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MSI R7970 Lightning Graphics Card Review (Twin Frozr IV)

Allan 'Zardon' Campbell March 19, 2012 Featured Announcement, Graphics

To test today we are using our long standing Core i7 970 system, which is overclocked. We have a variety of hardware benchmarked on this system within the last couple of months which will make for an interesting market comparison.

Main Test System:
Processor: Core i7 970 @ 4.6ghz
Graphics: MSI R7970 Lightning
Cooling: Coolit Vantage
Motherboard: MSI X58A-GD65
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10 GT
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Memory: 6GB ADATA @ 2133mhz 9-10-9-32
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB Gen 2 SSD (Storage) / Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (OS boot)

Comparison Cards:
HD7970
HD7950
HD7870
HD7850
HD6990 (880 core)
HD6970
HD6950
HD6870
Sapphire HD7770 1GHZ OC Edition
XFX HD7770 Black Edition S CFx
HD7770 CFx
HD7770
Sapphire HD7750 Ultimate Edition
HD6790
HD6770
HD6670
GTX590 SLi
GTX590
GTX580 SLi
GTX580
GTX570

Monitors: Dell U3011

Software:
Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark

Games:
HomeFront
Alien V Predator
Dead Island
Tom Clancy HAWX 2
Resident Evil 5
Far Cry 2
F1 2011
Total War: Shogun 2

All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.

Some game descriptions are edited from Wikipedia.

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15 comments

  1. Joe
    March 19, 2012 at 11:56 am

    Lovely, very nice, and yet again very expensive……… we can only dream!

  2. Muppett
    March 19, 2012 at 12:23 pm

    Wow… so thats £500 for a card with no copper used as a cooling material, and Aluminum used instead,
    thats a less ductile material = an inferior cooling solution, using a cheapr material for more money…

    MSI really know how to impress – or charge more for using cheaper materials!!!

  3. Benjamin
    March 19, 2012 at 12:29 pm

    Good point from muppett, copper might have improved on the results by 1-2 c more.

    however, the end result is great as the testing shows.

  4. neliz
    March 20, 2012 at 1:08 pm

    @muppet:

    Actually the Cooler material is copper, but it’s nickel coated, so it doesn’t corrode (very, VERY easy with copper)
    Only the fin array is made of Aluminium

  5. Progeny
    May 10, 2012 at 12:46 am

    I take it 12.3 drivers were used for this test and the other custom 7970’s?

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