No self control. :D

P

Psychor

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 22, 2007
Messages
388
GTX 680 Lightnings arrived today. The DCII Tops, in the back, are up on eBay. ;)

GTX680_oldvsnew.png
 
duuude! you sure have allot of dough to spend... wanna share some? seriously though you start seeing negligible gains after 3-way sli but still this is interesting. post benchmarks when your done with the build!
 
Nice! How are you going to cool those Lightnings in 3-way SLI? Those coolers don't respond well to the 3-way or 4-way sandwich! You watercooling?
 
dinlee23 said:
duuude! you sure have allot of dough to spend... wanna share some? seriously though you start seeing negligible gains after 3-way sli but still this is interesting. post benchmarks when your done with the build!
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I don't plan to go past 3-way SLI. The 2 DCII Tops are being sold.

sk3tch said:
Nice! How are you going to cool those Lightnings in 3-way SLI? Those coolers don't respond well to the 3-way or 4-way sandwich! You watercooling?
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My case has extremely good airflow so I think I'll be ok on air if I don't push them too far. I guess we'll see. ;) But yes the plan is to eventually slap a block on each one and add them to the CPU loop.

Checked your signature - you think you have enough badass systems up and running there? :p
 
fomoz said:
Why only 2GB for 3-way SLI?
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Good question and it's one I've thought about for awhile. Why? Because: (1) the Lightning is currently the only real option for true voltage control (DCII can be controlled with a hardware mod if you have a RIVE, which I do, but you can only control two cards at a time); (2) I currently don't like any of the 4GB cards and/or companies making 4GB cards.

If MSI was going to make a 4GB Lightning I'd have gone that route but according to an email exchange I had with them they have no plans to do so. EVGA was an option for a time but I've come to the conclusion that they don't have a freaking clue in the world on how to manage their advertising machine or product stock when it comes to their high end cards. What do I mean about EVGA? They dragged people along for months with the 6xx Classified cards and did the same thing last year with 5xx series. Don't even get me started on the 1 limit per house BS. I'm done with EVGA for awhile.

I use a ZR30W for gaming. I find that 2GB is enough for gaming at 2560x1600 with all options cranked. Granted, with Nvidia Inspector I've been able to push damn close to 2GB. :eek: But in the end should 2GB prove a real limit for me I'll just sell these cards and buy something else just like I always do. What will the 3rd card get me? Higher 3DMark 11 scores maybe? Guess I'll see.
 
Psychor said:
Good question and it's one I've thought about for awhile. Why? Because: (1) the Lightning is currently the only real option for true voltage control (DCII can be controlled with a hardware mod if you have a RIVE, which I do, but you can only control two cards at a time); (2) I currently don't like any of the 4GB cards and/or companies making 4GB cards.

If MSI was going to make a 4GB Lightning I'd have gone that route but according to an email exchange I had with them they have no plans to do so. EVGA was an option for a time but I've come to the conclusion that they don't have a freaking clue in the world on how to manage their advertising machine or product stock when it comes to their high end cards. What do I mean about EVGA? They dragged people along for months with the 6xx Classified cards and did the same thing last year with 5xx series. Don't even get me started on the 1 limit per house BS. I'm done with EVGA for awhile.

I use a ZR30W for gaming. I find that 2GB is enough for gaming at 2560x1600 with all options cranked. Granted, with Nvidia Inspector I've been able to push damn close to 2GB. :eek: But in the end should 2GB prove a real limit for me I'll just sell these cards and buy something else just like I always do. What will the 3rd card get me? Higher 3DMark 11 scores maybe? Guess I'll see.
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Why did you get 3-way SLI for 1600p @ 60Hz?
 
fomoz said:
Why did you get 3-way SLI for 1600p @ 60Hz?
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Because if you use Nvidia Inspector and really tweak the hell of out every game I find that more GPU power is sometimes necessary. Don't get me wrong... 2 DCII Tops, which I ran at 1300 MHz boost, rock the house for most games. But even at 2560x1600 I didn't maintain 60 FPS at all times. I purchased 3 Lightnings to play with because they have true voltage control, because I haven't used a 3-way SLI configuration before and because I can. That's all.
 
