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.
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.
74 Comments on MSI Radeon HD 7970 Lightning Overclocked to 1800 MHz Core, 7.70 GHz Memory
lol Elmor! It is pretty cool vids they make, i just wish they would let me talk into the camera.
By the same reasoning, not everyones hardware is current like you said. So we shouldn't post news about new products as it doesn't effect most of the readers here. News is news, if I see a headline that doesn't interest me, I move on, I don't pop in to complain about it usually, and it seems all too common that others do. People are just too negative these days.
But they get paid to post news... and on top of that, it creates controversy as it has little to do with the demographic, which creates posts, which create more page views which creates more money for the site.
Nice to see that elmor used an MSI motherboard too! Thanks for adding the pic BTA. Traffic is good, but I don't think traffic really relates to more money here...there's no ads in the forum. ;)
www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?279826-MSI-7970-Lightning
The thing thats gets me jelly is there afterbuner be custom
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR25pWxfKHk
And there are PLENTY of gear heads with brand loyalty/fanboyisn.. I used to be one when I had time... though I was a 'ricer'. Plenty of Chevy, Ford, Dodge, Honda people around and trust me, they are just as loyal as the PC industry.
i dont get a it, if there's someone who wants to try using LN2 setup for 24/7? who wants to pouring LN2 every 5 - 10 seconds for 24/7? that guy must be an idiot..
if it's true (it seems to be..) that 100Mhz clock increase on 7970 would bring 10% faster performance, try to get watercooling. maybe you can push it to 1,4k or even 1,5k. that's 50% faster than regular 7970 and barely match 580 SLI. and also with watercooling, you surely can run it 24/7 since it's much more convenient than LN2 setup..
The blatently obvious point was that there are fanboy's with cars too ;). Doesnt matter if there are 10 brands or two, they are fanboys and are just as loyal even with MORE choices further supporting my point. LN2 is not a 24/7 solution...it was never intended to be. Its for benchmarking for a couple hours at a time. Those idiots do not exist.
Back on topic, I still didnt see that reactor core in the screenshot... was it used?
ANd now that we've come full circle, let's move on. :laugh:
I wanna see more pics of these cards running, and more benches, hopefully showing what the GPU Reactor adds, if anything, to daily running, whether it be one water or air.
EDIT: I bet Neliz knows if the reactor was on there....
Looks like VRM LEDs indicate loading, nice, gonna match well with MSI board LEDs and Corsair AirFLOW PRO:eek::
Nice touch addng an extended Crossfire bridge in the box rather than one of the shorter ones, too. The more I see of this card, the more I want it. Dammit:banghead: :laugh:
Im not one for bling, but this does look cool.
I still wish, for the extreme benching crowd, we can know if that GPU reactor fits with a GPU pot...I hate to say it, but if it cant (and didnt for Elmore's run), kind of shows its not really needed if even on DI/LN2 you are hitting 1800Mhz...
even with 1.35v(OC) the load temps were 70C (ambient 18C).. thats respectable indeed!
@EarthDog, yes, the GPU reactor 'cover' can be removed..
Awesome clocks, this feat mustn't make you think of anything else other than the marvelous engineering put on this card PCB, this is what I get out of WRs, more than scores alone :)
On another note: MSI please make a Lightning edition of the upcoming HD 7990, dual GPUs need more love.
Actually, I just can't wait to see this compared to 680 :D
first-hand experience.
Thanks Neliz for the confirmation.