automatically search, download and update your graphics cards BIOS and drivers.
Overall the bundled software is of good quality. The Afterburner tool is essential in my opinion when overclocking, such is the polished operation of this utility. My one major gripe is that there is no headlining game included with the graphics card. For a component costing near £500, I would have at least expected a good game either via voucher code or hard format to be bundled with the package. Alas I was found wanting on this occasion.
Overclocking and Temperature Analysis
While the MSI GTX580 Lightning Xtreme Edition arrives pre-overclocked from the factory, I wanted to see just how much further the graphics card could be pushed just by using the bundled software.As you can see, the stock settings of the card are 832MHz on the core with an effective 4200MHz memory speed resulting in a shader speed of 1664MHz.
Using MSI’s own Afterburner tool (2.2.0 Beta 4), I maxed out all of the available voltages, Vcore (+200mV), Memory (+100mV) and Aux voltage (+50mV) to give us the freedom to push the graphics card. These voltages can be increased further via the unlocking dipswitches but this should only be done when you intend to use watercooling as a minimum but the dipswitches are primarily aimed towards Xtreme cooling such as LN2 or DICE, as such we will be leaving those well alone today.
the maximum overclock I achieved was an amazing 1022MHz on the core and 4800MHz on the memory. Unfortunately though, stability of the card was sporadic. While 3DMark 11 and Unigines Heaven 2.5 benchmarks passed without issue, Crysis Warhead and Alien Vs. Predator proved difficult to get stable with the card occasionally locking up. It wasn’t until I lowered the card significantly to a more realistic 975/4400Mhz that the card proved rock solid stable, even throughout multiple loops of our benchmark suites.
I have no doubts that with better cooling and sub-zero temperatures, this cards performance could truly be unlocked to higher frequencies than I managed today but sadly, time constraints and available materials meant that I had to settle for the above frequencies. That said, this is clearly the fastest GTX580 we have tested to date by a country mile so MSI are to be applauded for their innovative ideas as they have clearly had a dramatic effect on enhancing the overclocking of the G110 core.
Core temperatures
To measure the temperature of the card we first measure the ambient temperature. Our review station resides in an air conditioned room with the temperature set to a comfortable 23c.
Under idle conditions, the card sat at an astonishingly low 35c. Even when placed under load the card performed extremely well at stock speeds maxing out at a cool 64c. This is a tremendous performance of the MSI GTX580 3GB Lightning and testament to the cooling abilities of the Twin Frozr III cooler assembly.
The same however could not be said for the overclocked state. After dialling in our maximum stable overclock, temperatures rose dramatically with the card now idling 7c higher (42c) at idle and a blistering 92c when placed under extreme load. Clearly the added voltage and increased frequencies have come at a cost and with these kind of temperatures, fan speed and thus noise also increased as we will see on the next page…
Acoustics and Power Consumption
Acoustics
Often overlooked when purchasing a graphics card is the noise that it emits. We all hear (no pun intended) of graphics cards that run like a jet engine which can have a detrimental effect on a gaming session, regardless of the FPS it churns out. It is therefore extremely important that a graphics card should operate as quietly as possible.
To test for this we will be using a sound meter and microphone setup which will be placed 20cm away from the GPU. The test will take place in a quiet (not sound proof) room with the results for the GPU fan at idle and load settings. FurMark will be the utility of choice as it will give you a worst case scenario.
Results
In the cool idle state of the GPU, the sound level of the system was a whisper quiet 51dB with the graphics card being indistinguishable from the test bench cooling fans. Even under load, the MSI GTX580 3GB Lightning performed very well, still remaining at a very quiet 60dB.
This is not the whole story though as with the card in an overclocked state, noise levels increased dramatically and while the card was considerably quieter than the AMD HD6990, the fans still made a noticeable, nay intrusive noise with the system generating up to 67dB.
So while the graphics card in stock form is possibly the quietest graphics card we have tested to date, the card becomes much louder when overclocked and overvolted due to the fans increased rpms to keep huge temperature rises under control.
Power Consumption
For this test, we will be using a wall meter with the test setup plugged in minus the Monitor. Readings were taken at both stock and overclocked conditions each having readings also taken in idle and 100% load (Furmark).
