MSI launches R5870 Lightning

MSI R5870 Lightning have been going back and forth and the card that is probably the most extreme single Cypress card have been in the news for long without launching, most likely due to AMD’s unwillingness to release too extreme flavors of its high-end offerings. Today is the day we can stop being angry with AMD and following the launch of HD 5830 we now have something much more interesting; MSI R5870 Lightning, a completely and honestly extreme graphics card based on Radeon HD 5870, Cypress.

The card is by itself huge and the odd shape may be astonishing enough, as MSI has chosen to extend the PCB on the top to make room for all 15 power phases (13+2, GPU+VRAM) and make sure it fits inside most cases. The power enters through two 8-pin PCI-E connectors to meet the demands of the card during some extreme overclocking.

Like previous Lightning cards from MSI this one uses “Military Class Components”, and extra durable capacitors and coils, partly for maximal life expectancy but also best possible overclocking.

We will be taking a closer look at the card during CeBIT, and make sure to polish the nitrogen pot while waiting for the sample MSI will ship any day now.