MSI 780 GTX lightning is awesome

Ok did a few quick Valley benchmarks at 1346, 1398, 1450.

1346: 3201

1398: 3279

1450: 3332

If im not stupid that looks to be around a 4% increase for 100mhz? Correct me if im wrong (which I probably am)

edit: memoery was 1665 with all 3 tests
 
Valley is very memory dependent. It's really hard to gauge overall performance using it. Maybe you could use a game benchmark? Bioshock - Tomb Raider - Metro LL Etc?? I am think that going from 1320 to 1400+ is not going to be worth the extra heat and power consumption for 4-5% gain in performance... Can you also do me a favor and run a 3Dmark 11 @ 1320/1650 and see what you get?
 
Got a H110 for stupid cheap ($50), so I know it is overkill but ordered a G10 bracket and will try it on my Lightning once it shows up. Looking forward to 1400Mhz hopefully.
 
jhatfie said:
Got a H110 for stupid cheap ($50), so I know it is overkill but ordered a G10 bracket and will try it on my Lightning once it shows up. Looking forward to 1400Mhz hopefully.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't set my expectations that high. Even if you hit 1400, heat will become an issue for the voltage required i'd say. Now you could get lucky and hit it, i'll cross my fingers for ya ;)...but I wouldn't set the expectation level at 1400mhz. I'd say 1302mhz is a possibility with over-voltage.
 
xoleras said:
I wouldn't set my expectations that high. Even if you hit 1400, heat will become an issue for the voltage required i'd say. Now you could get lucky and hit it, i'll cross my fingers for ya ;)...but I wouldn't set the expectation level at 1400mhz. I'd say 1302mhz is a possibility with over-voltage.
Click to expand...

Right now I am 100% stable at over 1300Mhz with +65mv and benched at 1340+ with +100mv, so who know, I might get there. Main goal is to get extra quiet at max overclock at around 1.25v with as low of temps as possible. Lightning has a great stock cooler and is pretty quiet, but I am always looking for better. = )
 
Face2Face said:
Valley is very memory dependent. It's really hard to gauge overall performance using it. Maybe you could use a game benchmark? Bioshock - Tomb Raider - Metro LL Etc?? I am think that going from 1320 to 1400+ is not going to be worth the extra heat and power consumption for 4-5% gain in performance... Can you also do me a favor and run a 3Dmark 11 @ 1320/1650 and see what you get?
Click to expand...

Will do, Ill give Metro and Tomb Raider a shot when I get home from work in the morning.
 
xoleras said:
I wouldn't set my expectations that high. Even if you hit 1400, heat will become an issue for the voltage required i'd say. Now you could get lucky and hit it, i'll cross my fingers for ya ;)...but I wouldn't set the expectation level at 1400mhz. I'd say 1302mhz is a possibility with over-voltage.
Click to expand...

Not true. If he does the AIO WC mod, temps are not even an issue.

At benching at 1450. I don't go above 55c. VRM temps stay below 73c. Thats with +270mv
 
Going to get some benchies done today if I can.

Funny story, My buddy helped me find my old mining accounts, and I found out I had 2.6 btc coins laying around....

Think another 780 lightning is incoming :)
 
Maybe beating a dead horse, does anyone have comments about the fans/noise/temps on these? I'm looking to get a 780 ASAP and this one is currently the cheapest among the top-end 780's and seems to have the best cooler but every review site is saying different results.

HardwareCanucks and Guru3D say it's the quietest, then a few others (including TPU) are disappointed.

As far as keeping temps below GPU Boost throttling, how do the fans hold up?
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
Maybe beating a dead horse, does anyone have comments about the fans/noise/temps on these? I'm looking to get a 780 ASAP and this one is currently the cheapest among the top-end 780's and seems to have the best cooler but every review site is saying different results.

HardwareCanucks and Guru3D say it's the quietest, then a few others (including TPU) are disappointed.

As far as keeping temps below GPU Boost throttling, how do the fans hold up?
Click to expand...

If you plan to not overclock, and leave it as is, the fans are great and never get loud. Even with overclocking it isnt too bad (This is talking 1 card).

Now once you start pumpin more volts or going SLI you will have heat/noise/temp issues.

Also it depends on your airflow in your case too.
 
