Introduction

I'll be the first to admit that a few years ago when someone mentioned MSI, video cards were not the first thing that came to mind, let alone video cards that I would recommend. It's not that there was anything wrong with MSI's video cards, it's just that they didn't really stand out from the pack.

In the past couple years, however, we've seen the company really move forward in the VGA market. First they started doing a bit of overclocking and then we saw some extra coolers and nowadays we see the company move way out of the box with some fantastic own-PCB designed cards.

The Lightning series has already left a mark with us recently and it looked like it could be a dominant force in the enthusiast market. Combining both an impressive model with stand out features, MSI are able to do something special.

The latest model to get hit by the lightning bolt is the HD 5870 which is already a model we know and love. But the question is, what have MSI done to the model to make it stand out from the pack? - Let's check out the package before looking at the card itself and find out exactly what they've done with it.