7970 Lightning, worth the premium?

pgi947 · 1 Jun 2012 at 19:33

bro306 said:
Put voltage to 1.150 put shows up 1.149 when applyed. My stock voltage is 1.080 with 1070/1400 thats weird

Hang on I'm going to re-check my card, afterburner defaults me to 1175mv, I think this could be a hang over from having a 670 installed which had a max of 1175mv.

Edit: yup my stock volts on either bios is 1.17v, ASIC 62.4%, makes sense of the ASIC chart at last

CraigN · 1 Jun 2012 at 19:36

mine is 1174 by default also

pgi947 · 1 Jun 2012 at 19:38

Is it correct that when I switch over to the LN2 bios my clocks drop to factory stock? (925/1375).

Space Monkey · 1 Jun 2012 at 19:55

I think I might have problems with mine!

Whilst playing Trackmania 2 for about 5 mins, I got the odd quick random blacking looking flash (funny shaped) in part of the screen, and it happens fairly frequently, so I decided to try Heaven as well, and I got the odd same looking flash on the screen in this as well, it kinda looks like artifacting.

So I may have an RMA on my hands! Great

Space Monkey · 1 Jun 2012 at 19:56

Forgot to add, my card is stock, never overclocked

pgi947 · 1 Jun 2012 at 21:03

What drivers?

I'm getting some inconsistencies with heaven and my clocks, going to do a fresh windows install over the weekend, have a hunch the amount of GPU's I've had installed on this setup may be causing some issues.

Space Monkey · 1 Jun 2012 at 21:18

12.4, done on a fresh windows install when I got the card, just played it again for about 30 mins and didn't notice any issues this time!

I'm gonna have to keep an eye on it. Also the temps are perfectly fine, 60c and under?

pgi947 · 1 Jun 2012 at 21:23

Temps look good, you can also monitor memory and VRM temps on these cards too

Have no idea what the temp limits on either is though...

Space Monkey · 1 Jun 2012 at 21:25

pgi947 said:
Temps look good, you can also monitor memory and VRM temps on these cards too

Have no idea what the temp limits on either is though...

Yeah I've seen that, nice to be able to monitor those temps as well

My VRM & memory temps seem very close to the core temp, so all around 60c max, so I'm assuming if I do have a problem, its certainly not the temps :confused:

pgi947 · 1 Jun 2012 at 21:26

Well that depends what the temp limit is on the vrm and memory, I'll see if I can get some info from MSI on it, I'll go run some benches now and see what my VRM & mem temps peak at.

Space Monkey · 1 Jun 2012 at 21:28

Cool, be good to see your core, VRM & Memory temps, can you run a 1920x1080 Heaven (same as settings on Heaven thread) & your card run at stock and post a screenie of the temp graphs? I'll do the same, thanks

pgi947 · 1 Jun 2012 at 21:34

Stock fan profile too?

pgi947 · 1 Jun 2012 at 21:43

Stock everything.

Space Monkey · 1 Jun 2012 at 21:58

so am I reading it right, Max GPU 51c, Mem 55c & VRM 56c? All on stock fan profile?

Just got side tracked via dinner

So going to run bench now

pgi947 · 1 Jun 2012 at 22:01

The GPU max was 61c, pretty warm in here tonight, the memory and VRM were always roughly 5c behind the core temp.

Edit: what is your ASIC quality btw?

Space Monkey · 1 Jun 2012 at 22:10

pgi947 said:
The GPU max was 61c, pretty warm in here tonight, the memory and VRM were always roughly 5c behind the core temp.

Edit: what is your ASIC quality btw?

Ah right, I read 51, darn eyes! They need an upgrade! Though I don't hold out much hope for crossfire!

My GPU was 61c too, and its hot as you say, also I don't have the case sides on my pc, and normally it drops them by a couple of degrees, however my VRM & memory are inline with my GPU and a few degrees hotter than yours?

GPU - 61c
MEM - 60c
VRM - 61c

Just going to find out my ASIC quality now, whats yours BTW?

pgi947 · 1 Jun 2012 at 22:14

Space Monkey said:
Ah right, I read 51, darn eyes! They need an upgrade! Though I don't hold out much hope for crossfire!

My GPU was 61c too, and its hot as you say, also I don't have the case sides on my pc, and normally it drops them by a couple of degrees, however my VRM & memory are inline with my GPU and a few degrees hotter than yours?

Just going to find out my ASIC quality now, whats yours BTW?

That could be down to case cooling, how air flow shapes around the card etc... my case is setup as exhaust only at the moment (middle of a WC build).

My ASIC is reading 62.4%

Space Monkey · 1 Jun 2012 at 22:17

My ASIC is 65.8%

pgi947 · 1 Jun 2012 at 22:19

Space Monkey said:
My ASIC is 65.8%

Doesn't that kind of prove that these cards are directly aimed at exotic cooling? As the theory behind ASIC quality is that a lower scoring chip would fair better on water/LN2?

I had a quick look about earlier, the lowest ref 7970 ASIC I could find was ~70%

Space Monkey · 1 Jun 2012 at 23:11

pgi947 said:
Doesn't that kind of prove that these cards are directly aimed at exotic cooling? As the theory behind ASIC quality is that a lower scoring chip would fair better on water/LN2?

I had a quick look about earlier, the lowest ref 7970 ASIC I could find was ~70%

Seems to be so.

I'm going to leave this at stock for a few days and have some Heaven loops running to see if I can replicate the artifacts? I'll get my case back together as well and get a real idea of the temps I'm likely to see.

Thanks for testing yours out earlier, gives me a kinda base line to work with