OCUK 6970 TFIII (Lightning) review.

warmasice · 18 Jan 2012 at 16:40

ALXAndy said:
Heard back.. Got RMA, sending it on Sat morning.

Good for you matey

I wonder if they will repair or replace it?

warmasice · 18 Jan 2012 at 16:42

Idartalis said:
Appears to be the 'Twin Frozr III' model you get from OCUK, which is the same as Lightning but with little to no testing by MSI, I believe, which makes sense considering the issues people are getting.

If you get a good one or you're able to pinpoint and fix the issue, it's a very good card.

I ordered 2, 1 started over heating like crazy. Sent it back and replacement was fine. So 1 out of 3 were bad.

I haven't overclocked, probably won't after hearing these stories, and also i don't want to risk losing any warranty etc because of it. I remember reading some disclaimer in CCC about overclocking with volts etc.

JustBen · 18 Jan 2012 at 16:54

warmasice said:
I ordered 2, 1 started over heating like crazy. Sent it back and replacement was fine. So 1 out of 3 were bad.

I haven't overclocked, probably won't after hearing these stories, and also i don't want to risk losing any warranty etc because of it. I remember reading some disclaimer in CCC about overclocking with volts etc.

have a look on msi forums, you can overclock and stay within warranty

InfiniteNoise · 18 Jan 2012 at 17:32

As above, overclocking won't really cause you lose to your warranty.

When I got mine, it was overheating like crazy, reaching 100c+ within seconds of firing up Kombustor/Furmark, which I fixed by tightening the screws holding the cooler slightly and it's now maxing out at 63c in games @ 950Mhz @ 1.2v.

shankly1985 · 18 Jan 2012 at 17:48

I really dont know what to do now

dont like playing lottery of products but really wanted to buy this card for new rig next week.
How can they sell something without doing test, OCuk this is very bad and its you your fault.
Might phone up first and explain why am worried about buying and see what they say.

InfiniteNoise · 18 Jan 2012 at 18:27

It's not really OCUK's fault, it's more MSI's fault, but for the price, it's amazing.

Try and hold off on buying anything if you can, 7950 and 78xx series are coming in the next few weeks.

shankly1985 · 18 Jan 2012 at 18:33

Idartalis said:
It's not really OCUK's fault, it's more MSI's fault, but for the price, it's amazing.

Try and hold off on buying anything if you can, 7950 and 78xx series are coming in the next few weeks.

True its not OCUK, am just abit un-happy lol
Yer read that but dont want to wait and then be let down by price. What sort of price can we expect 7950? more than £350 and am out lol

ALXAndy · 18 Jan 2012 at 18:58

Idartalis said:
It's not really OCUK's fault, it's more MSI's fault, but for the price, it's amazing.

Try and hold off on buying anything if you can, 7950 and 78xx series are coming in the next few weeks.

It's not really MSI's fault either. Of any batch of any part you are going to have faulty parts. You can't sit and test every single last one of them in real world circs.

Also, remember - he who has a problem shouts the loudest. Happy people usually say nothing.

I'm happy so far. They've supplied me RMA and I gotta send it back to Holland, but it'll only cost me £4 more than sending it to OCUK and they're 100% going to replace it for me, with a tested one.

warmasice said:
Good for you matey

I wonder if they will repair or replace it?

Replace. I asked them to just replace it.

PancakeSniffer · 19 Jan 2012 at 09:50

Well I would say im pretty lucky with mine and have a good one.... it overclocks to 965 on the core at stock volts like an actual lightening model in the reviews and is a brilliant card on BF3 and other games ive tried, its just when I play Crysis 1 and serious sam 3 for some reason the game crashes, other than that I am actually very happy with the card, but cant seem to pinpoint the problem with the few games crashing

warmasice · 19 Jan 2012 at 11:00

PancakeSniffer said:
Well I would say im pretty lucky with mine and have a good one.... it overclocks to 965 on the core at stock volts like an actual lightening model in the reviews and is a brilliant card on BF3 and other games ive tried, its just when I play Crysis 1 and serious sam 3 for some reason the game crashes, other than that I am actually very happy with the card, but cant seem to pinpoint the problem with the few games crashing

Is on stock bios or the lightening bios?