Results
One major improvement over the GTX480 was the GTX580’s ability to decrease power consumption. In my testing I measured the total system consumption to be 226W when in idle state and a healthy 412W when placed under load. Surprisingly, these figures did not increase to astronomical levels when overvolted as the system then only drew 436W when fully overclocked/overvolted. This is a magnificent achievement for MSI and certainly testament to the power regulatory features of the card. In comparison we see that the cards competitor on the same level, the HD6970 consuming more power at both idle and load.
The question I have to ask myself though is does this extra power consumption equate to increased performance. I think it’s time we found out…
Crysis Warhead
Following the success of Crysis, the stand alone expansion “Warhead” was hotly anticipated to bring more game play, more weapons, improved visuals whilst maintaining better performance, the latter being what gamers wanted most. After all how many people upgraded their rigs just to play this game… In the game, you play as the upbeat Brit Sergeant “Psycho” Sykes, chasing down a Korean nuclear warhead. Throw in some ice shooting aliens and we’re bound to have a great game. It sure delivered.
Testing was done using Framebuffer’s Crysis Warhead benchmarking tool. The tests were configured to DirectX 10 at Enthusiast levels. Each test on the Ambush map was looped three times from which the average FPS was recorded.
Far Cry 2
One of the most hyped games of 2008, Far Cry 2 had some big shoes to fill. It was built to be the next best thing since well… Far Cry I suppose. Combining an open-world game play with highly detailed graphics, physics and AI, what more could we possibly want? The game puts us in the body of a malaria inflicted mercenary hunting down the “Jackal” in the heart of Africa, in a bid to stop an on-going conflict between two rival factions. The storyline can be hard to follow sometimes but I’m no game reviewer, so let’s concentrate on the graphics and performance. After all, we all need to know if our hardware will be able to handle the scorching savannah burning at the hands of our flamethrowers.
The bundled benchmarking tool was used on Far Cry 2, configuring the settings to Ultra and DX10. The small ranch level was chosen and each configuration was looped three times from which the average FPS was recorded.
Metro 2033
Based on the novel by the same name, Metro 2033 is a first person shooter with elements of survival horror. As Artyom, you trawl through the mutant infested metro systems of post-apocalyptic Moscow. The game delivers presents a grim ambience that reflects on the overall atmosphere of the underground setting. Metro 2033 uses the setting as a back drop to showcase some of the best visuals of any games out now, making it the ideal benchmark for those looking for the best graphics card.
The bundled benchmarking tool was used on Metro 2033, configuring the settings to Very High and making use of DirectX 11. The frontline scene was looped 3 times for each configuration. The average FPS was recorded at the end.
Alien vs. Predator
Spawned from the popular Alien and Predator franchises, Rebellion have collaborated to bring the legendary war to us through the medium of a first-person shooter. The game forces you to hunt, prey and most importantly survive in the swamp colony of Freya’s prospect as a Predator, Alien or Marine. The stunning visuals add to the sense of dread and terror that we have become so accustomed to seeing with the series.
The stand-alone Alien VS Predator benchmark tool was used for testing here. All the settings were set to very high and Tessellation was applied. The average FPS was recorded at the end.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Battlefield Bad Company 2 is the new rendition of the widely successful Battlefield series of game. Having more in common with the console release of Bad Company, the sequel hopes to inject the DNA of the timeless Battlefield 2 online experience with the witty action packed single player shooting adventure of the original. As Private Preston Marlowe, your goal as a member of Bad Company is to once again save the world by securing a scalar weapon device.Fraps was used to test performance. Each test was conducted at the start of the ‘Cold War’ level ensuring that the same actions and paths were taken during the 2 minute sample. All settings were set to the highest available in game with AF set to 16x and HBAO turned on. The average FPS was recorded by FRAPS at the end of each walk through.
DiRT 3
As players race to elevate their global standing, DiRT 3 is back delivering mud, sweat and gears world over: from the intense weather-beaten rally stages of Europe, Africa and the US, to executing performance driving showcases and career challenges where car control is pushed to spectacular limits.
