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7970 Lightning, worth the premium?

These are great cards, no question, but for me not worth the premium over other non reference cards. Considering you can buy an all in one water cooler for £40, I would rather strap one of these on a non-reference card and it will almost certainly clock higher than a lightning. Still, its better value than the 4gb 680's.
 
The single link dvi could be a problem as I game at 120hz, £450 for the card, £100 for block and backplate, another £80 for an active display port adaptor, the cost is mounting. Do any manufacturers cherry pick their oc edition cards? Also these ghz edition cards are supposed to have a higher yield, sure that means better clocks? Or are we back at marketing with the ghz cards?

I could gamble on a standard ref card, but the last 7970 I had was a shocking clocker, could barely reach ccc limits.
 
I've not heard anything concrete about the ghz editions, maybe it is just rumours so I wouldn't bank on them. I would just get a wind force 7970, a couple of reviews hit 1300mhz core with the stock cooler, so with water perhaps higher? A lightning is certainly not worth the premium when you add in that you need adapters as well.
 
Agree tommy.

The 7970's are so underclocked at stock (and as such have a large amount of headroom) that it allows these extreme overclocking marketing gimmicks to be attached to their products when in truth, the 'extreme overclock' that the card comes with out the box is no better than what you can get with a reference card.
 
If overclocking is your thing i'd have the HD7950 version of that card personally. It's not far more headroom to extract every last MHz out of it and is far cheaper.
 
tommybhoy said:
Overclocking is a lottery, some you win...

... the Lightning's won't have cherry picked cores, you take your chances with every gpu regarding oc'ing.
Click to expand...

+1... in previous generations the lightnings have been really good cards, but this time round they seem to have given up on cherry picking cores so it's entirely down to the lottery... the one review of a 7970 lightning that I saw they struggled to break 1200
 
A £50 to 70 premium is pretty ridiculous without the GUARANTEE of better overclocks, I just do not see how they can viably sell these cards? A £30 premium for design maybe, its like the new 680 cards.....ridiculous price but then again people still pay.

Prices are still too high IMO, and premium prices are overly so. 10% off almost all prices makes them look more realistic. If we dont buy, prices will fall, but meh everyone is addicted lol.

If I were you I would wait until the price drops further. If your current system runs fine on the current games that is
 
pgi947 said:
The single link dvi could be a problem as I game at 120hz, £450 for the card, £100 for block and backplate, another £80 for an active display port adaptor, the cost is mounting. Do any manufacturers cherry pick their oc edition cards? Also these ghz edition cards are supposed to have a higher yield, sure that means better clocks? Or are we back at marketing with the ghz cards?

I could gamble on a standard ref card, but the last 7970 I had was a shocking clocker, could barely reach ccc limits.
Click to expand...

i fooled around with mine for ages, and the one thing that killed the OC was if i turned down the case fans in BIOS, especially the new fan on the PCI slots.

the card seems very sensative to this, it also cools down very quickly when the fans suddenly kick in... it handled 1.3 ok, but failed at 1.25 with the case fans turned right down..

it's not the card fans that are the problem, it's poor ventilation underneath the card, it really kills it..... case fans are now quite loud, but at least the cooler is quiet :D:D.... because that really is bloody noisy on full Prime, but on 4.4 is still very cool, maybe the lapping was a good idea after all, who knows !!!

i never realised any of this, the card really is a sensative bad tempered beast compared to my old GT 8800, the two lower case fans will deffo need to be on full speed all the time.

i might have to redo my case interior, i'm very suspicious of the soundproofing on the case floor, it's too thick and rough textured, i think it's slowing down the air flow.....uuuum :(

it's about 10mm deep, it's blocking about 5mm of the fans lower blade, something tells me the case floor should be polished and shiny... yes ok
 
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Thanks for all the input, as usual you've all been very helpful :)

I think I'm going to leave it for now, see what the HD89x0 and GTX7x0 cards bring to the table. For the time being I'll just fiddle with my 670 and resist the urge to destroy it with a soldering iron :p
 
I've caved and pre-ordered one, due in stock in a few days too :)

The price drop makes it a viable buy, it was £450, now £379, so throw in the £74 MDP to Dual Link DVI active adaptor into the mix and its looking at £454. I can't argue at essentially paying £4 for the adaptor for a card I was seriously considering at £450 anyway :)

For those that it interests, EK expect waterblocks for the lightning to go in-to mass production/distribution in 3-5 weeks, it may have been sooner but they are moving premises and has caused a slight delay. Looking forward to flicking that bios switch to LN2 mode while under water and seeing what one of these really can do.
 
I'm kinda gutted right now, I really wanted the lightning but not at the premium being asked but at the current price it makes it the best 7970 available (imo) but I've just ordered the 7950 (windforce), trying to console myself that I've spent less money :rolleyes:
 
What other than high resolutions needs a dual link DVI connector? My Dell U2711 has native display port which I use instead of dual link DVI and I have no issues.
 
CraigN said:
What other than high resolutions needs a dual link DVI connector? My Dell U2711 has native display port which I use instead of dual link DVI and I have no issues.
Click to expand...

Most of the Korean 2560x1440 monitors people are snapping up only have dual link DVI.

Also a lot of the 120Hz 1080p monitors use dual link DVI to provide that resolution and refresh rate.
 
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