discussion MSI GeForce GTX 580 Lightning Review

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Just Cause 2 (DX10)

Just Cause 2 (DX10)

Just Cause 2 has quickly become known as one of the best-looking games on the market and while it doesn’t include DX11 support, it uses the full stable of DX10 features to deliver a truly awe-inspiring visual experience. For this benchmark we used the car chase scene directly following the Casino Assault level. This scene includes perfectly scripted events, some of the most GPU-strenuous effects and lasts a little less than four minutes. We chose to not use the in-game benchmarking tool due to its inaccuracy when it comes to depicting actual gameplay performance.


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Lost Planet 2 (DX11)

Lost Planet 2 (DX11)

Lost Planet is a game that was originally released on consoles but in its port over to the PC, it gained some highly impressive DX11 features. For this benchmark, we forgo the two built-in tools and instead use a 2 minute gameplay sequence from the second level in the first chapter. The reason we use this level is because it makes use of three elements that are seen throughout the game world: jungles, water and open terrain.


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Metro 2033 (DX11)

Metro 2033 (DX11)

There has been a lot of buzz about Metro 2033 which has mostly centered on its amazing graphics coupled with absolutely brutal framerates on even the best GPUs on the market. For this test we use a walkthrough and combat scene from The Bridge level which starts at the beginning of the level and lasts for about 3 minutes of walking, running and combat. Famerates are measured with FRAPS and Advanced PhysX is turned off.


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Unigine: Heaven v2.0 (DX11)

Unigine: Heaven v2.0 (DX11)

Unigine’s Heaven benchmark is currently the de-facto standard when it comes to simple, straightforward DX11 performance estimates. While it is considered a synthetic benchmark by many, it is important to remember that no less than four games based on this engine will be released within the next year or so. In this test we will be using a standard benchmark run with and without tessellation enabled at three resolutions,


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8xMSAA Testing

8xMSAA Testing

In this section we take a number of games we have tested previously in this review and bring things to the next level by pushing the in-game MSAA up to 8x. All other methodologies remain the same.

BattleField: Bad Company 2 (DX11)
Note that 8x MSAA is enabled via the game’s config file for the NVIDIA cards since it is not a selectable option within the game menu

Dirt 2 (DX11)

F1 2010 (DX11)

Just Cause 2 (DX10)

 

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Temperatures & Acoustics / Power Consumption

Temperature Analysis

For all temperature testing, the cards were placed on an open test bench with a single 120mm 1200RPM fan placed ~8” away from the heatsink. The ambient temperature was kept at a constant 22°C (+/- 0.5°C). If the ambient temperatures rose above 23°C at any time throughout the test, all benchmarking was stopped. For this test we use the 3DMark Batch Size test at it highest triangle count with 4xAA and 16xAF enabled and looped it for one hour to determine the peak load temperature as measured by GPU-Z.

For Idle tests, we let the system idle at the Windows 7 desktop for 15 minutes and recorded the peak temperature.

We have seen MSI’s Twin Frozr heatsink design work miracles on even the hottest running cores and it seems to have done it yet again. The temperature reduction over the reference heatsink is nothing short of incredible.

Acoustical Testing

Yes, we have finally added decibel testing to our repertoire and this section will expand in future reviews. What you see below are the baseline idle dB(A) results attained for a relatively quiet open-case system (specs are in the Methodology section) sans GPU along with the attained results for each individual card in idle and load scenarios. The meter we use has been calibrated and is placed at seated ear-level exactly 12” away from the GPU’s fan. For the load scenarios, a loop of Unigine Heave 2.5 is used in order to generate a constant load on the GPU(s) over the course of 20 minutes.

With such low temperatures, many would automatically think that noise would become a problem but that didn’t happen here. The reference GTX 580 is already a quiet card but the Lightning takes things to the next level and we highly doubt that it will be heard over most case fans. Honestly, this combination of acoustics and low temperatures is hardly ever seen on higher end cards.

System Power Consumption

For this test we hooked up our power supply to a UPM power meter that will log the power consumption of the whole system twice every second. In order to stress the GPU as much as possible we once again use the Batch Render test in 3DMark06 and let it run for 30 minutes to determine the peak power consumption while letting the card sit at a stable Windows desktop for 30 minutes to determine the peak idle power consumption. We have also included several other tests as well.

Please note that after extensive testing, we have found that simply plugging in a power meter to a wall outlet or UPS will NOT give you accurate power consumption numbers due to slight changes in the input voltage. Thus we use a Tripp-Lite 1800W line conditioner between the 120V outlet and the power meter.

As we have seen in the past, when heat is reduced power consumption tends to tumble. This goes doubly for the Lightning since even with its higher clock speeds and increased voltages, the low temperatures bring power consumption down below the levels of the reference card.

 

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Overclocking Results

Overclocking Results

Most cards we have come across in the past are generally a pain to overclock past a certain point but the Lightning was an absolute joy to work with. By using MSI’s AfterBurner utility we were able to increase the voltage of the GPU’s core and memory to eke even more out of it.

Below are the final results we achieved in a limited timeframe but we’re sure that a bit more can be squeezed out of this card if anyone is patient enough to tweak things a bit further.

All results were achieved with voltages of 1.23V on the GPU and an additional 40mV on the GDDR5 memory. Naturally, these increases led to a spike in heat production so the fans were increased to 75% in order to compensate.

Core Clock: 1004Mhz
Engine Clock: 2008Mhz
Memory Clock: 4544Mhz (QDR)

 

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Conclusion

Conclusion

The reference GTX 580 is undeniably a tough act to improve upon. With it, NVIDIA was able to curb the rampant power consumption, noise and heat production which defined its predecessor while significantly increasing overall performance. In our opinion, improving upon near perfection isn’t easy so MSI had a huge mountain to climb in order to meet our expectations for the GTX 580 Lightning. Believe it or not, they met those expectations and even surpassed them in some areas.

The Lightning is one hell of a card and our affection for it starts with the Twin Frozr III heatsink. This thing not only cools down the GF110 core like no one’s business but it also does so while exhibiting a truly minimalist acoustical profile. We saw a reduction of nearly 20 degrees and more than eight decibels over the reference version which makes this one of the quietest high performance cards currently available.

Decreased temperatures also impact upon power consumption numbers since cooler running transistors end up being slightly more efficient. To this end, the pre-overclocked Lightning was able to leverage its excellent temperatures and high end component selection to consume less power than a GTX 580 reference card.

Regardless of the noise and power consumption numbers, this is a $525 card what people likely care most about is performance. Granted, the Lightning isn’t the highest clocked GTX 580 on the market but MSI has pushed its memory and core to levels which do pay dividends within games. In most scenarios users likely won’t see too much of a difference but when image quality settings are cranked, the overclock this card comes with could be the difference between playable and unplayable framerates.

As has probably evident from the starting of this review, MSI builds their Lightning cards from the ground up for overclocking. In this respect, their GTX 580 version delivered in spades. By using MSI’s excellent AfterBurner with its triple overvoltage capability, hitting absolute core stability just north of 1Ghz wasn’t an issue and the memory speeds came along for the ride as well. Seeing an overclocked Lightning effectively bridging the gap between the GTX 580 and current dual GPU solutions was impressive to say the least.

In our opinion, the MSI GTX 580 Lightning is currently one of the best graphics cards we have come across in the last year. It offers a wealth of features which are headlined by awe inspiriting cooling performance, good in-game framerate increases and overclocking abilities to drool over while retailing for a mere $25 more than a reference GTX 580. That’s a recipe for success no matter which way you look at things.

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