7970 Lightning, worth the premium?

pgi947 · 17 Sep 2012 at 19:11

Nickolp1974 said:
pgi947 you had a go with the blocks yet????? what you doing to your system now ???????

Not yet, Its been sat waiting to be fitted for nearly 3 weeks

Definite to do asap:
Add GPU, Motherboard & memory to the loop

Maybes to do:
Move to a new case, either Phobya WacoolT Cube or Danger Den DW-21

The memory is nice, but I'm enjoying my 8GB 2400mhz at the moment, should look sexy with EK 2X Plexi blocks fitted too

Nickolp1974 · 18 Sep 2012 at 11:11

just a few pics of new setup part 1!! not going overboard on cables and cleaning till i get new case, e.t.c

pgi947 · 18 Sep 2012 at 20:34

Nice, strange CPU cooler orientation you have though!

Going under water this weekend, can't wait any longer, put off getting a new case until later in the year.

Space Monkey · 18 Sep 2012 at 20:39

Nice setup

Agreed with PGI, won't the cpu cooler be drawing in hot air off the GPU?

Nickolp1974 · 18 Sep 2012 at 20:44

Should it be sideways then?? Temps hit 79c on a 4.8 oc, not that bad?? Anyway only on there for a couple more weeks. Good news is cpu gets 200mhz more with new board, bad news lightning stays the same

not played with the gpu settings on the board yet though

Temps running prime

youdsy · 18 Sep 2012 at 20:52

Nickolp1974 said:
Should it be sideways then?? Temps hit 79c on a 4.8 oc, not that bad?? Anyway only on there for a couple more weeks. Good news is cpu gets 200mhz more with new board, bad news lightning stays the same not played with the gpu settings on the board yet though

Temps running prime

sideways bigtime. thats just silly having it draw hot air off GPU.

the back of the GPU is pretty hot aswell....

pgi947 · 18 Sep 2012 at 20:58

You'll probably drop 5c or so rotating it the traditional way, but if its getting changed in a few weeks just leave it

As for your card not clocking any higher, if you are heading under water I'm going to be having a better look at tweaking the voltages to see how easy I can manipulate 1.4v out of the LN2 bios.

Nickolp1974 · 18 Sep 2012 at 21:09

pgi947 said:
You'll probably drop 5c or so rotating it the traditional way, but if its getting changed in a few weeks just leave it

As for your card not clocking any higher, if you are heading under water I'm going to be having a better look at tweaking the voltages to see how easy I can manipulate 1.4v out of the LN2 bios.

Just gonna put thecpu under water for now, want to see some results for the gfx first and if its worthwhile i'll give it a go.

BrianB · 18 Sep 2012 at 21:22

Martini1991 said:
At 450 quid it's not worth the price.

£450? HAHAHA!!! I can get another half a 7970 with the one I bought! Ordered an Accelero 7970 for mine because the stock cooling on it is rubbish. Not worth the £150 extra though.

Can get a 680 for £450 why would anyone get the 7970 lightning over that? Isn't a 680 faster?

pgi947 · 18 Sep 2012 at 21:23

I'll be putting results up here as and when I get them, fully expecting to be top 3 in Heaven and perhaps top 5 in 3dmark11

I have voltage headroom (on normal BIOS) of nearly 0.100v on the core and around 0.050v on the memory still to give, I'll also be feeding some extra power to my PCIE lanes to see if it helps the AUX voltages.

pgi947 · 18 Sep 2012 at 21:26

BrianB said:
£450? HAHAHA!!! I can get another half a 7970 with the one I bought! Ordered an Accelero 7970 for mine because the stock cooling on it is rubbish. Not worth the £150 extra though.

Can get a 680 for £450 why would anyone get the 7970 lightning over that? Isn't a 680 faster?

New RRP is £399

Depends what you play/bench, on average the Lightnings on both sides of the fence clock higher and out perform all other brands of card.

