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Today we are checking out one of the most, if not the most, impressive ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics card available. Designed from the ground up by MSI, their custom built Radeon HD 5870 is known as the R5870 Lightning, which is labeled under their military class products as it is designed to kick some serious arse...
Since the introduction of the ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics card series on September 23rd 2009 we have not seen many custom designed products, with most just following the AMD reference design. However on the 25th of February 2010 the most exciting Radeon HD 5870 graphics yet was announced by an unlikely source in MSI.
 MSI clearly wanted to make a statement with the R5870 Lightning, giving it an oversized custom PCB design which has been re-worked from the ground up with upgraded components. Other improvements include the 15 Phase PWM design, dual 8-pin external power connectors for better overclocking, along with V-Check points that allow for accurate GPU and Memory voltage measurements on the fly. Despite all this, MSI has managed to throw a few other upgrades at the R5870 Lightning, most important of which is the upgraded Twin Frozr II cooler featuring dual ultra quiet 8cm fans along with dual 8mm tick heatpipes. Combine all this with the MSI AfterBurner software and we have a Radeon HD 5870 graphics card that can achieve some very serious overclocking results. Of course all these upgrades come at a price and right now that appears to be a rather steep price. As it stands the typical price for a standard Radeon HD 5870 is around $420 US, and even at this price HIS and Gigabyte offer examples that do feature upgraded cooling solutions. The MSI R5870 Lightning on the other hand retails for a cool $499 US, making it 19% more expensive. So then the question is can this highly overclockable R5870 Lightning graphics card provide nearly 20% more performance when compared to a standard Radeon HD 5870? I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that it cannot. However another interesting comparison will be between the overclocked R5870 Lightning and the new GeForce GTX 480, which also retails for $499 US. |
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Dan Posts: 2 Joined: 2010-04-18 |
Posted on: 04/19/2010 05:35 PM
A link is provided here to purchase this card, however, for a quick price comparison I went to Newegg [I know they do not always have the lowest prices]. HD 5870 $400, Lightning $480, GTX 480 $500. As for watts used under load by the overclocked Lightning, all I can say is HOLY POWER BAT MAN!! For me, one of the detractors against the GTX 480 is power draw. While the overclocked Lightning draws much less at idle [172 watts total - very good] than the GTX 480, under load the power needed by the overclocked Lightning is astonishing. Those were some of my thoughts concerning the Lightning. Very good overclock by the way. Any idea when the HD 6870 [or whatever it will be called] will be out? With the economy sinking and not much pressure from Nvidea I suspect as late as 1Q 2011, which is an eternaty for a new GPU, a year and a half for ATI. Regarding the next generation of video cards, if Nvidea gets their act together and makes money for the next 9 months and finds a way to soundly defeat the HD 5xxx they may have a next generation GPU about the same time ATI does, which would be interesting. Again, a very good review and an outstanding overclock on the Lightning. |
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Oldie |
Posted on: 04/15/2010 08:51 PM
Stick that Thermalright Spitfire heatsink on this thing and see how it overclocks then  |
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Steven Walton Posts: 104 Joined: 2010-02-08 |
Posted on: 04/16/2010 11:11 AM
Posted by DM on 04/09/2010 04:59 PM
ProX is right nothing needs to be redone. Posted by Brutalis on 04/09/2010 02:53 PM
Brutalis I have no idea about photography, I wish I could get someone to take the photos for me I hate doing it. I do not use a tripod but you are right I should. Also I use a basic compact camera and cannot change lenses. I will look into something more advanced but really I wouldn’t do it justice. |
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Brutalis |
Posted on: 04/18/2010 08:31 PM
"Brutalis I have no idea about photography, I wish I could get someone to take the photos for me I hate doing it. I do not use a tripod but you are right I should. Also I use a basic compact camera and cannot change lenses. I will look into something more advanced but really I wouldn’t do it justice." No, you don't need a huge DSLR, most pocket cameras would do just fine, if used right. Use the landscape mode (yeah, sounds strange, but don't let the name confuse you, it's multi-purpose :P), a tripod, force the lowest ISO and you're basically there. Sorry if off-topic comments are not that welcomed. I just love giving photographic advice  |
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ProX |
Posted on: 04/08/2010 11:49 AM
Nice review. That thing is impressive but a tad too expensive I feel. |
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bazz |
Posted on: 04/08/2010 10:11 PM
That is a mighty impressive graphics card that challenges the GeForce GTX 480 well. Great review keep them coming! |
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Horribleron Posts: 13 Joined: 2010-03-26 |
Posted on: 04/09/2010 01:48 AM
I've been running a MSI R4870 MD1G card for nearly a year now which has been a great 4870 product. With this review MSI has furthered my respect as a quality video card maker even more. |
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ffox |
Posted on: 04/09/2010 11:01 AM
wow that thing is lightning fast, yeah I said it  nice card I wonder what two would be like? Ahh to dream! |
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Brutalis |
Posted on: 04/09/2010 01:53 PM
After reading this review I now feel compelled to sell one of my kidneys in order to buy the MSI Lightning, and the other one just to afford a new high-end power supply, so that I can give the card a massive overclock and see who dies first - me or it :P Thanks for just killing me, Steve! Jokes aside I have a suggestion about the photos used in your reviews. Being an amateur photographer I know that DOF (Depth Of Field) is a generally desirable effect, but sadly it's not always welcomed. If a tripod is used (and it should, given that the video card is a completely static object), one could stop down the lens to say f8-f9 in order to eliminate the DOF and get a nice evenly sharp image of the board. I just feel that would suit the technical nature of the articles a bit more. Keep up the hard work, mate! Cheers! |
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DM |
Posted on: 04/09/2010 03:59 PM
You need to redo the power ratings, IN GAME, Furmark isn't an accurate benchmark, somehow it puts voltage regs under their full load while the gpu doesn't do any extra work. This caused the 4870 to crash and ALL cards, the 480gtx included, to give riduculous results. Stability testing, it isn't even good for that as you could be unstable in furmark(like the 4870) and never once crash in any game at max load ever. The problem is, the lightnings gone overboard on the voltage regs just so you definately aren't limited. THat doesn't mean you'll actually use that full power in gaming, its just that to eliminate a bottleneck when overclocking. Testing in a real game I would wager would bring the lightnings power usage down to 10-15% above the 5870, massively below the 480gtx, but all cards would register a lower number by probably a vaguely similar amount. So the question is, in any real gaming situation does the Lightning edition really use insanely more power than a standard 5870, or ONLY in furmark, again I'd suggest only the later. Considering so many stock 5870's can overclock pretty close to 1000Mhz anyway, why would you buy a card that uses that much more power to do so. |
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ProX |
Posted on: 04/09/2010 09:49 PM
@ DM ... I don't understand your point. Why would the Radeon HD 5870 consume far less in gaming applications and not the GeForce GTX 480? That makes no sense to me, this is an apples to apples test given they were tested under the same conditions. Furthermore I seriously doubt with a 17% core overclock and a massive voltage hike that the Lightning is only going to use 10-15% more than a standard Radeon HD 5870. I think you will find the percentages will scale much like they did in the review. |