MSI N260GTX Lightning Black Edition Video Card Review :: Features

• GT200 chip
• 216 Stream Processors
• 1.4 Billion Transistors
• DirectX 10.0
• Pixel Shader 4.0
• Vertex Shader 4.0
• 655MHz core
• 1404MHz Shader
• 2000MHz memory clock
• Air Force Control Panel
• Military Class
• 10 Phase PWM
• 1792MB GDDR3 memory
• Twin Frozr thermal design
• CUDA
• PhysX
• 2nd Generation NVIDIA Unified Architecture
• SLI
• PureVideo
• PCI Express 2.0
• HDMI
• HDCP
• OpenGL 2.1

N260GTX Lightning logo

I have covered the features of the GeForce GTX260 216 Core in detail on many other reviews. The MSI card differentiates itself by having 1792MB of memory, which is double the normal amount. The card is based upon NVIDIA's GT200 chipset which has 1.4 billion transistors, the most by any single chip video card on the market today. The GT200 was launched last year in two versions the GeForce GTX 280 and GTX 260. Today, NVIDIA's lineup includes the GTX 275, GTX 285, GTX295 and the GTX260 216 core.

DirectX 10.0 games are becoming more prevalent. Some games are even using the DirectX 10.1 feature set to speed up the games and have longer pixel shaders. The next major inflection point, DirectX 11 will be released later this year with Microsoft Windows 7, the next Microsoft OS. Game developers have had a long development process with DX10 and it will likely be a while before games require the next stage. NVIDIA supports Pixel Shader 4.0 and Vertex Shader 4.0 with their GTX 260 cards.

Physics in games has traditionally been controlled by the CPU, and not the GPU. With the advent of the PhysX accelerator, game physics on a card became reality. Many games like Unreal Tournament 3, Half Life 2, and Mirror's Edge and upcoming games like Terminator Salvation and many others. PhysX has been chosen by Electronic Arts and other game developers to use in their games. Highly realistic physics like realistic cloth simulation, particle fountains, realistic smoke and fog, destructible terrain are just some of the effects possible.

MSI differentiates their GTX 260 Black Lightning Edition with a clock core of 655MHz by default, a Shader clock of 1404MHz and a memory clock of 2000MHz. Note that the fastest available card on the market today runs at 666MHz for the core and 1440MHz for the Shader, 2300MHz for the memory. This card has the potential to overclock higher than that and in fact in testing overclocked way above those lofty clock speeds easily.

The MSI N260GTX Lightning Black Edition is the first card to have a 10 Phase PWM for maximum overclocking performance. The graphics card needs more power than a CPU and therefore requires 8 phases for the GPU and 2 Phases for the memory giving it the ability to safely overclock throughout the domains. The card has ultra long lifespan solid capacitors which have 2.5x the lifespan of normal solid capacitors and can withstand 20% higher temperatures.

The AirForce Panel allows the end-user to overclock the voltage and clock speeds easily by sliding the panel to overclock the card. Installation of the AirForce panel is simple. Install the latest drivers off the Driver CD or MSI's website, then install the Lightning utility and the AirForce hardware is installed. To use the AirForce hardware, either set it on a desk or in an empty drive bay. Every push of the panel changes the setting to the next available setting.