The in-game benchmarking tool was used to test performance. All the display settings were set to the maximum available and DirectX 11 was applied. The average FPS was recorded at the end.
Mafia II
Following the success of Mafia back in 2002, the third person action adventure game is back with a new grittier and darker world. As Vito Scaletta, an aspiring made man, your job is to work through the twist and turns of Mafia lifestyle. The more blood spilt, the more you get in return but the lifestyle was never meant to be an ideal one. Set in the visually stunning Empire City, the wartime references provide the ever present back drop to a rife period in America’s history, in which potential for exploitation becomes Vito’s key focus.
The in-game benchmarking tool was used to test performance. All the display settings were set to the maximum available in-game. PhsyX was only enabled if specified in the charts. The average FPS was recorded at the end.
TessMark 0.2.2
TessMark 0.2.2 is an OpenGL benchmark and tech demo that uses the new hardware tessellation (or GPU tessellation) features exposed by the OpenGL 4 API. Hardware tessellation makes it possible to divide a polygon into smaller ones (according to the tessellation level factor) in order to increase polygons density: the higher the tessellation level, the higher the polygon density. A high tessellation level requires much GPU processing power.
TessMark was run in fullscreen, benchmark mode using map set 1 and configured to use OpenGL 4.
3DMark 11 & Unigine Heaven 2.5
3DMark 11 is the latest version of the world’s most popular benchmark. Designed to measure your PC’s gaming performance 3DMark 11 makes extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading.
Unigine Heaven 2.5
Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine™ engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.
Conclusion
MSI have pulled out all of the stops to present the nGTX580 Lightning ‘Xtreme Edition’. From the outset, the packaging is excellent, the card is superbly presented and while there was no game bundled, the utility disk has plenty of software the end user may want to make use of. As a package then I have no complaints other than I would have liked to have seen a game included.Aesthetically, the graphics card is certainly eye catching yet understated at the same time. The twin blue fans that dominate the top of the cooler are very attractive but perhaps might limit those looking to theme their setups based on a particular colour scheme which doesn’t afford the gloss royal blue colour of the fans. that said the brushed aluminium frame is very appealing, both to the eye and the touch as when holding the card you can’t help but feel it is a quality piece of craftsmanship.
With the pre-overclocked GPU and additional 1.5GB of GDDR5 I expected the card to perform well and I am happy to report I am far from disappointed. The card is a fantastic example of how GPUs should be made today. This card in particular though is built with one audience in mind, the overclocker.
This product is certainly not for the mainstream user. While the card will certainly appeal to the masses thanks to its pre-overclocked state, it’s the technical innovations that set this card apart from all other offerings. The dual BIOS is a great idea, not only for those wishing to dabble in a little extreme cooling but also for those who may wish to use the extra BIOS as a backup to enable peace of mind when altering the stock BIOS configuration. The additional dip switches will certainly get the extreme overclockers all sweaty palmed as the overclocking overheads these afford are worth their weight in gold eradicating the need for time and occasionally costly volt-mods. After fine tuning the cards voltages, MSI have also kindly included easy to use voltage reading points.
Perhaps the one chink in the Xtreme Editions armour is its inflated price tag. If out and out performance is all you care for, for £500 you could by a GPU that has much higher performance, albeit in dual core format. If however you prefer a single core card that matches the tweakability and gadgetry of Kennedy Space Centre then you really should look no further as the nGTX580 3GB Lightning Xtreme Edition. It is a graphics card that’s screaming out to be pushed to the limit, to break those records and will no doubt reward you with high rankings on HWBOT. For that reason alone, the MSI nGTX580 3GB deserves praise. Deciding which award to grant the MSI GTX580 Lightning ‘Xtreme Edition’ is a difficult task as on the one hand it is an extremely expensive piece of hardware but it is potentially the fastest single core GPU available. Even though I couldn’t get the magical 1000MHz stable on the core, with extreme cooling I have no doubt this card could attain that clockspeed and then some. Couple this with the extensive features this card has, there is no more fitting award than our prestigious Vortez Gold Award.
Thanks to MSI for providing the nGTX580 3GB Lightning ‘Xtreme Edition’ for today’s review.
