MSI Shows New GTX 580, Radeon HD 6970 Cards

Believe it or not, computer vendors are already hosting press conferences for CES even though the show doesn't officially open until Thursday, January 6. MSI was one of the early birds showing off its new products, and we caught a quick eyes-on of its high-end graphics offerings.

MSI has both offerings from the two graphics camps. First up is the R6970 Lightning, which MSI seems quite proud to brand with its "Military Class II" designation, meaning that it carries "high stability components," which MSI claims are high quality capacitors.

The R6970 has an 18-phase PWM design, along with overvoltage settings from the MSI software. As the name suggests, it has the usual AMD Radeon HD 6970 with 2GB of GDDR5 memory.

The GeForce GTX 580 variant is called the N580GTX and has a 16-phase PWM design and 1.5GB of GDDR5. Its custom cooler is made up of dual 9 cm fans that blow air into the company's SuperPipe design.

In fact, MSI says that its new Frozr III and Cyclone II coolers have a "propeller blade" design that can boost airflow by 20 percent.