Introduction

When we looked at the GTX 260 Lightning from MSI recently it was really a bit of a mixed bag. On the performance side of things we really liked the card; the aftermarket cooling option that MSI opted for was also really good. On the other side we thought the AirForce Panel proved to be more of a pain than anything else and what we didn't like was that in order to achieve the highest speed MSI advertised you needed to install their own OC software.

Really, at the end of it all, though, the GTX 260 we saw from MSI offered some serious performance and for the most part that's the most important feature for so many users. While that model was part of the Lightning series, it was a special Black Edition as well. Today we're going to be looking at the GTX 275 that sits in the same series, but isn't part of the Black Edition line up.

The GTX 275 Lightning actually sparked my interests a bit as it was the card of choice at the MOC overclocking champions that MSI held earlier this year. What we want out of the model is easy, we want to see the same high performance that the GTX 260 offered and the great cooling the model had as well. What we also want, however, is not have to install any software to get the promised clocks and we really don't want any fancy AirForce Panel either as it's just not necessary.

Is the GTX 275 Lightning from MSI able to offer us what we want? We'll, there's only one way to find out. Let's get stuck into the package before checking out the card itself and the performance it has to offer.