MSI GTX 680 Lightning Video Card Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2013-05-07
·
1,694 words · ~8 min read
0:07
welcome to my unboxing and first look at pretty much the baller GTX 680 out there
0:12
at this point in time this is the MSI lightning edition featuring unlocked
0:16
digital power yes uh threeyear warranty as well but yes lightning edition cards
0:22
have triple over voltage which means that unlike regular Kepler video cards
0:27
that is to say everyone's Kepler video cards except MSI power edition cards
0:32
lightning edition cards or any cards that feature their triple over voltage
0:35
technology uh wait so the other ones cannot overvolt the GPU cannot so your
0:41
overclocking will always be limited MSI has unlocked that capability allowing
0:47
you to like break world records and more importantly than Breaking World Records
0:51
just actually get all the performance that you can get out of your video card
0:55
so you this one's got oh yeah GPU reactor as well which is more for
0:58
subzero overclocking but I'll show you guys that after unlocked BIOS to remove
1:03
all protections including active phase switching uh over current protection and
1:08
thermal design power restrictions bam
1:11
remove it all enhan power design giving you two times the power output 12 phase
1:16
pwm design independent memory power and lightning power layer whatever that
1:20
means but it's probably an additional layer to the PCB or something for cleaner signaling digital pwm controller
1:26
for more precise voltage control etc etc most of the other cards don't even need
1:30
this stuff because you can't overvolt them anyway 3x3 OC kit so with v
1:34
checkpoints so you can manually check voltages with a multimeter triple over
1:37
voltage and triple temp monitor so you can monitor the GPU the memory and the
1:40
vrm with afterburner afterburner by the way is my favorite video card
1:44
overclocking software Bar None it's just the best um okay all military class
1:49
three components you got your copper Moss High SE caps golden solid state
1:53
chokes and dark solid caps I mean I think that's a bit of a you know okay
1:57
okay you don't need you know a gold layer on your solid state chok but looks
2:03
baller so whatever dust removal Technologies included with the twin twin
2:06
frozer 4 cooler it's got super pipes dual 10 cm pwm fans high density fins
2:11
which are good and bad it depends uh dual form in one heat sinks you know
2:15
what let's go ahead and get this baby opened up this is uh this is a card that
2:20
I've been very excited to have a look at here so in terms of accessories you got
2:26
waa a bunch of stuff um okay so you got a couple six pin to 8
2:31
Pin PCIe power connectors you got your V checkpoint cables so you can adapt those
2:36
out to something that's compatible with your multimeter got VGA or DVI to VGA
2:40
adapter but get rid of that long flexible black SLI Bridge the very best
2:45
kind as well as a certificate of working
2:49
quality and stability uh quick users guide drivers that you should throw away
2:52
and download the latest from the NVIDIA website
2:56
and the beastly card itself so let's
3:00
just uh put this back together no that okay I don't need
3:04
that uh yeah yeah don't worry I'm going to do that for sure okay Slick's just
3:09
gesturing to me mostly obscene gestures
3:13
but it's okay I forgive him I give him a
3:16
hard time about things so you he's got to get back at me every once in a while
3:19
all right lightning card Oh I thought this one had three power connectors I in
3:23
fact I even said it did in another video but don't mind me this has two PCIe 8
3:28
Pin power connectors two 10 cm fans and
3:31
these are actually deeper fans than I'm used to seeing on video cards as well
3:35
they have a bit more well depth to them they're also using their propeller
3:38
blades which are more efficient blades and they have these plastic tips at the
3:42
end that are supposed to reduce noise increase efficiency and uh generally be
3:48
better it will spin this way on Startup which will pull some of the air out
3:52
that's you know lodged into the heat sink out of it before it turns on which
3:56
should in theory keep the heat sink
3:59
pretty much dust free as long as you power cycle your computer every once in a while and I've seen this work in
4:04
action with actually not an MSI card but with one of their competitor's cards
4:08
that features this counter rotating boot up technology so it'll be a little loud
4:12
at the start but you know don't be phased by that it's all good it'll uh
