MSI Radeon HD 7970 R7970 Lightning 3GB GDDR5 PCIe

Overview

The MSI Radeon HD 7970 R7970 Lightning has a dual DL-DVI connector, a single HDMI 1.4a port and two mini-DisplayPort 1.2 sockets. It can support a max resolution of 2560x1600 on up to three monitors. With a multi-stream hub using the mini-DisplayPort 1.2 sockets, the card can power up to six screens.

TechSpot Metascore

Based on 4 expert reviews

Excellent:

2
Good:

2
Average:

0
Bad:

0

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Last revision on February 14, 2014

Reviewers Liked

Large performance increase
Overclocked out of the box
Lots of additional OC headroom left
Four miniDisplayPort outputs
Quiet in idle
Software voltage control & monitoring
Easy access to voltage monitoring points
Dual BIOS
Support for PCIExpress 3

Reviewers Didn't Like

No support for Duallink DVI
Very noisy fan in 3D
Huge power consumption
High price
GPU reactor eats into upper slot space

Expert reviews and ratings

Since the inception of the MSI Lightning brand it's been a favourite with enthusiasts. Higher frequencies, better cooling and best-in-class power delivery, what's not to like?This is the best performance AMD card on the market. The Lightning...

By APC Magazine on July 26, 2012

MSI's Radeon HD 7970 Lightning is a beautfully engineered custom implementation of the AMD HD 7970. It shows what can be achieved when focusing on pure performance and overclocking potential. Thanks to the increased clock speeds out of the box the...

By techPowerUp! on April 25, 2012

In the last month AMD’s partners have been unveiling their custom cooled graphics cards and we have already reviewed the latest Dual X HD7970 Overclock Edition from Sapphire and the HD7970 X Edition from VTX3D. Today we are looking at MSI’s...

By Kitguru.net on March 19, 2012

100

Let's cut straight to the point, the MSI 7970 Lightning takes AMD's high end GPU to a whole new level. We have seen custom design versions before but MSI have reengineered the product from the ground up and in almost every area have made...

By HardwareHeaven on March 16, 2012

First let's get the bad news out of the way.By not including a DualLink DVI port MSI have abandoned those who use a large monitor. We would be happy to overlook this if an included Active DVI-Displayport adapter was included in the package but sadly...

By Vortez on February 18, 2013

The AMD Radeon HD 7000 adventure started last year with the Tahiti chip. With 4.3 billion transistors it is the largest, most complex and fastest out of the three Southern Islands GPUs that AMD has released the last few months. Tahiti contains 32...

By uk.hardware.info on July 01, 2012

With the arrival of a new high-end GPU, hardware enthusiasts immediately look forward to a MSI Lightning graphics card based on the new chip. That card, the R7970 Lightning, has been on the market for a couple of months now. Last week the manufacturer...

By uk.hardware.info on May 08, 2012

The HD 7970 may be having a hard time standing out against a GTX 680 card that has it outgunned and out priced but this architecture still has plenty of life left in it. Regardless of the adversity placed in their paths, AMD’s board partners have...

By Hardware Canucks on April 11, 2012

The MSI R7970 Lighting is a well designed video card that is faster than any other Radeon HD 7970 out of the box and it still has a ton of overclocking headroom left in it!...

By Legit Reviews on March 30, 2012

Final Words & Conclusion MSI designed a terrific card with the new Lightning. If you want something really special, look no further. It has it all, the looks, the very nice factory overclock, the (relatively) low power consumption, downright...

By Guru of 3D on March 30, 2012

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