MSI N680GTX Lightning
EDITOR’S CHOICE
AWARD
RRP: $499.99 | Website: www.msi.com
Test Machine
Intel Core i7 3770K
ASRock Z77 OC-Formula (Bios
1.60)
Corsair Dominator Platinum
2,666MHz CL10
CoolerMaster 1.5KW PSU
Windows7 64-Bit/ XP
W
e’ll say it and keep
saying it until we are
collectively blue in
the face. The measure of any
brand or vendor’s products
isn’t in the one offs they make,
but the consistency of their
products at retail level. This is
in line, with the Lightning range
of graphics cards from MSI.
For years, we have had MSI
produce the best in class of any
one graphics card; especially
the NVIDIA GPU based ones.
This time with the GTX680
it’s no different. You may be
12 The OverClocker Issue 22 | 2012
thinking that it’s very late to be
reviewing this graphics card
and you’d be right. However,
consider the landscape that
we now have when it comes to
the GTX680. We won’t go into
the overclocking governing
policies as we’ve exhausted that
conversation. It hasn’t changed
and is unlikely to change in
the foreseeable future. With
that said, your best chances
of overclocking the GTX 680
using LN2 still remain with the
Lightning.
MSI may not have the GTX680
world records, but that’s
academic at this point. The truth
is for any one person looking
to overclock their GTX680
using LN2 or even dry ice, this
is your best bet. MSI has not
cut corners in their design and
what we liked about previous
generation Lightning cards
has been brought forward with
refinement in the NGTX680
Lightning.
In case some of you missed it
by some miracle, you’re looking
at a fully custom PCB that
allows up to 200% power draw
over the standard model. Solid
capacitors all around, copper
MOS, voltage check points,
complete software control
over vGPU, PLL, Auxiliary and
DRAM voltage. If you need it
for overclocking it’s there. MSI
as always, making it as easy or
rather as simple as possible to
get into extreme overclocking
as possible.
You’ll get the dual BIOS
switch as well as you’d expect,
but we would recommend you
track down one of the older
BIOS versions which remained
unlocked and would allow you
to overclock this graphics card
as it was meant to be. With the
card we received, it had one
of the new BIOS revisions
which had some controls
in place which effectively
rendered the card unusable
for extreme overclocking.
Alas, it was nothing a BIOS
flash couldn’t fix.
For those who are not as
adventurous, you’ll still find
heaps of performance with
air cooling with the GTX680
Lightning; mind you though