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7970 Lightning, worth the premium?

pgi947

pgi947

pgi947

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Debating a foray back into the red side of GPU's, the MSI 7970 Lightning is a card that I've had my eye on for quite a while.

From what I understand these cards are guaranteed to be great clockers, even more so under water.

IS this card really worth the ~£70 more over an MSI 7970 OC? or just marketing pushing the price up?

I'm considering a move from my 670, its no real fun to overclock and I don't fancy assaulting it with a soldering iron to get higher voltages.

So what is everyone's general feeling towards the Lightning? Would also appreciate some input from Lightning owners too :)
 
I don't belive they are GUARANTEED to be great overclockers, just a lot more likely to be.

If overclocking is what you want to do, then I say go for it, it'll be worth the £70 - they're meant to be the best chips on the market
 
I wouldn't personally pay the premium. As for being guaranteed great clockers? I'd be surprised if they actually carry that guarantee but what you might find is that a higher proportion of them are good clockers. However, as you will know the 7970 is grossly underclocked at stock (even in the Lightning version IMO) so there's going to be a fair amount of headroom.

Get a 680 if you're going to pay that much IMO. It's an incredible amount of money to pay for a custom cooler and what may be a decent overclocker.

It it aesthetically pleasing though :p
 
The cooler doesn't interest me, it would be watercooled as soon as ek released blocks for it. Again with the 680 comes the lack of fun overclocking them, is there an eta on the ghz edition cards? As if they are what they are cracked up to be then it would possibly give more guarantee of a good clock?
 
You're never going to get a guarantee of a good clocker. You could pay the premium for a rumoured good clocker and end up with one that only gives 4-5%.

The 680's from what I've read have better overclocking luck over the 670's and they're cheaper than the MSI Lightning. There's no doubt the Lightning is a great card though and I'm not doubting that.

Mine boosts to 1300 if I want the fan on loud but I think this is the top end of the scale of 'overclockability'.

If you aren't interested in the cooler then even more reason to steer away. I think you've been yoinked in by the marketing of custom cards. They're priced higher due to a non-reference cooler and sometimes a small overclock over the stock speed.

If you aren't using the cooler then...
 
pgi947 said:
The cooler doesn't interest me, it would be watercooled as soon as ek released blocks for it. Again with the 680 comes the lack of fun overclocking them, is there an eta on the ghz edition cards? As if they are what they are cracked up to be then it would possibly give more guarantee of a good clock?
Click to expand...

It's unlikely EK will release a block for the twin frozr cards :(
 
dave_beast said:
It's cheaper than more than half the 680 range, and will out perform all of the range. It's well worth the price.
Click to expand...

I go my 680 delivered at 390.
I don't see how people can spend an extra 60 on something that may/may not be faster when both are OC'ed to the max.

Cleeecooo said:
That's subjective.

It's a very good card, no doubting that. You are essentially paying for the best 7970 chips so I'd expect these to beat most 680s, even when both are overclocked
Click to expand...

Subjective? It's a card that's second rate to the GTX680 at stock, OC'ing is a gamble, and the 7970 at 450 is more (60 pound more) than some 680's, or you could get an even cheaper 670.
The 7970/670/680 will pretty much all play the same games, when the 670 is unable to play a game maxed out, the 7970/680 won't be able to either.
 
It's a joke, read up on what you are paying extra for, VRM's that can handle a load several times greater than the card could ever possibly need. Do you spend £300 on a 2000W psu when you use a single gpu and never exceed 500w peak and a £80 700W psu will never be taxed? You could, it just wouldn't gain you anything.

At best the lightning has been made with LN2 in mind to remove any possible limit.... but its still pointless as LN2 guys will try a bunch of cards, often free, and will get lucky on the core before a pointless feature on the card helps them.

You're paying for VRM's you don't use, a cooler you won't use, and the daft power centre thing that every review has said doesn't make the blindest bit of difference to overclocking ability.

Considering you can get any bog standard 7970 vastly cheaper, and a cheaper waterblock, and the waterblocks are already available...... is a very easy choice.

AMD have for a while now vastly over specced VRM's(but often not cooled them as well as they should) on their top end cards, going completely OTT on already OTT vrm capacity is literally pointless.

Save your money.
 
A DM post I completely agree with?
Hell truly has frozen over.

I find a lot of these "AWESOME" none reference cards pretty pointless, bar a better cooler.
 
Cleeecooo said:
I don't belive they are GUARANTEED to be great overclockers, just a lot more likely to be.

If overclocking is what you want to do, then I say go for it, it'll be worth the £70 - they're meant to be the best chips on the market
Click to expand...

I think you'll find they're lightning and somewhat guarantee great over clocks...

Key Features

Unlocked Digital Power
- Unlocked BIOS: One click to unlock all protections for extreme overclocking
Click to expand...

But i dont like that they have single link dvi connections and to use the other display ports you either need display port on your monitor or buy £20-£80 active adapters to use them.

I'd say at £420 they were worth it not at £450!
 
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