4:15
it'll it'll quiet down as soon as it starts spinning the right way huge
4:20
cooling potential check this out so the radiator fins the aluminum fins go all
4:23
the way from here all the way down to here all the way to the back of the card
4:29
that isn't an enormous cooler for a
4:32
single GPU I mean that amount of surface area could probably be handling a dual
4:37
GPU graphics card at this point super pipes are also included see that's these
4:41
thicker heat pipes here that are carrying the heat much further away from
4:44
the GPU core itself right there there's a GK 104 Graphics core that's the Kepler
4:49
GPU that's featured in all the high-end graphics cards 670s 680s 690s all that
4:54
good stuff you've also got okay this is one of the most uh rigid cards I've
4:59
encountered you can see it has almost no flex to it no matter what I do and
5:02
that's for a couple of reasons number one they've got a unisyn covering the
5:06
vrm and the memory components check that
5:09
out thick metal all the way here all the
5:13
way up here giving it an amazing amount of structural rigidity all the way here
5:17
there's those golden uh golden guys right there Golden Girls Golden Years
5:23
Wonder Years I don't know where I'm going with this and it also has a full
5:27
back plate so there's a little bit of ventilation hole going on here around
5:31
the pwm as well as just you know General
5:35
back Pless more better so this is GP reactor you don't have to keep it on you
5:39
can take it off if you want but what it does is it basically builds more com
5:43
more components into the very back of the GPU then they would otherwise
5:47
physically be able to fit just as a little addin daughter board so like I
5:51
said you take it off if you want you can leave it on if you want it's more useful
5:55
for subzero and extreme overclocking and no I want to put it back on I think he's
5:59
G me a hard time about this you're failing well yeah I'm failing at it but
6:04
I'll succeed see all right you can actually Orient this however you want as
6:08
well so I'm going to do it this way cuz once it's installed I want everything to
6:11
be right side up MSI lightning there's also blue LEDs behind it that look
6:15
pretty cool as well be noted that the improper installation of GPU reactor
6:20
card may cause damage to the graphics card yeah that stands to reason so PCI
6:24
Express 3.0 um data connector two SLI
6:28
connectors for up to four-way SLI functionality if you had four of these
6:32
in one system even I would be jealous at that point to be perfectly honest uh
6:37
supports up to three plus one displays so you got dual DVI HDMI and display
6:42
port out on the back of the card little bit of ventilation coming out the back but this is by and large an internal uh
6:48
exhaust card and that color scheme oh my
6:52
goodness because we actually recently
6:55
unboxed the MSI Big Bang M Power
6:58
motherboard
7:02
and if this doesn't get your geek juices
7:07
flowing I don't know what can because as
7:10
far as air cooled configs go that is about as Beast looking as it gets here
7:15
you got to get you got to get this angle from like back there so you can like see
7:19
that and oh here I'll just no I'll rearrange it so you can see like the
7:24
yellow ACC I actually really like the yellow accents on the board as well as
7:28
on the video card itself that just like that's like Hardware the only way that
7:33
this could be more like porn is if I was pulling off all of the heat sinks
7:37
because but then you wouldn't even have like the color coordination
7:42
anyway so yeah I mean you know even if you get one of their slightly lower end
7:46
cards featuring a twin frozer cooler with like a blue Accent on let's see
7:49
what that looks like one way or another I think we can all agree that going with
7:53
like an all MSI sort of look and feel here is probably a good thing they have
7:58
like just so figured out the whole Aesthetics thing in the last little
8:02
while here I love it so I think that pretty much covers it the important
8:06
things to remember this GTX 680 will overclock better than other GTX 680s
8:11
period because you can overvolt the GPU this is very important to remember
8:15
especially if you're spending a lot of money on a GPU you want to get the most
8:18
performance out of it this is pretty much the way to go so thank you for
8:21
checking out my unboxing and first look at the MSI GTX 680 lightning edition
8:26
don't forget to subscribe to lus techtips for more unboxings reviews and other computer videos