Tuesday, March 20th 2012

MSI Radeon HD 7970 Lightning Overclocked to 1800 MHz Core, 7.70 GHz Memory

If you thought MSI made too much song and dance about the product design of its R7970 Lightning, particularly the GPU Reactor module, think again. When augmented with liquid nitrogen cooling, the card has the electrical muscle required to sustain 1.7V, and facilitate a staggering 1800 MHz core clock speed, with 1925 MHz memory (7.70 GHz GDDR5 effective), churning out a gargantuan memory bandwidth of close to 370 GB/s, all thanks to the genius of Swedish proverclocker Elmor.

This R7970 Lightning on 'roid-rage was stable enough to bag a 3DMark 11 (performance preset) score of P15035 points. The rest of the test-bed consisted of an Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition six-core chip clocked at 5207 MHz, with 4 GB (4x 1 GB) DDR3 memory clocked at 2314 MHz, and MSI Big Bang XPower II motherboard, to seat it all. Perhaps this is an indication that AMD Radeon HD 7900 can work wonders on potent non-reference designs, such as MSI's R7970 Lightning.
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74 Comments on MSI Radeon HD 7970 Lightning Overclocked to 1800 MHz Core, 7.70 GHz Memory

#1
theubersmurf
Any photos of his setup around? I'm curious to see it.
Posted on Reply
#2
arnoo1
Why is everyone benching 3dmark11? I does not say anything to me! 3dmark06 and 3dmark vantage does
Nice clocks btw!!!
Posted on Reply
#3
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
arnoo1Why is everyone benching 3dmark11? I does not say anything to me! 3dmark06 and 3dmark vantage does
Nice clocks btw!!!
3DMark06 and older = "too old/unreliable"
Vantage = "omgz physx bias/unfit for testing ATI"

Not my arguments :)
theubersmurfAny photos of his setup around? I'm curious to see it.
The screenshot is the only content I got. Maybe those pics will be out very soon.
Posted on Reply
#4
Supercrit
3d06 is very irrelevant for high end cards today, they hit CPU bottleneck very easily, and 3d06 is extremely CPU bound.
Posted on Reply
#5
fullinfusion
Vanguard Beta Tester
Bahh who cares about this! LN2 is so outta reach for 99% of the users this makes no sence to me whatever... :shadedshu
Posted on Reply
#6
DOM
arnoo1Why is everyone benching 3dmark11? I does not say anything to me! 3dmark06 and 3dmark vantage does
Nice clocks btw!!!
06 is not a good benchmark to go by, its scores heavily on cpu

vantage and 11 are good for newer cards
btarunr3DMark06 and older = "too old/unreliable"
Vantage = "omgz physx bias/unfit for testing ATI"

Not my arguments :)
the new ver of vantage doesnt let you use physx on nvidia ;)
Posted on Reply
#8
Delta6326
As cool as this maybe, I'm more into 24/7 clocks.
Posted on Reply
#9
nickbaldwin86
fullinfusionBahh who cares about this! LN2 is so outta reach for 99% of the users this makes no sence to me whatever... :shadedshu
Delta6326As cool as this maybe, I'm more into 24/7 clocks.
Than why do you post... why did you look at it?

LN2 is a very niche market sure but it does show off the pure muscle of CPU/GPU/tested hardware

Also it is for setting world records. good luck getting close to that score on your "24/7 clocks"

So go back to playing your video games because LN2 is only getting more popular.
Posted on Reply
#10
theubersmurf
Delta6326As cool as this maybe, I'm more into 24/7 clocks.
For the largest part I agree with you, but at 1800 core I'm a little more interested, it says something about potential 24/7 clocks...sort of, if those clocks come close to scaling w/ temp fairly well.
Posted on Reply
#11
1Kurgan1
The Knife in your Back
Why is it everytime a post about a World Record appears people are like "WHAT I CAN'T RUN THIS 24/7!!11!"? Like it for what it is, these cards OC very well, I run 1300mhz on mine 24/7 and thats more than enough. So it's not like the cards don't OC well when not using LN2. It's a World Record, the day that 99% of us can pull of 24/7 WR's is the day it's not a WR (I can't believe that needs to be explained).
Posted on Reply
#12
LAN_deRf_HA
nickbaldwin86Than why do you post... why did you look at it?

