MSI 980 Ti Lightning

TaintedSquirrel

TaintedSquirrel

[H]F Junkie
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Aug 5, 2013
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http://videocardz.com/57482/msi-geforce-gtx-980-ti-lightning-detailed

MSI 980 Ti Lightning comes with :

triple-fan &triple-slot Tri-Frozr cooler,
beefy heat sink,
three power connectors (8+8+6pin),
V-Check points,
5 SuperPipes,
Military Class 4 components,
Dual-BIOS feature,
12+3-phase power VRM,
10-layer customized PCB,
backplate,
clock speeds of 1203/1303 MHz (base/boost), 1774 MHz (memory)

The card is expected to start selling this week. It won’t be cheap.
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Nice card, maybe it's time to replace my GTX 780, especially @ 1440p. But man, 8+8+6 pin for a single card? Jesus. I'd have to upgrade my power supply as well :s. Not to mention, i'd have to find a "safe" way to get rid of those yellow accents.
 
I want to put my hands in this card to see how much better it can do with BIOS mod vs my classy. =D.
 
Mezner said:
Nice card, maybe it's time to replace my GTX 780, especially @ 1440p. But man, 8+8+6 pin for a single card? Jesus. I'd have to upgrade my power supply as well :s. Not to mention, i'd have to find a "safe" way to get rid of those yellow accents.
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The overbuilt power circuitry is for those intending to do LN2 overclocking. For 24/7 air/water use I will confidently say 2x8 pin for 375W will be enough. (that's 150% default power limit just for context)
 
Am I going to need a boom to keep that thing from sagging? Goodness.
 
If my old 780 lightning could hit 1400 on core with an AIO, what can this SOB too.

If i wasn't in the middle of remodeling THIS is the card to get.
 
my 780 lightning was the best OC card I have ever owned thing was a beast. I am sure this one will be the same.
 
What can you speculate on the price? How much was the 780 lightning over the 780 ref?

$849 range like the Kingpin?
 
So not only is the card difficult to use in a SLI setup due to the large cooler, most likely it will be more expensive than some AIO watercooled models (or the MSI Gaming + G10 + AIO) and perform worse. I hope that cooler can at least keep it quiet on load.
 
kasakka said:
So not only is the card difficult to use in a SLI setup due to the large cooler, most likely it will be more expensive than some AIO watercooled models (or the MSI Gaming + G10 + AIO) and perform worse. I hope that cooler can at least keep it quiet on load.
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this type of card as always cry out of the box to be inside a full WC block.. classified, Lightning, Matrix.. etc.. all are meant to heavy overclock.. overclock that will be certainly hard to achieve in the long term usage with reference models.
 
KickAssCop said:
Also triple slot fail.
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Many/most of those likely to purchase a pair of these, myself included, will immediately put them under water, thus making the height/thickness of the heatsink/fan/shroud assembly a complete non-issue.
 
The lightning brand doesn't seem to have the hype it used to have. However, this card should be awesome.
 
850-940 euros in Germany. You can get the regular MSI 980 Ti Gaming, a G10 bracket and Corsair H55 for less than 800 euros and it will most likely be quieter and also gives you a cooler you can cram in your next card. Not to mention it does 1500 core easily.
 
1500 on the core is pretty bad for a card with such a high price. My Classified default overclocks to 1405 out of the box with 70.3% asic. If these cards are not binned then paying 750 for a triple slot is quite pointless. Also Hynix memory is bad.
 
I'm disappointed in the OC's so far. Tweaktown didn't even hit 1400mhz and guru3d only hit 1500!? The absurd 8.7gbps memory won't do that much for actual gaming performance.

Amazing stock temperatures and sound levels though.. but who buys only one of these things? Can we stick to 2 slot coolers please? Some of us need to test these things to their max before ripping off the coolers and putting blocks on, but that can't really happen when the top card throttles.
 
980TIs have a big OC wall. no matter how much able to OC a card can, it will not be able to reach maximum potential due to those limitations. Bios Flash its a must for anyone willing to go above 1550mhz, power tables are limited to that point, in fact most 980TI cards are just limited to around 1500mhz no matter what one can do they will not go above that point.
 
Hooy said:
I'm disappointed in the OC's so far. Tweaktown didn't even hit 1400mhz and guru3d only hit 1500!? The absurd 8.7gbps memory won't do that much for actual gaming performance.

Amazing stock temperatures and sound levels though.. but who buys only one of these things? Can we stick to 2 slot coolers please? Some of us need to test these things to their max before ripping off the coolers and putting blocks on, but that can't really happen when the top card throttles.
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Actually the memory speed can do a lot in some games especially at 4k. Even at 1440, it did make a big improvement in Crysis 3 when I tested out the scaling. I went from bouncing between 61-62 fps to 67-68 fps going from 7000 to 8000 and it kept me from dipping below 60 fps for minimums where I was testing.

How did they raise the voltage for the memory though? I don't even see that setting in Afterburner.
 
KickAssCop said:
1500 on the core is pretty bad for a card with such a high price. My Classified default overclocks to 1405 out of the box with 70.3% asic. If these cards are not binned then paying 750 for a triple slot is quite pointless. Also Hynix memory is bad.
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Lightning cards have historically been binned to use the very best chips possible. I strongly suspect the reason we see these poor OC results is because the card is constantly hitting the power limit. On the normal bios power limit only goes up to 122% (305W), and we all know with a voltage bump these GM200 chips can really go wild with power. I bet if they used the LN2 bios or modded a custom bios with no power limiter, the overclocking results would've been very different.

Samsung memory has tighter timings IIRC, but without a hard mod to increase memory voltage, they'll still lose to Hynix memory on crack. When was the last time you saw a 980 Ti get to 8.7GHz memory on air? Exactly. And what other card allows software control of memory/PLL voltage? Exactly.

The card is also definitely NOT triple slot, hell it's barely even 2.5 slot

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And when it comes to pointless, the 980 Ti Kingpin cards take the cake. On top of being ridiculously overpriced to begin with (72% ASIC is $850), charging extra for ASIC binning while not guaranteeing OC performance is a fucking joke.

misterbobby said:
Actually the memory speed can do a lot in some games especially at 4k. Even at 1440, it did make a big improvement in Crysis 3 when I tested out the scaling. I went from bouncing between 61-62 fps to 67-68 fps going from 7000 to 8000 and it kept me from dipping below 60 fps for minimums where I was testing.

How did they raise the voltage for the memory though? I don't even see that setting in Afterburner.
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It's a Lightning specific feature, you won't find it on any other cards.(software control of memory/PLL voltage that is)
 
The card is also huge in length at 33cm. My previous Gigabyte cards (2x970 and 980 Ti) were around 300cm and that's the max that can fit my Fractal Design R3 without putting the Dremel to work.
 
Not even impressed with the performance of this card to be honest, it's only like 3-5% faster than other GTX 980Ti non reference cards or unless if I'm missing something here that will justify the price of this card.
 
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