Worth the premium? IMO yes, very much so if you enjoy overclocking. No other card of the current crop has come close, the DCUII may have been a close rival but Asus killed voltage control.

BrianB · 18 Sep 2012 at 21:34

I guess if you bench it's worth it, looks cool too. I had the 7950 power edition for a day and it was gorgeous.

Nickolp1974 · 18 Sep 2012 at 21:35

pgi947 said:
I'll be putting results up here as and when I get them, fully expecting to be top 3 in Heaven and perhaps top 5 in 3dmark11

I have voltage headroom (on normal BIOS) of nearly 0.100v on the core and around 0.050v on the memory still to give, I'll also be feeding some extra power to my PCIE lanes to see if it helps the AUX voltages.

Will look forward to it, to say everyone was waiting for the blocks i'm suprised not too see any results.

What setting is it on your board to give pcie lane more power?

pgi947 · 18 Sep 2012 at 21:45

I have the option of connecting up to two SATA Power cables to the motherboard to assist the PCIE lanes while using a multi-card setup, I figure the extra power they provide must help a single card too

I'll measure with a multimeter before and after connecting it to see if it increases any of the voltages. iirc the default AUX voltage was 0.88v rising to 0.91v with the +30mv option.

Nickolp1974 · 18 Sep 2012 at 21:52

pgi947 said:
I have the option of connecting up to two SATA Power cables to the motherboard to assist the PCIE lanes while using a multi-card setup, I figure the extra power they provide must help a single card too

I'll measure with a multimeter before and after connecting it to see if it increases any of the voltages. iirc the default AUX voltage was 0.88v rising to 0.91v with the +30mv option.

Got a 6 pin pci connector on mine and can alter all sorts of voltages and dissable ocp, have it linked up but not changed any settings as not sure what to do as info is hard to come by, may have to contact msi. Does not help when i have owned asus boards for the last 10 years.

pgi947 · 18 Sep 2012 at 22:06

I haven't looked for any settings on the UD7, but I will do, some boards have SATA power connectors, some PCIE power and some Molex, not sure if its a gimmick or actually offers something but we will find out soon enough

pgi947 · 22 Sep 2012 at 12:13

All my bits and bobs have just arrived

All going well I should be up and running by early evening, so expect some high clocks, another member (stonerdude) I think has his Lightning already under water and managed 1336/1950, I'm fairly confident with the LN2* BIOS I should be able to better that, for 3dmark11 I may even manage close to 1400mhz on the core.

*I've been having a good read up on the LN2 BIOS as well as using some of my own logic, I've found some clocks at certain voltages that were not stable with the regular BIOS to be stable in LN2 mode, I'm guessing that despite the powertune limit still being +20%, the values are a lot higher while maintaining better power delivery.

fendR · 22 Sep 2012 at 15:59

Anyone know how to get this card working in 120hz. I have a dual link cable and It used to work fine on my 6950.

Edit: Wow, I'm a retard. Single Link only, DOH!

Nickolp1974 · 22 Sep 2012 at 16:50

fendR said:
Anyone know how to get this card working in 120hz. I have a dual link cable and It used to work fine on my 6950.

Edit: Wow, I'm a retard. Single Link only, DOH!

think you need to use display port as dvi is only single link

Nickolp1974 · 22 Sep 2012 at 16:51

pgi947 said:
All my bits and bobs have just arrived

All going well I should be up and running by early evening, so expect some high clocks, another member (stonerdude) I think has his Lightning already under water and managed 1336/1950, I'm fairly confident with the LN2* BIOS I should be able to better that, for 3dmark11 I may even manage close to 1400mhz on the core.

*I've been having a good read up on the LN2 BIOS as well as using some of my own logic, I've found some clocks at certain voltages that were not stable with the regular BIOS to be stable in LN2 mode, I'm guessing that despite the powertune limit still being +20%, the values are a lot higher while maintaining better power delivery.

c'mon mate HURRY, i wanna know what you can do!!???