For everyone else: There's a good review here that show you what the actual lightening card can achieve on stock and overclocked volts:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/05/09/msi_r6970_lightning_video_card_review/8

warmasice · 19 Jan 2012 at 11:04

Idartalis said:
As above, overclocking won't really cause you lose to your warranty.

When I got mine, it was overheating like crazy, reaching 100c+ within seconds of firing up Kombustor/Furmark, which I fixed by tightening the screws holding the cooler slightly and it's now maxing out at 63c in games @ 950Mhz @ 1.2v.

Really??.. why is there a disclaimer telling you that warranty will be voided in CCC when you click on the padlock unlock certain settings (like increase voltage)?

Can someone point me in the right direction as to MSI's stance on this. It's really interesting if this is true.

Thanks

JustBen · 19 Jan 2012 at 11:35

warmasice said:
Really??.. why is there a disclaimer telling you that warranty will be voided in CCC when you click on the padlock unlock certain settings (like increase voltage)?

Can someone point me in the right direction as to MSI's stance on this. It's really interesting if this is true.

Thanks )

Of course:

http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=152682.msg1130482#msg1130482

Basically use their utility with one of their cards and it screws up you're covered. under warranty providing their is no physical damage.

warmasice · 19 Jan 2012 at 13:54

Hmm... i'd like to see that in the terms of their warranty, rather than a copy and paste from some email that a user has posted.

JustBen · 19 Jan 2012 at 15:29

warmasice said:
Hmm... i'd like to see that in the terms of their warranty, rather than a copy and paste from some email that a user has posted.

If you're unsure then contact them yourself, as long as you have something in writing from them via email or whatever they cannot really refuse.

PancakeSniffer · 19 Jan 2012 at 16:56

warmasice said:
Is on stock bios or the lightening bios?

For everyone else: There's a good review here that show you what the actual lightening card can achieve on stock and overclocked volts:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/05/09/msi_r6970_lightning_video_card_review/8

Stock bios mate

ALXAndy · 19 Jan 2012 at 17:08

warmasice said:
Hmm... i'd like to see that in the terms of their warranty, rather than a copy and paste from some email that a user has posted.

I think you'll find there's not much they can do about it.

Firstly there is no way for them to know. The card does not log what you are doing with software, the bios is read only.

Secondly they would have trouble in court because they are supplying a program designed to do what it does.

And thirdly you do not bite the hands that feed.

Overclocking plays an enormous part of whether a product will sell or not. If you start alienating your audience they go elsewhere.

Years ago ATI (9800 IIRC) started putting easy blow fuses on their cards. Blowing it didn't do anything, but it just showed them you had overclocked the card.

At that point they voided your warranty. Know what happened? people just went to Nvidia instead. If Intel didn't want people overclocking there would never have been a K series Sandy. ETC, ETC.

It's a sign of the times, it's what people want. So now? they have put thermal throttles in place. But punishing people for overclocking is totally daft. People will just go elsewhere.

V4FRP · 19 Jan 2012 at 19:03

Hi All,

I got one of these cards just after Christmas for my first PC build in about 10 years.

It works fine in games however I noticed its getting upto 80 degrees during gaming or when running Benchmarks. Should I be worried? I've checked the heatsink is screwed on securely but still can't seem the get the temperature down.

I'm running it at stock volts with a 920 clock and I've got a HAF X Case with 3 x 200mm fans and 1 x 140mm so should be getting plenty of cold air. Could the fact that it is stored under my desk affect it?

It idles at around 32 degrees which seems to be in line with everyone else who has posted, just worried about the max temps its getting up to.

Is it easy to remove the heatsink and re-apply the thermal paste?

Thanks

PancakeSniffer · 19 Jan 2012 at 19:14

Dont worry thats completely normal mate, these chips are designed to run hot. Anything from 65-80 dgree's under heavy load is normal.

Benchmarking/testing 80 and a little above is fine and for gaming 70 degrees is fine, if its more than 70 while gaming then you may just have a hot chip or the fan speed is too low.

ALXAndy · 19 Jan 2012 at 19:36

Do you have a fan profile in Afterburner? or just relying on CCC?

V4FRP · 19 Jan 2012 at 20:17

Thanks guys sounds like I was worrying about nothing then. It gets up to 80 degrees using the stock fan profile but if I ramp it up using custom profile in Afterburner then I can keep it to around 70. Its quite a bit louder though.

Guess I'll just keep the custom fan profile and get some headphones