MSI N580GTX-M2D15D5OC GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Pros: packaging was nice and organized. free 3dmark11 with purchase.

Cons: Recieved this card and installed. Started to play just cause 2 and the screen froze and green lines were all over the screen. Reloaded all drivers and tried benchmark tests. Would not get threw 720p benchmark settings in 3dmark11. Reported 99 percent gpu usage prior to failure during games. 700w power supply should be plenty to run card and system. tried troubleshooting the card with 6, 12, 24 gb ram and same each time. Went back to origninal configuration with 24gb ram and put my msi gtx-460 back in. The 460 passes all benchmark tests past 1080p. Sent card back for RMA.

Other Thoughts: For the little bit of time that the card would operate it was extremely fast. Hoping that the replacement works with no issues.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued MSI Customer,

We would like to apologize for the issue you have experienced with this particular VGA. Please email me directly via usersupport2@msicomputer.com your VGA's serial number and your complete contact information, subject heading "EAHN580GTX". I would like to help you get this resolved.

Best Regards,
User Support
MSI Product Support

Pros: -Excellent factory overclock
-Scales much higher with the easy to use MSI Afterburner overclocking utility. (I have mine at 875/1750/2200 @ 1.05v)
-Same noise levels as my previous GTX 280
-Excellent temps even at high overclocks

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: This is a worthy upgrade to my previous GTX 280. I upgraded because I purchased a Dell U3011 display and my GTX 280 had a lot of trouble running recent games at 2560 x 1600. Also, I now have a DirectX 11 capable card.

I wanted to note that the warranty for this card is 3 years for North America customers. I was under the impression that it was 1 year until the card arrived and I read the documentation.

Pros: Well first of i noticed that it did come over clocked from factory to specified amount! Installed new drivers, runs Super!

Cons: Not to many cons,you get what you pay for : )

Pros: Very fast but considering just how expensive it is it should be quite a bit faster.

Cons: Expensive and I guess this card came with the wrong bios but im not sure why anyone would deal with an RMA if they could just over-clock it themselves I mean its not quite as complicated as a CPU

Pros: easy to install, works great, installing a liquid cooler was really easy, this is a must have item, saving for my second one.

Cons: big, but not really a con just need room for it.

Other Thoughts: I would highly recomend this to any one, only thought tho is make sure you get the lastest drivers on line the ones on the disk are ok but out of date.

Pros: Fast! Turns BFBC2 into butter. No problems with install and Afterburner software is easy to use. Runs as advertised i.e. it's overclocked.

Cons: Expensive!

Other Thoughts: Buy it! It rocks!

Pros: Better than my EVGA OC GTX580 that i returned. This card only gives about 4-5 more frames in everything on max within DX11 Games. But it's better in my opinion because some of the games i play maxed out with the EVGA version capped some of its lowest FPS at about 55. With the MSI one, i get the lowest of 60. Which is all you need to have a solid game on everything maxed.

Cons: GPUZ wasn't reading the clocks right for some reason. So I used OCCT and Afterburner to see that the clocks were accurate. I don't know why the other people were saying that this card didn't have the right clocks. Mine is fine. GPUZ was the only program that didn't read it right.

Other Thoughts: There was a thread I read about the card though, I don't know if it is true though. Something about the wrong BIOS got shipped and that was why the people got the stock frequencies. But I don't know how that would be anything relevant to a OC. I don't understand video cards that way.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued MSI Customer,

We would like to apologize for the issue you have experienced with this particular VGA. Please email me directly via usersupport2@msicomputer.com your VGA's serial number and your complete contact information, subject heading "EAHN580GTX". I would like to help you get this resolved.

Best Regards,
User Support
MSI Product Support

Pros: To update my previous review...

After contacting MSI directly via the email posted, I was requested to RMA the card directly to MSI. After stating I wouldn't be able to do so as I cannot have this computer out of order, I was able to request the BIOS that should have come on the card. I now have a copy of the proper BIOS that's supposed to be on the card. Thumbs up this time around.

Cons: My initial contact with MSI support on the matter resulted in this response:

"you can contact your purchase vendor for any misplacement or wrong item that you have ordered from them directly."

Obviously I had received the proper card from Newegg.com, and the fact that that model number, serial number, and box sticker all matched the OC model should have been an indicator to the MSI tech that I didn't receive the wrong model from Newegg.

The fact that it took a second email to MSI to get the issue solved instead of admitting to a mistake in the first place puts me off of the company.

Other Thoughts: I do like the fact that MSI's tech support was able to resolve the issue, though I would have preferred to have it taken care of with the first ticket I had submitted. I have the proper BIOS for the card now, and everything is fine, however the card should never have been shipped with the improper BIOS in the first place, and tech support should have taken care of the situation the first time around.

If I had to do it all over again, I'm not sure I would go for another MSI card.

I'll bump the review by an egg, up to 4 out of 5 since the issue was resolved. I now have what was advertised, and the card runs great. On top of that, after the second email, I had an initial response after two hours, and the BIOS after an additional hour. Three total hours from start to finish is great in my book.

I'm keeping one egg off (generously) for MSI's initial 'support' in the matter, as well as shipping a card with the improper BIOS.

Pros: Crazy fast.
Tons of overclocking headroom.

Idle 35c, Load 64c. Insane how cool these run.

Cons: MSI Afterburner, EVGA Precision, Riva Tuner, CPU-Z, Everest Ultimate, and nTune all report stock speeds.

What does this mean? It means MSI sold us a stock 580 instead of a factory overclocked 580.

Other Thoughts: I am not sure if MSI binned these cards as having more OC potential than a standard 580. They make no mention about anything other than it's an "OC edition". What does OC edition mean MSI?

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued MSI Customer,

We would like to apologize for the issue you have experienced with this particular VGA. Please email me directly via usersupport2@msicomputer.com your VGA's serial number and your complete contact information, subject heading "EAHN580GTX". I would like to help you get this resolved.

Best Regards,
User Support
MSI Product Support

Pros: This MSI N580GTX OC Edition clock is confirmed at 823 MHz through GPU-Z unlike previous reviewers. It has crushed scores from my previous ATI 5870 2GB, and Metro 2033, Stalker COP, Crysis, Mass Effect 2, and Just Cause 2 now runs with no lag at all at max settings. My first run at 3DMark Vantage came in at 30955. So far it's the fastest factory overclock available for a GTX580. I'm in love. =)

Cons: None except that it comes with a 6 foot mini-hdmi to hdmi cable (an adapter would be more practical in order to connect a longer hdmi cable). No case badge unlike EVGA.

Other Thoughts: I'm running the latest drivers from Nvidia's website as the ones supplied on CD in the box were older. I paid a little extra to get it here overnight via UPS and Newegg delivered as promised. I will be using my extra 8800GT as a primary PhysX card.

Rig Details:
i7 930 OC'd @ 4 GHz
ASUS P6X58D Premium
Corsair H50 w/ Artic Silver 5
6GB Corsair 7-7-7-20
Corsair 850HX