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7970 Lightning, worth the premium?

pgi947 said:
According to GPU-Z

Card with low ASIC = poor clocker on air, high temps, great clocker on water/ln2
Card with high ASIC = great clocker on air, probably no better/worse under water/ln2

Its due to current leakage (or something?) over the chip, lower ASIC = higher leakage, which can give higher temps, but also feeds the chip as a whole with more current giving it the legroom to handle higher voltages but exotic cooling to remove the excess heat

Thats the theory behind it anyway, personally I think its just the tip of the iceberg on how a good clocker is determined based on stats such as ASIC.
Click to expand...

Ya see i have low ASIC 67%, average clocker(V.Good on memory) lowish temps
Kind of in between, still happy with it, just scratching my head!
 
I don't think we are going to know much more until we get hold of waterblocks, hopefully soon, want one pre-ordered at the first chance. My ASIC is 64.7%, searching about online (briefly) show most with ref cards that have a sub 70% ASIC have had trouble keeping temps in check and experience crashing while trying to overclock. I still have a hunch VRM temps could be key to a higher clock with these cards, as we don't know the threshold they work at.
 
Do you know of what signs to look for i.e~
artifacts= not enough voltage?
Shutdowns/lockups=temps?

Sure there used to be a time when certain things ment what you need to do to achieve higher clocks with gpu's.

Read somewhere that someones card hit 92c before he shut it down, yet screens showed similar temps to mine, so either misprinted or posted wrong screens.

I know the lightnings have quality components but are they designed to handle the cold rather than the heat??
 
Bit gutted mine died thursday. Decided to get a Msi 670 oc to replace it and spend extras on other items in my case.
 
Playing crysis 2 and screen went blank reset pc and no luck all lights went off on top except GPU Reactor. Got a full refund back and bought 128Gb vertex4 and msi 670 oc which was on special. Gotta admit i prefer the 670 better was going to get 680 but for price difference i dont think it worth it.
 
bro306 said:
Go for 670 you wont be dissapointed.:)
Click to expand...

I previously had a 670 but worried about the stuttering problem and that it might not be a driver issue, thus, not fixable? But after peeps on the Internet saying driver 300.83 IIRC has dramatically improved the issue it seems it maybe driver afterall? :)
 
Hmm I'll keep a close eye on my card in that case, at least it has 3 year warranty which will be no hassle at all to sort thanks to OcUK :)

Had a 670 too, the stuttering pushed me to the point of changing cards, IF my Lightning dies i'll either wait to see if anyone releases 680's that do 1.175v+ that can also take a full cover waterblock or grab a 580 until the 89x0/7x0 cards come out.
 
Am keeping my 670 till 680 lightning are released. In my opinion the 670 are better cards getting better performance in crysis 2 and a lot cooler. Tryed quite afew games 2day and have no problems with nvidia drivers.
 
pgi947 said:
According to GPU-Z

Card with low ASIC = poor clocker on air, high temps, great clocker on water/ln2
Card with high ASIC = great clocker on air, probably no better/worse under water/ln2

Its due to current leakage (or something?) over the chip, lower ASIC = higher leakage, which can give higher temps, but also feeds the chip as a whole with more current giving it the legroom to handle higher voltages but exotic cooling to remove the excess heat

Thats the theory behind it anyway, personally I think its just the tip of the iceberg on how a good clocker is determined based on stats such as ASIC.
Click to expand...

Mines the complete opposite, the low ASIC/high volt one can go to 1200/1650@~72 degrees and the high ASIC can only go to 1150/1600@79 degrees with a 5% more fan than the low ASIC.
 
my xfx core edition has a 67% asic and runs perfect with 1200/1600 with 1.24v with temps around 74 c havnt tried for more yet as im happy with the performance,must say clocking the card was easy as i just put in the overclocks and straight into bf3 and havnt had a single lock up yet
 
Which further adds fuel to the fire that ASIC at the moment doesn't mean squat in relation to overclocking.
 
the temps and noise are the reason I went for these cards (and the huge price drop)

I'm very impressed with the lack of noise and the low temps these give compared to my old tri fire stock cooler set-up. Dont think I will ever buy a stock cooler card again.

Thought I might need to up my PSU but the trusty corsair 850w is sticking in there. I'm running mine at stock speeds after a small attempt at overclocking. As I have two I don't need to overclock them lol.

plus they look cool

Photo%2011-06-2012%2019%2017%2026.jpg
 
Very quiet cooler indeed, not only quiet its effective too, did a bench run in heaven OC'd to 1200/1600, set the fan at a manual 70% and couldn't break 60c.

Stop tempting me with your X79 pics too, I want so much but I know I don't need :(
 
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