Thread: MSI R5870 Lightning analyze

Factory overclocked graphics cards look too good to be true. You acquire raised performance plus the producers warranty. XFX’s Radeon HD 5870 XXX was the first factory-Rec'd edition of that GPU we analyzed that card advertised core clocks to 875MHz and memory to 1,300MHz Now MSI is leaping into the game and unlike XFX figures a tradition cooler onto its 1GB R5870 Lightning.

If you are unsure of the size adjustment ends MSI R5870 a glance it tells you that this is not your typical reference card. The custom cooler uses two fans instead of one, and the heat sink is a solid block of metal that runs along the map and has many heat pipes.

The PCB is likewise anyone but stock and covers around 3/4 of an inch bigger than another Radeon HD 5870 cards. Stock Radeon HD 5870 cards run off an 8-pin and 6-pin power connector. The R5870 characteristics confirm for two 8-pin connectors for immoderate overclocking.

Out of the box, the card is clocked higher than the XFX card. But while interesting MSI pushes the base frequency at 900MHz it leaves the memory clock on the stock 1200 MHz. The company also ships its overclocking tool Afterburner with the card, which gives a little more control of clock speeds and voltage based on the standard tool Overdrive, AMD delivers its Catalyst Control Panel.

In practice, however, were not able to juice clock speeds beyond the base of 900 MHz and memory clock is even more capricious. Maybe we just received a card with a GPU and memory configuration can not handle much higher. And yes, we have two 8 pin connectors on the card for extreme overclocking. Or maybe the card just needs a little more than burn-in.