I completely agree with DASHIT. I tried running 2 cards in SLI and could not stop the top card from throttling while keeping the fans at reasonable speeds (60%). The cooler is great but I would not call it quiet if you want to overclock. The smaller middle fan is especially annoying and gives a high pitched whine when fan speeds exceed 45%. If you value silence and plan to use just one card, there is only one choice; the Asus DCII
 
Nvidia_ATI said:
I completely agree with DASHIT. I tried running 2 cards in SLI and could not stop the top card from throttling while keeping the fans at reasonable speeds (60%). The cooler is great but I would not call it quiet if you want to overclock. The smaller middle fan is especially annoying and gives a high pitched whine when fan speeds exceed 45%. If you value silence and plan to use just one card, there is only one choice; the Asus DCII
Click to expand...
Have you tried using the fan controls to mute the middle fan?
Also it looks like the Lightning has better component cooling than the DCII

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_780_Lightning/images/cooler5.jpg
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_780_Direct_Cu_II_OC/images/cooler4.jpg

All I can find on the DCII reviews are GPU temps though, and the Lightning is quieter than the DCII according to this:
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...ews/63200-msi-gtx-780-lightning-review-9.html

Since it's clocked 100 MHz higher out of the box and cools differently than the DCII it's hard to compare them without owning both...
ASUS is currently out-of-stock so I'll just buy whichever card gets closet to $500 first.
 
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DASHlT said:
Going to get some benchies done today if I can.

Funny story, My buddy helped me find my old mining accounts, and I found out I had 2.6 btc coins laying around....

Think another 780 lightning is incoming :)
Click to expand...

Had a chance yet to run the benches?
 
Face2Face said:
Had a chance yet to run the benches?
Click to expand...

Sorry forgot...damn holidays. Here is Metro, Memory constant at 1665

Options: Resolution: 1920 x 1080; DirectX: DirectX 11; Quality: Very High; Texture filtering: AF

16X; Advanced PhysX: Enabled; Tesselation: Very High; Motion Blur: Low; SSAA: OFF

1346: Average Framerate: Average Framerate: 68.00
Max. Framerate: 134.63
Min. Framerate: 7.01

1398: Average Framerate: 69.00
Max. Framerate: 143.51
Min. Framerate: 8.45

1450: Average Framerate: 70.00
Max. Framerate: 152.42
Min. Framerate: 10.98
 
DASHlT said:
Sorry forgot...damn holidays. Here is Metro, Memory constant at 1665

Options: Resolution: 1920 x 1080; DirectX: DirectX 11; Quality: Very High; Texture filtering: AF

16X; Advanced PhysX: Enabled; Tesselation: Very High; Motion Blur: Low; SSAA: OFF

1346: Average Framerate: Average Framerate: 68.00
Max. Framerate: 134.63
Min. Framerate: 7.01

1398: Average Framerate: 69.00
Max. Framerate: 143.51
Min. Framerate: 8.45

1450: Average Framerate: 70.00
Max. Framerate: 152.42
Min. Framerate: 10.98
Click to expand...

Thanks for running these benchmarks. I just did the same benchmark with the same settings with my card @ 1320/1650

Average Framerate: 66.00
Max. Framerate: 144.38
Min. Framerate: 9.08

If you look at the scaling for a 100Mhz overclock you are seeing 2fps on average... that's really bad. Since your results are similar to mine, I am thinking something is wrong with these cards... either it be the low clocking memory or something else. Scaling should be much higher than this. There is no point of running our cards past 1400Mhz, if you are only going to see suck a small improvement in performance and a lot more power consumption.
 
Just did a test in Tomb Raider (2013) in-game benchmark @ 1080p @ Ultimate quality preset + TressFX.

memory clock of 6500 on all tests min/max/avg:

core 980 : 30/88/73.7

core 1176 : 34/112/84.9

core 1228 : 42/116/88.4

core 1320 : 48/114/92.4

I think the overclock scales pretty well. My shitty Elpida memory is what is holding me back (MAX fps) but 1320 is enough on air anyway.
 
Face2Face said:
Thanks for running these benchmarks. I just did the same benchmark with the same settings with my card @ 1320/1650

Average Framerate: 66.00
Max. Framerate: 144.38
Min. Framerate: 9.08

If you look at the scaling for a 100Mhz overclock you are seeing 2fps on average... that's really bad. Since your results are similar to mine, I am thinking something is wrong with these cards... either it be the low clocking memory or something else. Scaling should be much higher than this. There is no point of running our cards past 1400Mhz, if you are only going to see suck a small improvement in performance and a lot more power consumption.
Click to expand...

Another problem with Metro though is it looks like its very CPU dependent as well. Was noticing my CPU cores were at 100% alot of the times too.