Psychor said:
Because if you use Nvidia Inspector and really tweak the hell of out every game I find that more GPU power is sometimes necessary. Don't get me wrong... 2 DCII Tops, which I ran at 1300 MHz boost, rock the house for most games. But 3 cards sure as hell isn't going to make games run slower. ;)
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They won't run any faster either. Your call.
 
No offense but you should have just bought a nice ssd and atleast get some performance that actually noticeably different.
 
blackhand1001 said:
No offense but you should have just bought a nice ssd and atleast get some performance that actually noticeably different.
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No offense taken. I consider the Intel 520 a nice SSD. I choose to run my games off a 1TB VelociRaptor. I'll soon need to add another due to the fact that I'm running out of space on the first VR. 2TB of SSD space is not worth the hassle nor do I feel there are significant enough gains. The biggest impact drives have on games, I've found, is during initial loads.
 
Why go so [H]ard and not water cool? Just curious.

BTW, sweeeeeet. Why the haters? Now if I found out you were running all that with a pentium 2...lol.
 
Psychor said:
No offense taken. I consider the Intel 520 a nice SSD. I choose to run my games off a 1TB VelociRaptor. I'll soon need to add another due to the fact that I'm running out of space on the first VR. 2TB of SSD space is not worth the hassle nor do I feel there are significant enough gains. The biggest impact drives have on games, I've found, is during initial loads.
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I have one game on my SSD- BF3. Nothing else I play regularly benefits enough, especially not single player games; the difference between and SSD and a WD Green is barely measurable by stopwatch. I'll bet that VR is still wicked fast in comparison.
 
schoenda said:
Why go so [H]ard and not water cool? Just curious.

BTW, sweeeeeet. Why the haters? Now if I found out you were running all that with a pentium 2...lol.
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My CPU is under water (check sig). I do have plans for water which I mentioned somewhere above. I'm thinking of slapping an EK blocks on each and running them all in parallel. The nice thing about them being 2 slot cards, instead of the 3 slot DCIIs, is that I can install all 3 and use them immediately.

There will ALWAYS be haters. Heh. Some have a point and some just want to try and make themselves feel better.
 
Awesome cards!

One MSI Lightning GTX680 water cooled would be perfect for my gaming needs.

Looking forward to seeing how these cards work out for you.
 
Great @Psychor.

I have yesterday installed windows on GTX 670 SLI. So far so good, no high performance testing jet, but i have one little problem, the bright areas in games are to bright compared to my prior AMD 5850. It's a pain. Also some reflections are plastic or chrome metallic looking.
The nvidia control panel has no options to adjust such settings.
Some advice?
 
I have the exact same setup as OP except 2 classified 680's (waiting on evbot).

1600p gaming with full eye candy is definitely taxing on SLI 680's, however I do believe your gpu's will be throttled due to 70c+ temps with that setup. Would def recommend a custom loop for those GPU's.
 
Enjoy flashing the old LN2 BIOS on those if you want to have any sort of control over them. I flashed mine finally, and its really nice not being limited to around 1225mhz.
 
dont let these haters get you down. they are mad they dont even have one of those bad boys
 
Psychor said:
I'm thinking of slapping an EK blocks on each and running them all in parallel.
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Don't do this. Almost everyone i've seen have waterblock problems has used EK. They have bad quality and theyve started making really ugly circley things too! Get them from a decent brand like Heatkiller or Aquacomputer or one of the others! It will save heartache and likely stop problems down the road! :D
 
DeathPrincess said:
Don't do this. Almost everyone i've seen have waterblock problems has used EK. They have bad quality and theyve started making really ugly circley things too! Get them from a decent brand like Heatkiller or Aquacomputer or one of the others! It will save heartache and likely stop problems down the road! :D
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The thing is that EK makes the most unique type of blocks for special cards like the Lightning.

I am not sure if anyone else makes a block for this card.


I would stick with all copper block with acetyl top. Get a high quality all copper radiator. Keep all metals limited to copper and high quality brass barbs/fittings.

Most of the problems with EK blocks are with the nickel plated blocks.
 
LigTasm said:
Enjoy flashing the old LN2 BIOS on those if you want to have any sort of control over them. I flashed mine finally, and its really nice not being limited to around 1225mhz.
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thats what i though when he said true voltage control

you can get any modded bios for voltage control pretty much on any card. but if you want true you would of got classy with the evbot connector and an evbot for true voltage control
 
dremic said:
dont let these haters get you down. they are mad they dont even have one of those bad boys
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It serves more as entertainment than anything else.

