Introduction

Last month, NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 770 launched with great success. Based on the same GK104 GPU as the GTX 680, we've seen the card provide high-quality gaming at reasonable pricing. The biggest changes are the inclusion of Boost 2.0 and faster memory chips, which certainly helps with performance.



MSI has sent us their GTX 770 Lightning. It bears a striking resemblance to their GTX 680 Lightning we reviewed almost exactly one year ago.

The MSI GTX 770 Lightning comes overclocked out of the box, with the GPU at 1150 MHz and memory at 1753 MHz. The card includes many overclocker-friendly features, like software voltage control, voltage measurement points, a dual BIOS for LN2 support, the MSI GPU Reactor, and a large cooling solution.

MSI's GTX 770 Lightning is available online for $449. That is a $50 increase over the NVIDIA reference design.

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 card's top edge. Make sure it fits into your case before purchasing the card. It is 14 cm high and 29 cm long.


The card uses a dual-slot cooler. The plastic dome of the GPU reactor on the back of the card increases its height on the side pointing towards the CPU cooler, but it should fit most motherboards without any problems.


Display connectivity options include two DVI ports, one HDMI port, and one DisplayPort. You may use all outputs at the same time, so triple-monitor surround gaming is possible with one card.

The GPU also includes an HDMI sound device. It is HDMI 1.4a compatible, which includes HD audio and Blu-ray 3D movies support.


Two SLI connectors are available, allowing you to combine up to four GTX 770 cards in a Quad-SLI, multi-GPU configuration.


Pictured above are 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.