Scaling is ok, its the memory holding it back.
 
Newegg sale for $529.99 w/ free ship ($499.99 AMIR)
NVIDIA Bundle is gone, but they've still got Arkham Origins left.

Tempted to bite; price can definitely go lower, though.
 
DASHlT said:
Another problem with Metro though is it looks like its very CPU dependent as well. Was noticing my CPU cores were at 100% alot of the times too.

Scaling is ok, its the memory holding it back.
Click to expand...

Agreed.... Thanks for running the bench marks. I still plan on putting the NZXT bracket on my card. I would like the silence aspect of it and of course the low temps.
 
So for shits and giggles I tried out this new cudaminer for mining litecoins.

Look to be getting between 660-670/kh which isnt bad at all, turned it down a bit to 1373 to make sure its good to go.
 
Hey Guys and Gals,
Having a few issues with stability with the new rig it would definitely seem to be I am unable to push my new card very hard at all.

I have tried mild overclocks of 150 + on the core and + 75 on the ram with the power limit set to 109 using latest beta release of .18 latest drivers ect, removed GPU boost after reading some comments that it causes issues, asics quality is 91.2% which I believe it very good?

Tried overclocking on the LN2 bios seems to be identical, locked at 109% over power limit

So my question is....Is my power limit causing issues can post some logs tonight ( I'm in Oz)

Seems to bomb out when the action gets intensive in Planetside 2, temps are no issue as I have gone down the water cooling path this build and it never seems to break 40 Celsius, most of the time is sitting around 34-36 very stable temp wise

I looked at some bios flashing tools and being a bit of a noob in this area don't really want to brick my card, I was not comfortable using Ezflash the DOS utility, Nibitor seems easy enough but the latest version I could find is V6.06 and my card is not listed as supported yet...doh, when I go to the official website its not the right one ( well I can't find the software ) is there a later version that supports the 780 GK110? can someone link it.

PS: No overclocks on ram or cpu as I wanted to trace the stability issues its definitely the card

I also have the old program from gigabyte @BIOS would that work?:confused:

Oops sorry following is my build

GTX780 Lightning
Z87 GD65 MSI Mobo
i7 4770K CPU
16Gb 2400mHZ Corsair Vengance Ram C10
Raystorm ex340 water cooling
Full EK GTX780 Lightning water block
920W PSU

Case is a HAF 942 plenty of air
 
Ghusko, I too ran into the 109 power limit on my lightning. I can get to 1320 boost clock with +60mv and the 109 power limit, but beyond that and it bounces off and yoyo's back down below 1300.

I swapped the bios switch over to the LN mode and flashed skynet's LN2 bios which unlocked the power limit to 287 for me.

I then proceeded to give more volts to the card (mine has an AIO liquid cooler on it) and even with heavier voltage, I wasn't able to go much beyond about 1350 and remain stable.

In the end, I was happy with my 1320 clocks on this card (done on the stock bios, with +62mv, and 109pt), and will test out my 2nd lightning when my kraken g10 brackets get here (hopefully this week!)

What mv were you giving the card? I was able to go up a fair amount on stock volts, but with just a tiny bump (and a small increase in temps) I was able to push the boost clock from 1110 default to 1320.

Check out the lightning owners thread over on oc.net. Skynets flashing tool was incredibly easy to use (it was dos based, not sure if its the same one you referenced) You're using afterburner I assume? Make sure you get the latest beta version and enable the enhanced voltages (for specialty cards like the lightning)

bleh, sorry that was alot to spit out.
 
Okay so I am a dumb ass, kept on wondering why when I set the power limit to more than 100% it was becoming unstable ( lack of juice) then I remembered in my haste to build the beast I used a stupid loop cable for the card, as soon as I plugged in two separate feed from the psu to the card hey presto goes easily to 1350 on the core now sits on 45 degrees stable....DOH

All additional voltages are flat out
seems to be as it should now.

Thanks for the response....now I will try the skybios you suggested and see how that goes.

:mad:
 
Make sure that you get the bios file that matches which ram you have on the card
 
ghusko said:
Hey Guys and Gals,
Having a few issues with stability with the new rig it would definitely seem to be I am unable to push my new card very hard at all.

I have tried mild overclocks of 150 + on the core and + 75 on the ram with the power limit set to 109 using latest beta release of .18 latest drivers ect, removed GPU boost after reading some comments that it causes issues, asics quality is 91.2% which I believe it very good?

