We thought MSI's N275GTX Twin Frozr OC had already raised the bar for custom NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 GPUs, but apparently there's still room for more.
Enter the MSI N275GTX Lightning, the successor to the N260GTX Lightning and MSI's quickest GeForce GTX 275 to date.
The impressive-looking card touts military-class components, a 10-phase PWM and a cooling solution comprising of the dual-fan Twin Frozr II and SuperPipe technology.
All that combines for blazing out-the-box frequencies. MSI has seen fit to push the GPU from 633MHz to 700MHz, and the card's 1,792MB of GDDR3 memory operates at 2,300MHz. Despite the souped-up figures, MSI claims the card will run 23 per cent cooler than a reference design.
Sounds like it'll cost a small fortune, but surprisingly not. MSI tells us the N275GTX Lightning will be available at the end of the month priced at around £209. That's cheaper than the slower 896MB N275GTX Twin Frozr OC, did we miss something? We're hoping to get clarification on that suggested retail price, in the meantime, here's MSI's blurb on why this is the card for you:
Military Class Components
MSI N275GTX Lightning adopts Military Class components, including Hi-c CAP, SSC (Solid State Choke), and All Solid CAP. These components are all made of top quality materials and meet the temperature requirement of US Department of Defense. The core of the Hi-c CAP is made from a rare metal, Tantalum, which has extremely high stability like platinum ,and Hi-c CAP is widely used on NASA satellites and space shuttles in extremely bad environment. MSI N275GTX Lightning uses a lot of Hi-c CAP to provide the most stable GPU power supply and extend the lifespan of the components.
SSC (Solid State Choke)
adopts brand new form-in-one chokes and uses no separated parts inside the chokes. Under heavy loading condition, SSC will not produce any high-frequency vibration buzz noise like traditional chokes. MSI N275GTX Lightning applies complete SSC design and guarantees no buzz noise under 100% full load. Military Class solid capacitors are also used on MSI N275GTX Lightning. Under full load operation and high temperature condition, the lifespan of the solid capacitors can still easily last for10 years. In the meantime, the ESR (Equivalent series resistance) value is two times lower than traditional capacitors and allows Military Class solid capacitors achieving lower operating temperature and higher power efficiency.
Twin Frozr II thermal design
Twin Frozr thermal design is a dual fan cooling system designed by MSI exclusively and has won numerous awards around the world. In order to increase cooling efficiency and overclocking capability, the second generation “Twin Frozr II” is introduced on N275GTX Lightning. Twin Frozr II is equipped with two 8cm large size fans, 5 heatpipes, and high density fins to effectively dissipate high heat from GPU, memory, and power module area.
SuperPipe
The key factor to effectively transfer heat is determined by the size of heatpipe. Therefore, MSI adopts SuperPipe technology to Twin Frozr II, the thickest 8mm heatpipe in the industry, and the cooling efficiency is 90% better than traditional heatpipe. The dual 8cm fans of Twin Frozr II are also bigger than last generation. Larger fan only needs low rotation speed to perform good cooling result, therefore noise is also reduced at the same time. Even Twin Frozr II is under full-speed operation, the generated noise is only 30db. Under all circumstances, the noise generated by fans is barely audible at anytime. Dual 8cm large fans, 8mm Superpipe, and high density fins provide Twin Frozr II has excellent cooling ability. Compare with the NVIDIA reference thermal design , Twin Frozr II is 23°C cooler. Because of this remarkable cooling ability, MSI N275GTX Lightning can be easily overclocked to nearly 800MHz with Twin Frozr II stock cooler.
10 Phases PWM with APS
Different manufacture process has made GPU consumes more power than CPU, especially when overclocking the GPU. Without outstanding PWM module, overclocking potential of GPU will be limited by insufficient power output. By seeing this, MSI has made some improvements in last generation design and applied new 10 phases PWM design to MSI N275GTX Lightning. Now GPU power is 100% provided by two external powers and has substantially increased power stability, and overclocking performance. MSI exclusively implemented APS (Active Phase Switching) into N275GTX Lightning. APS can automatically adjust power phases according to its loading and shut down unused 7 phases when the system is in idle mode. Besides power saving, power efficiency can be increased up to 93%. Green, blue, and red LED lights are on the back of MSI N275GTX Lightning to indicate low, medium, and high loading status. Users can easily monitor power loading through the LED lights.
Overclocking Features
In the MOA (Master Overclocking Arena) competition hosted by MSI last year, all contestants suggested MSI to implement a convenient tool, V-Check Points. Overclockers have to monitor graphics card’s voltage all the time. They have to search for contact points in complex circuit that can check GPU and memory’s voltage. On Lightning series, two sets of V-Check Points have been implemented. The voltage of GPU and memory can be measured easily through the multimeter, and the additional voltage measurement cable is also bundled in MSI N275GTX Lightning to provide better user experience.
