Tuesday, March 6th 2012
MSI HD 7970 Lightning "GPU Reactor" Detailed
If you've seen the first pictures of MSI's Radeon HD 7970 Lightning graphics cards, you may have noticed an unusual-looking round cutout on its backplate, right behind the GPU. We are learning that this cutout, and the tiny headers on the exposed PCB are actually a socket for what MSI is referring to as a "GPU Reactor" (I can imagine Iron Man fans prepping their flame throwers right about now).
The "GPU Reactor" is a round add-on device that sits on this socket. It is essentially an add-on PCB that holds a battery of tantalum capacitors, which further conditions power for the GPU. Apart from capacitors, there are a few blue LEDs and a round, transparent window that make it light up. To what extant this gadget helps with maintaining stable OCs remains to be seen, but on the "flip-side", it could pose spacing issues with other add-on cards located right above HD 7970 Lightning cards that are outfitted with one of these.
Source:
Lab501.ro
The "GPU Reactor" is a round add-on device that sits on this socket. It is essentially an add-on PCB that holds a battery of tantalum capacitors, which further conditions power for the GPU. Apart from capacitors, there are a few blue LEDs and a round, transparent window that make it light up. To what extant this gadget helps with maintaining stable OCs remains to be seen, but on the "flip-side", it could pose spacing issues with other add-on cards located right above HD 7970 Lightning cards that are outfitted with one of these.
53 Comments on MSI HD 7970 Lightning "GPU Reactor" Detailed
provide credentials please
We have all been DIEING to get a hold of anything from you guys!
EDIT: Let me add that comment is in fun. I talk with our rep a bit about availability, or lack there of. :)
this high res pic shows "GPU Reactor" , second line of "product features" on the R7970 Lightning Spec card.
:roll:
Anyway, If the "GPU Reactor" makes a difference on the cooler that ships with the card, that's cool.
PLEASE TELL ME YOU CAN CHANGE LED COLOUR!!! (red, or ?yellow?:laugh: hint hint)
:laugh:
And what's the 3x3 OC kit?
Triple V-Check kit (GPU/MEM/VDDCI voltage)
Triple Temp monitor (GPU/MEM/PWM)
Wait, who's MSI, again? I haz confuse?
:nutkick:Ah. I was maybe hoping that you might bundle some sort of display/manipulation device for all those features with the Reactor Core, as there are pretty standard for the Lightning cards, aren't they? Anyway, it said kit, so i though it might be something in it's own packaging or something. Maybe next time. ;)
so this is not recommended for micro-ATX boards (Asus 'Gene' & MSI G45). Also, 3-way & 4-way X-fire might not be possible, I guess.
I just felt that this GPU reactor 'feature', however useful, should not have wasted space behind the PCB.
OK, "GPU Core Reactor".Yup
The clocks on the MSI R7970 LIGHTNING are @ 1070MHz (1.07 GHz)
And the screen shot of it is attached below (thumbnail)
this info is from a german site I found..
www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,871188/Cebit-2012-MSI-zeigt-R7970-Lightning-1070-MHz-Chiptakt-ab-Werk/Cebit/News/
u can find all pics(20) of the card here:
www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,871188/Cebit-2012-MSI-zeigt-R7970-Lightning-1070-MHz-Chiptakt-ab-Werk/Cebit/News/bildergalerie/?iid=1635178&vollbild
1070MHz on the MSi R7970 LE means a 15.6% overclock, which as far as I know, is the highest speed for a "factory OC'd 7970 card".
Powercolor LCS 7970 (liquid cooling sys) is @ 1050Mhz,
XFX 7970 DD Black Edition @ 1000MHz &
Asus HD7970-DC2T-3GD5 @ 1000MHz.
Gigabyte GV-R797OC-3GD @ 1000MHz
click on the links to see the full specs.
And the power color 7970 PCS+ is 1100mhz ...
If it is 1070 .. it better OC too like 1300.
I mean, sure, you cna push other cards quite high, but I'm more concerned with SUPPORTED speeds. You know, speeds taht all the cards will do out of the box. My use of Eyefinity means that I need multiple cards to get the framerates I want, so cards with identical clocking abilities, and not needing other software to do it is of the utmost importance for me.
Of course, Eyefinity use itself is pretty uncommon, but to me, so is the extreme clocking scene. I mean, there are many guys to do it, but in the big picture, it's a single-digit percentage of users.
I hate CCC....its only use for me is jacking up the OCP/Power Limit thing. Outside of benching/reviewing, beasts like these run stock in my house.
And while I may bug him about me not getting samples, that really has nothing to do with him at all, so I do trust him to be honest about this stuff as much as he can.
I'd really like to get my eyefinity rig going right, I'm looking for a reference 6950 2GB so i can try trifire on those, and if that doesn't work, I gotta buy differnt cards. Maybe I'l ljsut no nV, I am not sure. But anyway, because of that config, I guess my needs might actually fit with what these cards offer. I'm hoping that they can do 1300 MHz, and that two of them would be enough for Eyefinity and 60 FPS.
The ultimate HD6970 (reference cost, DualFan cooling) is so powerful at overclocking it can reach around 1150Mhz core clock. 1100Mhz at only 1.215V! That's the power sapphire has.
Back in the HD5800 days they had the power to produce an HD5850 who could clock 1Ghz at Sub-1.2 volts, again, with advanced cooling and reference cost
I don't see them on hwbot.org and if the cards clocked that easy, that well and passed benchmarks, they would totally dominate all benchmarks.