Tried overclocking on the LN2 bios seems to be identical, locked at 109% over power limit

So my question is....Is my power limit causing issues can post some logs tonight ( I'm in Oz)

Seems to bomb out when the action gets intensive in Planetside 2, temps are no issue as I have gone down the water cooling path this build and it never seems to break 40 Celsius, most of the time is sitting around 34-36 very stable temp wise

I looked at some bios flashing tools and being a bit of a noob in this area don't really want to brick my card, I was not comfortable using Ezflash the DOS utility, Nibitor seems easy enough but the latest version I could find is V6.06 and my card is not listed as supported yet...doh, when I go to the official website its not the right one ( well I can't find the software ) is there a later version that supports the 780 GK110? can someone link it.

PS: No overclocks on ram or cpu as I wanted to trace the stability issues its definitely the card

I also have the old program from gigabyte @BIOS would that work?:confused:

Oops sorry following is my build

GTX780 Lightning
Z87 GD65 MSI Mobo
i7 4770K CPU
16Gb 2400mHZ Corsair Vengance Ram C10
Raystorm ex340 water cooling
Full EK GTX780 Lightning water block
920W PSU

Case is a HAF 942 plenty of air
Click to expand...

+150 on Bios 1 would put you around 1250 mhz or so, which is fairly high with just the 109 power limit, that's right where mine caps out also. Go ahead and try the Skynet Bios on position 2 and see if the higher power limit helps you. And yes, make sure you get the correct bios for the RAM your card has. Use nVidia inspector to get that info.
 
Don't forget the rbby tool. I couldn't hit 1300 without it. This is on the older version of the card. Not the newer revisions that can do 1400. Hands down, by far the best overclocking video card I have ever owned. Love it. Reminds me of the 8800 gtx, such a good decision.
 
Agreed with Naticus on the awesomeness of the card.

I'm not sure how limiting SLI will be when trying to OC, but my end goal is to get both cards to 1300, and under 60c with my krakens.

Come on nzxt! Get them shipped out!
 
[L]imey;1040569739 said:
Agreed with Naticus on the awesomeness of the card.

I'm not sure how limiting SLI will be when trying to OC, but my end goal is to get both cards to 1300, and under 60c with my krakens.

Come on nzxt! Get them shipped out!
Click to expand...

I will wait with you brother. I just saw the NZXT 440 case today... thinking about selling my Corsair 500r to get one.... so pretty...:eek: Would be nice since I won't need to hack my 500r to fit the TT pro 2.0.
 
I am concerned that my 3d Mark 11 scores are too low. When I run a single 780 lightning @ 1254/7200 (disabling SLI), I get a score of 10400. When I run both cards in SLI @ 1202/7000, I get a score of 16300. Are these scores too low? I am trying to figure out if there is a problem with my rig. I run an i7-4770k with an Asus P8Z87-Deluxe mobo. The CPU is overclocked to 4.3GHz.
 
Nvidia_ATI said:
I am concerned that my 3d Mark 11 scores are too low. When I run a single 780 lightning @ 1254/7200 (disabling SLI), I get a score of 10400. When I run both cards in SLI @ 1202/7000, I get a score of 16300. Are these scores too low? I am trying to figure out if there is a problem with my rig. I run an i7-4770k with an Asus P8Z87-Deluxe mobo. The CPU is overclocked to 4.3GHz.
Click to expand...

3dmark 11 using Performance preset I get 16,800 with my single 780 with 1320 OC. Hell my 7970 overclocked got 11,000, there must be something wrong with you setup.
 
I see people saying that sli lightning a might not work out well together. Would putting the reference titan cooler on one be a good idea? That would be kinda cool cuz then I could do that to 2 of them for tri sli. All this just really makes me consider water cooling
 
naticus said:
3dmark 11 using Performance preset I get 16,800 with my single 780 with 1320 OC. Hell my 7970 overclocked got 11,000, there must be something wrong with you setup.
Click to expand...

Are your settings the same as running Firestrike using the default settings?
 
Just got my hands on a gtx 780 lightning for 348€s, as a 'demo'card from a retailer, so looking very much forward spending time oc'ing this weekend:)
 
Picked up a Lightning locally at Micro Center a bit less than 2 weeks ago, and have been playing with it since. Love the look of it, and how quiet it runs. The card I got did not seem to OC really well at default settings however (A1 stepping, Elpida memory, 69% ASIC), and would crash with even a slight increase on the core speed. Still, I had it stable at 1.2Ghz core and 6400 memory with a very slight core voltage bump on the default BIOS. Load temps in the 60s, seemed good and stable. And then, while playing Splinter Cell: Blacklist last night, it died.

