The Radeon R9 290X Lightning is MSI's latest flagship based on AMD's recent GPU release. Overclocked out of the box, it comes with a GPU frequency of 1080 MHz, which is higher than any other R9 290X available on the market. Unfortunately, memory is not overclocked, which is puzzling to me because the fast Samsung memory chips would have easily allowed for an overclock. Averaged over all our benchmarks, the card gains up to 4% in real-life performance over AMD's reference design, which depends on the resolution used. I, to be honest, expected a bit more considering the card's GPU is clocked to be 8% faster. Compared to NVIDIA's GTX 780 Ti, the card is a still 3% slower at 4K and 9% slower at 1080p.
MSI is using a large triple-slot, triple-fan cooler that produces amazing temperatures of just 71°C under load, which is slightly less than most other custom R9 290X cards we have reviewed to date. Our thermal imaging video shows that the cooling solution cools all components well, including the VRM circuitry - there are no heat pockets to be found. Where the R9 290X Lightning definitely falls short is in noise. With 35 dBA, the card is extremely noisy in idle, noisier than any other card I've tested in recent years; except for the R9 295X2 since it emits the same idle noise levels. I can't see myself using this card for productivity over long periods at a time because of the noise it emits. The R9 290X Lightning is quieter than the AMD reference design during gaming, roughly matching the GTX 690, although it is still much noisier than most other high-end card on the market. Other custom R9 290X cards, like the ASUS DirectCU II and Sapphire Tri-X, are so much quieter and don't run significantly hotter, and those cards only use dual-slot coolers. It looks as though MSI just didn't care about noise levels to me, and the company might have even followed the logic of some Asian customers who believe noisy to be powerful.
Power consumption is slightly increased over the AMD reference design, but only by such a small margin that it shouldn't influence your buying decision in any way. AMD's recent cards generally need much more power in non-gaming states than comparable cards from NVIDIA, so, again, if you are also looking for a card for productivity, consider other options. MSI placed three power connectors on their card, which certainly looks massive, but could pose a problem for users with power supplies that only come with two. MSI at least decided to include plenty of adapters with the card.
Overclocking, which is supposed to be the Lightning's strongest feat, worked well, reaching 1170 MHz, which is higher than most other R9 290X cards we reviewed before. I guess MSI has been sorting and setting aside good overclocking GPUs just for that, which is something I would expect solely based on how the card is marketed. Memory overclocks well, too, reaching excellent levels because of the Samsung-made memory chips used. Many other R9 290X cards use Elpida, which is cheaper and more readily available, but does not overclock nearly as well. Let's just hope all retail MSI Lightning boards use Samsung chips. In the past, we've seen some manufacturers mail cards with "good" memory chips to reviewers only to have retail cards use Elpida in the end. For the more extreme overclockers, MSI has included voltage measurement points on their card, and you can control three GPU voltages via MSI's Afterburner overclocking utility. When I did a quick overvolting test, it yielded decent results, but still couldn't cross the 1200 MHz barrier.
With a retail price of $700, the MSI R9 290X Lightning seems quite expensive since you can find normal R9 290X cards for $570. Unless you are a hardcore overclockers who is gonna rip apart the card anyway, you'd be much better off with a custom-design GTX 780 Ti that'd be faster, cooler, and quieter. If you want to only shop in AMD's camp, the ASUS R9 290X DirectCU II and the Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X are strong contenders that don't require three slots in your case, are overclocked, and more affordable, while offering similar overclocking potential at much less fan noise to normal users.