I always seem to start these reviews by stating that the series of the card we're looking at is one of my favorite. It's not just some generic introduction and I really am a large fan of series' like the IceQ from HIS, Vapor-X from Sapphire, SOC from GIGABYTE and most of all, the MSI series including the Cyclone, HAWK and Lightning which we're looking at today.

While most companies have a good stand-out series, MSI have an arsenal of them. The Cyclone is great for these lower end mid-range cards; the cooler is quiet and performs very well. You can kick it up a notch and start looking at the Twin Frozr series which tends to be reserved for the higher end cards. It's also quiet, performs well and is essentially a higher end version of the Cyclone series.