MSI GTX 580 Lightning Xtreme 3 GB

kennebell347

kennebell347

Member
What are your guy's thought on this card? I got rid of my two 6950 1 GB cards because I couldn't run anything over 2x AA at 1920x1080p on Ultra in BF3.

I have spent hours and hours researching the 3 GB 580s and the only other one that seems to come close in reviews is the Gigabyte SOC with the three fans. It still doesn't rate as high as the Lightning Xtreme though. It has a loud fan and the build quality isnt on par with the MSI card.

I want to be able to run higher anti-aliasing settings and have plenty of v-ram to spare. I do not mind the price so that is not a concern.

In the near future I will be adding a second Lightning Xtreme and go SLI. What are your thoughts on these in SLI?

Thanks
 
The card in my sig is my first MSI card and it is rock solid. Not to loud and it eats up BF3 on ultra with 4x aa @ 1080p. You will be laughing with 2 GTX 580's. If I had that kind of cash I would by those cards in a second.

Edit: I just watched some Youtube videos of people with a single 6950 running BF3 on max with no issue. Maybe it was an issue with crossfire?
 
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Well, I can easily run BF3 on ultra with 2x AA on a single 6950 at abut 40 to 70fps. With 2 of them I was NEVER dropping below 60 fps which is v-sync. The problem was, I have 1 GB cards and if I turn the AA up to just 4x, it would crash within 30 sec because of it running out of vram.

I am sure if I had the 2 GB versions I could have done 4x easy. But if I am going to upgrade I am gonna go big or go home. There is no game in the next 2 years that SLI GTX 580 Lightning Xtremes wills not max. Hopefully :)
 
There has to be another issue. A game wouldn't crash because it runs out of Vram, and BF3 does not use over 2GB. My 1.25GB 570 does about 40-60FPS and Vram usage does not get above 1.25. I think the game automatically corrects so it doesn't go above. but the 580 is a good choice, and I would definitely get it if I had the money.
 
claptonman said:
There has to be another issue. A game wouldn't crash because it runs out of Vram, and BF3 does not use over 2GB. My 1.25GB 570 does about 40-60FPS and Vram usage does not get above 1.25. I think the game automatically corrects so it doesn't go above. but the 580 is a good choice, and I would definitely get it if I had the money.
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I was maxed out with 4x. I used MSI afterburner beta and it was showing I was right at 1gb of vram before crash at 4x AA. People running 1920x1080 at 16x AA with nvidia cards are using 2 GB of vram with GTX 580s. I could be wrong as this is all info I have found throughout forums.

The error I got when it crashed said I ran out of vram in some combination of words. I didn't save the error.
 
kennebell347 said:
I was maxed out with 4x. I used MSI afterburner beta and it was showing I was right at 1gb of vram before crash at 4x AA. People running 1920x1080 at 16x AA with nvidia cards are using 2 GB of vram with GTX 580s. I could be wrong as this is all info I have found throughout forums.

The error I got when it crashed said I ran out of vram in some combination of words. I didn't save the error.
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I'm still wondering how people get above 4x aa. Is it forced through the Nvidia control panel? If so then it didn't work for me because I turned it up to 32 x and didn't notice any difference in quality and there was no performance drop.
 
JLuchinski said:
I'm still wondering how people get above 4x aa. Is it forced through the Nvidia control panel? If so then it didn't work for me because I turned it up to 32 x and didn't notice any difference in quality and there was no performance drop.
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Yeah I can only go to 4x in the game settings. I am assuming they are turning the AA up in the Nvidia control panel. Also, when I turn my AA settings up in CCC, I do get a performance hit that is fairly large. Say, I run it at full quality settings in CCC instead of performance. It must be doing something lol.
 
I didn't want to deal with another multi gpu setup until I tried out the fastest single gpu setup. So far I am EXTREMELY pleased.

Every review I have seen shows lower fps than what this card actually gets. In BF3 with everything on ULTRA and 4x msaa (1080p), it runs about 85-90fps and will occasionally drop to about 60 fps for a split second. This is on stock clocks how it came to me. BF3 also looks better with this at the same settings compared to my AMD setup. It is a noticeable difference!

I adjusted the aa to 32x in the Nvidia control panel and it doesn't seem to change performance. I may be doing it wrong though.

This card is quieter than ONE of my 6950s and runs at 59 degrees playing bf3. It idles at around 29 to 30 degrees. This is with the default fan profile. I cant even hear the fan at all even when gaming.

I couldn't be happier with how this card performs! The box it came in is bada$$ too! I recommend it to anyone with the extra cash that wants a seriously awesome single card! I cant imagine SLI!

*ALSO*

For anyone wondering, At 1920x1080, all ULTRA settings and 4X MSAA, I have seen up to 1900 mb vram used. This is using MSI afterburner with the memory usage tool. It is normally around 1400 mb used. I have not played a whole lot so I may see different numbers later. So if you want a 1.25 gb gtx 570 or similar, you may want to rethink your purchase if you plan on running anything over 2x AA. I have heard that BF3 will as adjust based on the amount of vram you have available.
 
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yea they are nice. I wont be doing liquid cooling for awhile so I wasn't worried about getting one. I would still run the 3 GB lightning with a waterblock over any other card. It has 16 phase pwm and has a few other nifty tricks up its sleeve.
 
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