LN2 is a very niche market sure but it does show off the pure muscle of CPU/GPU/tested hardware

Also it is for setting world records. good luck getting close to that score on your "24/7 clocks"

So go back to playing your video games because LN2 is only getting more popular.
You mean less popular. Every time something like this is posted there's more and more posts about preferring 24/7 clocks. In the past when it was less about access and sponsorship people were more impressed by this stuff. And for future reference I doubt someone unimpressed with record clock speed will be obsessed with record benchmark scores, so that was a poor "nah nah nah" counter.
Posted on Reply
#13
Salsoolo
it does say something about future gpus (clock-wise)
i think 1ghz would be the norm in next generation gpus
Posted on Reply
#15
the54thvoid
Super Intoxicated Moderator
Salsooloit does say something about future gpus (clock-wise)
i think 1ghz would be the norm in next generation gpus
It's kinda normal now. GTX 680 is 1GHz, HD 7870 is 1GHz.
Posted on Reply
#16
bmwmaster
I also would prefer 24/7 clock limits. What is the sense of showing the reachable power with LN ? No one needs this info ?
Posted on Reply
#17
fullinfusion
Vanguard Beta Tester
nickbaldwin86Than why do you post... why did you look at it?

LN2 is a very niche market sure but it does show off the pure muscle of CPU/GPU/tested hardware

Also it is for setting world records. good luck getting close to that score on your "24/7 clocks"

So go back to playing your video games because LN2 is only getting more popular.
Troll :slap:

I believe myself and Delta6326 were just station our own opinion. I didn't think we asked you to come up with some silly ass response....

~movin along~

Oh hey about the AMD HD8970
Posted on Reply
#18
Aquinus
Resident Wat-man
I wonder why his PCI-E is running at x16 1.1 and not 3.0 with a SB-E build. I guess GPU-Z could be misreporting since OpenCL appears to be missing as well unless I'm missing something. Maybe you need the SDK installed for it to show up?
Posted on Reply
#19
nickbaldwin86
fullinfusionTroll :slap:

I believe myself and Delta6326 were just station our own opinion. I didn't think we asked you to come up with some silly ass response....

~movin along~

Oh hey about the AMD HD8970
HHAHAHAHAAH you calling me a troll with your troll post... you have nothing to add to the thread but yet you just keep posting... shows by you post count that you have a lot of meaningless posts
Posted on Reply
#20
DOM
Tpu has changed before ppl would like this now bunch of ppl are just trolling about it not being 24/7

If you don't like ocing turn off the screen ;)
Posted on Reply
#21
cadaveca
My name is Dave
DOMTpu has changed before ppl would like this now bunch of ppl are just trolling about it not being 24/7

If you don't low ocing turn off the screen ;)
OC'ing has always been niche. LN2 stuff is a niche of a niche. :laugh: You can never cater to everyone.


I wonder what the power consumption was like....1.7V is pretty killer!
Posted on Reply
#22
fullinfusion
Vanguard Beta Tester
cadavecaOC'ing has always been niche. LN2 stuff is a niche of a niche. :laugh: You can never cater to everyone.


I wonder what the power consumption was like....1.7V is pretty killer!
Yeah what's the formula to figure wattage on these gpu's Dave?

1.70 X ? = W?
Posted on Reply
#23
neliz
AquinusI wonder why his PCI-E is running at x16 1.1 and not 3.0 with a SB-E build. I guess GPU-Z could be misreporting since OpenCL appears to be missing as well unless I'm missing something. Maybe you need the SDK installed for it to show up?
Powersaving. Since the GPU and other components downclock in idle.
If you actually run GPU-Z you should be able to notice this yourself. There's a question mark next to the Bus Interface, click that and you can start a small furmark app which puts the card under load, it should switch to its normal speed at that point in time.
Posted on Reply
#24
Delta6326
Don't see why people are making a big deal about me saying that this is Cool but I would like to see these in 24/7 clocks. I guess people prefer these to only be obtainable with LN2.

Just saying WR aren't that crazy hard to get, when it comes to computers, all you need is money and resources, heck most of the top OC people get there stuff handed to them so they don't have to spend load of money are parts.
Posted on Reply
#25
DOM
cadavecaOC'ing has always been niche. LN2 stuff is a niche of a niche. :laugh: You can never cater to everyone.


I wonder what the power consumption was like....1.7V is pretty killer!
wth is low :roll: thats what i get for posting from my phone :p


but theres been more of this its on ln2 bs not 24/7

its like how many brain cells have you killed to even consider posting in a thread that is about ocing on ln2 :shadedshu

i should be ocing on ln2 soon i hope.. finaly going to have reg 8hr work day today :rockout: but dont think there going to be giving me my 2days off this weekend :mad:

it would be nice to have someone other then my kids here when benching but i know no one that does this let alone oc in my town :ohwell:
Posted on Reply
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