The Twin Frozr III cooler uses dual 9cm PWM fans for optimal airflow. Compared to the 8cm fans on the Twin Frozr II, they generate 40% more airflow and the propeller blades enlarge the angle of the airflow to cool the GPU, memory and power modules at once. There is even a small arrow on the centre to indicate the rotation direction. The fans protrude slightly above the heatsink shroud to draw in more air.


Here we can see 3 heat pipes, two of which are 8mm ‘Super Pipes’ and the third being 6mm in diameter. These spread out across the length of the heatsink to dissipate heat over a larger surface area. The middle of the heatsink stands higher to increase surface area and to house the two 90mm PWM fans on either side.


On the other side, we can see two more 6mm heat pipes and the ends of the 3 other heat pipes. MSI have opted for the heat pipe design over the standard vapour chamber to dissipate heat over a much larger surface area.


The card boasts two 8 pin PCIe power connectors each delivering 150W. Along with the PCIe interface, the card can consume up to 375W of power, which when teamed with the superior circuitry makes the card ideal for extreme overclocking. Two adapters are provided for good measure. The extra 2 pin in this case power the three dedicated memory phases whereas AMD PowerTune is based on the GPU’s TDP.


The Twin Frozr III emblem is neatly printed in the corner of the heatsink shroud.


The rear I/O panel has a wide selection of connectors, same as reference HD6970 cards. On the right are two traditional DVI-I connectors, the top being single link and the bottom one being dual link supporting HDMI and HDCP. For those still using VGA outputs, an adapter is provided. Furthermore, a single HDMI 1.4a port is built in and two mini DisplayPorts supporting the latest 1.2 standard. The ports are an example of AMD’s evolution on their display and video decoding features over the HD5XXX series. The main advantage of the new DisplayPort standard is the double bandwidth over the previous 1.1 ports, taking it from 10.8Gbps to 21.6Gbps. In real world applications, it means that a single port can support up to 2 2560x1600 monitors and 4 1920x1200 monitors through daisy chaining or by using an MST hub. The hub means that the card itself no longer has to sport up to 6 individual ports as was found on the Eyefinity6 special edition cards. As such, the two provided ports can easily drive 6 monitors at 1920x1200. If a hub isn’t available and daisy chaining not feasible, the 5 ports can still support up to 4 displays in Eyefinity as illustrated at the back of the box. The higher bandwidth of the DP is also relied on for AMD’s new 3D stereoscopy initiative. Unlike other vendors, MSI have bundled a mini DP to DisplayPort adapter. The small vents allow air to be exhausted at the back of the card.


To get a better perspective of the size, I put MSI HD6970 lightning next to a reference card from ASUS. At 31.0cm, it is 3.6cm longer than the latter and the added width makes the Lightning one of the biggest cards on the market. It is important to take this into consideration when purchasing the card as it may not fit in certain cases.