Introduction
NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 680 was introduced earlier this year has taken the enthusiast market by storm. It offers great performance at significantly reduced power consumption. NVIDIA's dynamic overclocking algorithm works well and provides a nice speed boost for the card.
MSI's GTX 680 Lightning continue the heritage of Lightning card from the company, offering maxxed out graphics cards targeted at overclocker and enthusiasts.
The GPU clock is up to 1111 MHz base clock, reaching up to 1200 MHz with clock boost. Price-wise MSI's card comes at around $570.
GeForce GTX 680 Market Segment Analysis | Radeon HD 7870 | GeForce GTX 580 | Radeon HD 7950 | GeForce GTX 670 | Radeon HD 7970 | GeForce GTX 680 | MSI GTX 680 Lightning | Radeon HD 6990 | GeForce GTX 590 | GeForce GTX 690 | |
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Shader Units | 1280 | 512 | 1792 | 1344 | 2048 | 1536 | 1536 | 2x 1536 | 2x 512 | 2x 1536 | |
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ROPs | 32 | 48 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 2x 32 | 2x 48 | 2x 32 | |
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Graphics Processor | Pitcairn | GF110 | Tahiti | GK104 | Tahiti | GK104 | GK104 | 2x Cayman | 2x GF110 | 2x GK104 | |
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Transistors | 2800M | 3000M | 4310M | 3500M | 4310M | 3500M | 3500M | 2x 2640M | 2x 3000M | 2x 3500M | |
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Memory Size | 2048 MB | 1536 MB | 3072 MB | 2048 MB | 3072 MB | 2048 MB | 2048 MB | 2x 2048 MB | 2x 1536 MB | 2x 2048 MB | |
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Memory Bus Width | 256 bit | 384 bit | 384 bit | 256 bit | 384 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit | 2x 256 bit | 2x 384 bit | 2x 256 bit | |
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Core Clock | 1000 MHz | 772 MHz | 800 MHz | 915 MHz+ | 925 MHz | 1006 MHz+ | 1111 MHz+ | 830 MHz | 607 MHz | 915 MHz+ | |
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Memory Clock | 1200 MHz | 1002 MHz | 1250 MHz | 1502 MHz | 1375 MHz | 1502 MHz | 1502 MHz | 1250 MHz | 855 MHz | 1502 MHz | |
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Price | $330 | $380 | $380 | $400 | $450 | $500 | $580 | $700 | $750 | $999 | |
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Packaging
Contents
You will receive:
- Graphics card
- Driver CD + Documentation
- 2x PCI-E power cable
- Long SLI bridge
- 3x Voltage measurement cable
- DVI Adapter
The Card
MSI's card uses a huge heatsink that extends far beyond the top edge of the card. Before purchase, make sure it fits your case. As mentioned before, in the HD 7970 Lightning review, I really like the yellow highlight, which adds to the card, visually.
The card is using a dual slot cooler. The plastic dome of the GPU reactor on the back of the card increases its height toward the CPU cooler side, but it should fit most motherboards without problems. We had no problems with installation on our compact mATX motherboard.
Display connectivity options include two dual-link DVI ports, one full-size HDMI port and one full-size DisplayPort. You may use all the outputs at the same time, thanks to NVIDIA Kepler's new display output controller.
An HDMI sound device is included in the GPU, too. It is HDMI 1.4a compatible which includes HD audio and support for Blu-ray 3D movies. The DisplayPort outputs are version 1.2 which enables the use of hubs and Multi-Stream transport.
You may combine up to four GTX 680 cards from any vendor in a multi-GPU SLI configuration for higher framerates or better image quality settings.
Pictured above are photos of the front and back, showing the disassembled board. High-res versions are also available (
front,
back). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc., please include a link back to this site or let us post your article.