SonDa5 said:
The thing is that EK makes the most unique type of blocks for special cards like the Lightning.

I am not sure if anyone else makes a block for this card.

I would stick with all copper block with acetyl top. Get a high quality all copper radiator. Keep all metals limited to copper and high quality brass barbs/fittings.

Most of the problems with EK blocks are with the nickel plated blocks.
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I've heard a lot of crap slung EK's way. I've also owned a fair bit of EK products that haven't failed me yet. From what I understand they changed their nickel plating process awhile back. I believe all of the CSQ items are made this way. I have two copper Aquacomputer Airplex Modularity 360 rads.

Filter said:
thats what i though when he said true voltage control

you can get any modded bios for voltage control pretty much on any card. but if you want true you would of got classy with the evbot connector and an evbot for true voltage control
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Yes, I plan to flash the LN2 BIOS if necessary. Buy EVGA cards? Read my above post regarding EVGA. ;) Also, EVBOT ports are no longer being added to Classifieds. The only "true" voltage control IMO is the Asus implementation, which requires slightly modifying the hardware the card, and using a RIVE. But that's limited to two cards. The whole point of this exercise was to play with three.
 
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Nice setup. I thought those were 2.5 or 3 slot cards? What motherboard are they going onto?
 
Rizen said:
Nice setup. I thought those were 2.5 or 3 slot cards? What motherboard are they going onto?
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Thanks. The DCII Tops I'm selling are 3 slot cards under air. The Lightnings are 2 slot under air. RIVE - check the sig. ;)
 
Psychor said:
Yes, I plan to flash the LN2 BIOS if necessary. Buy EVGA cards? Read my above post regarding EVGA. ;) Also, EVBOT ports are no longer being added to Classifieds. The only "true" voltage control IMO is the Asus implementation, which requires slightly modifying the hardware the card, and using a RIVE. But that's limited to two cards. The whole point of this exercise was to play with three.
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Its not hard to flash at all, mine came with a locked LN2 BIOS that was identical to the stock BIOS it just said "LN2" at the top, limited to 133% power target :mad: I bought it in August, supposedly you will see the locked BIOS almost 100% of the time now because all the unlocked cards have been sold.

The stock one was 80.04.29.00.3A , I flashed to 80.04.28.00.3A with no problems, now my power target is 300% like its supposed to be and I easily OC'd to 1340mhz (1394 max boost) on my automatic fan profile.
 
Good choice! I'm also a lightning user here! The reason why i chooses lightning is because of its awesome air cooler and its a two slot card!
 
IdiotInCharge said:
I have one game on my SSD- BF3. Nothing else I play regularly benefits enough, especially not single player games; the difference between and SSD and a WD Green is barely measurable by stopwatch. I'll bet that VR is still wicked fast in comparison.
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I guess its because I use my computer for more than just gaming. The benifits of an ssd in other tasks is gigantic. I have my steam folder on my hard disk. So I do agree that for most games it doesn't make much difference. But for other applications and installing programs the difference is huge.
 
blackhand1001 said:
I guess its because I use my computer for more than just gaming. The benifits of an ssd in other tasks is gigantic. I have my steam folder on my hard disk. So I do agree that for most games it doesn't make much difference. But for other applications and installing programs the difference is huge.
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I agree, and that's exactly how I use mine. OS and all applications go on the SSD, games are installed by default on an HDD, and what games need the boost get moved over. I'm using symbolic links right now for Origin, and Steam now has a built in tool for this. I've been happy with this setup so far!
 
fomoz said:
Why did you get 3-way SLI for 1600p @ 60Hz?
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fomoz said:
They won't run any faster either. Your call.
Click to expand...
blackhand1001 said:
No offense but you should have just bought a nice ssd and atleast get some performance that actually noticeably different.
Click to expand...

I ran a quick test with Crysis and Metro 2033 as I wanted to address the asinine comments above.

Crysis: average FPS increased by 23.47; minimum FPS increased by 9.26.
Metro 2033: average FPS increased by 14.93.

I think those numbers speak for themselves. ;)

GTX680_2way_vs_3way.png
 
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Send one of those DCIIs to me and i will be playing all my games @1080p for another 10 years lol

nice setup btw.
 
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