When I say died, I mean one second everything looked good, and the next, the video went out, and the fans all ramped up to 100% mode. The system was still on and working, judging by the sounds I was getting from the speakers, but I had no video. I also lost the information about GPU and memory temp and load that I normally have on my G15 LCD screen. So, I shut down my PC and unplugged it for a minute. Plugged it back in, turned it on. Same thing. Instant 100% fan on the video card, and no picture at all. The system still boots, and I hear the Windows startup sounds and such, but get nothing at all from the card.

I'm going to try and exchange it at Micro Center, however they appear to be out of stock on Lightnings now.

How has the RMA experience been with MSI on these? While I'm not crazy about being without the card for 1-2 weeks, if Micro Center can't find a replacement I will pursue the RMA route. I'm worried that I'll get a refurb card back though. Normally I wouldn't care too much about that possibility, but for a card that's not even 2 weeks old, I don't feel a refurb would be acceptable.

Anyway, thought I'd share my experience. Hoping I can get a replacement soon.
 
Honestly, a return to the point of sale is always preferable to RMA to manufacturer. MSI might give you a refurb card, they make no guarantees in this respect. It is not worth the gamble. They could give you a refurb, refund you for "market value" (which is less than you paid), or they could hold onto the card for weeks and repair it.

See where this is going? None of these options are desirable. IMO, return it to microcenter if you can - get a refund or exchange for whatever other 780 you can find. This will be instant gratification. If you RMA it to MSI, who knows what will happen. I'm not saying MSI RMA's are good or bad, but there's a real gamble there. I know I would not want a refurb'ed replacement, it would piss me off if I had just bought the card recently.
 
I was thinking the same thing as well. I was also really hoping that Micro Center would be able to find another Lightning for me. Unfortunately, after speaking with them at the store, they list the Lightning as discontinued and claim they will not be getting any more of them.

So, my choices come down to this:

- Return the card to the store and pick out the next closest model, which appears to be the EVGA 780 Superclocked with the ACX cooler (costs $10 more than the Lightning actually). They also have the Gigabyte rev 2.0 Windforce and the MSI Twin Frozr as well.

- Return the card for a full refund and then buy a new Lightning online.

- Try the RMA route through MSI.

I'm not sure yet which route I'm going to take. I'm leaning towards just exchanging it for the EVGA SC and leaving it at that, as I'm a bit leary of MSI at the moment. I know this is the Lightning thread, but anyone have any experience with the EVGA 780 SC? Do they overclock pretty well generally? Any other suggestions on either of the models listed?
 
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coming from a msi 7970 boosted edition with the back plate &LEDs
going to 780 gtx with the back plate & LEDs. not the TI.......I wish they had the TI with the back plate & LEDs

will I see an IMPROVMENT with the GTX 780 Lightning
Thanks

:confused:
 
What's the difference between the A1 and B1 steppings?

Thinking about picking one up from Microcenter...
 
EagleOne said:
coming from a msi 7970 boosted edition with the back plate &LEDs
going to 780 gtx with the back plate & LEDs. not the TI.......I wish they had the TI with the back plate & LEDs

will I see an IMPROVMENT with the GTX 780 Lightning
Thanks

:confused:
Click to expand...

I went from 7970CF to 680 sli to 780sli. The 680sli's more or less traded blows with the 7970s when the 7970s worked - I used CF/eyefinity on the 7970 and AMD's software just made it a pain in the ass in terms of "just working". I won't go in length on how broken CF/eyefinity was back then (2012), but when it did work, I had a good idea of performance. The 680 sli won some (680 sli were also lightnings, I should add ;) ) and the 7970s won others. I'd say the heavily overclocked lightning 680s won more though.

Back to your question: 7970 to a GTX 780. Yes. Huge upgrade.

Yes. It is a HUGE upgrade. Now the 780 at stock settings is an upgrade in and of itself but if you get a custom OC 780 it will be a huge boost over the 7970. Just for comparison sake, my 7970s clocked at 1125 fairly easily. So you'll get a huge jump with a stock 780 - but if you get a custom 780, such as the lightning, you get 15-20% scaling past stock with a good overclock.

I say go for it. You will definitely notice the upgraded performance for sure. You might also find yourself preferring nvidia's software ecosystem as I did. I understand AMD has improved, but I feel like NV is way better on the software front.
 
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