MSI HD5870 Lightning Review
Vantage, Warhead and MW2
Published: 12th April 2010 | Source: MSI | Price: £387.75 |
3D Mark Vantage
Despite being a program that is bias towards PhysX capable cards, it's a measure of the power available with the ATI Radeon series that they still pump out huge numbers.
The Lightning just eeks ahead of the reference design at stock speeds, but the benefit of an overclock is clear for anyone to see. Of note however is that despite a 70-odd extra MHz core speed advantage when overclocked, it still gives a lesser score than our Editors Choice XFX 5870 XXX we recently reviewed.
Crysis Warhead
Again the graph is rewardingly linear with the 5770xf at the bottom, although of course we have to remember the price differential, the reference 5870 and R5870 Lightning near enough to each other and in overclocked mode having quite an advantage.
5 frames per second might not seem like many, but in Crysis Warhead that's a hill of extra power.
Modern Warfare 2
Modern Warfare 2 is spanked by all the cards in our tests, and because it's so easy on the hardware the differences at the top end are exaggerated. Once again the Lightning shows that the extra 50MHz it has at stock helps it overcome a reference 5870.