$499 MSI 5870 Lightning is the fastest 5870 in the market (avg oc=1034/1351)

[Apocalypse23]

I've been reading reviews online about the new MSI 5870 Lightning edition, it is a non referenced card which offers astounding OC and great cooling, some have labeled it as some what noisy at load, however it still has a substantially better performance/oc head room than a reference 5870. Post your thoughts.

Here's an interesting video at CEBIT from MSI engineers talking about their changes to the new 5870, and also possible Fermi tweaks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cDYl0PX1oI&feature=player_embedded#

Discuss.

Reviews

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/gpu_displays/msi_hd5870_lightning_review/1 -- April 12th 2010
http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/msi_r5870_lightning,1.html -- April 7th 2010
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3188/msi_radeon_hd_5870_lightning_video_card/index.html --March 17th 2010
http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-r5870-lightning-review/ -- March 15th 2010
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=22850 -- March 15th 2010
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R5870_HD_5870_Lightning -- March 11th 2010

 

[Zap]

Discuss.

Uh...

 

[cbn]

http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/msi_r5870_lightning,10.html

134 additional watts power consumption to go from 850 Mhz core clock to 1000 Mhz core clock?

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3188/msi_radeon_hd_5870_lightning_video_card/index15.html

24 additional watts power consumption to go from 850 MHz core clock to 1000 Mhz core clock.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R5870_HD_5870_Lightning/32.html

How is Techpowerup able to apply such high core voltages? Is "volt modding" being used here?

 

[Apocalypse23]

Uh...

Well here are some interesting numbers:

It is clearly a very dominant card, and outperforms even the GTX 480 at OC. Impressive. Crysis Warhead and Far Cry2 seem to be the two exceptions where the GTX 480 takes the lead.

 

[zagood]

http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/msi_r5870_lightning,10.html

134 additional watts power consumption to go from 850 Mhz core clock to 1000 Mhz core clock?

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3188/msi_radeon_hd_5870_lightning_video_card/index15.html

24 additional watts power consumption to go from 850 MHz core clock to 1000 Mhz core clock.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R5870_HD_5870_Lightning/32.html

How is Techpowerup able to apply such high core voltages? Is "volt modding" being used here?

"Now in order to achieve a stable core overclock of 1000MHz on the MSI R5870 Lightning, we had to raise the core voltage to 1.35v using the AfterBurner software" (from LegionHardware)

 

[cbn]

avg oc=1034/1351

When I looked through the reviews you linked, I didn't see such high core clock numbers.

 

[Apocalypse23]

When I looked through the reviews you linked, I didn't see such high core clock numbers.

My bad, that is the score of the first review link I posted, by overclock3d, i.e 1034/1351.

 

[cbn]

"Now in order to achieve a stable core overclock of 1000MHz on the MSI R5870 Lightning, we had to raise the core voltage to 1.35v using the AfterBurner software" (from LegionHardware)

At the stock voltage I now got 965 MHz @ 1.165V. Bumping the voltage showed substantial improvements: 990 MHz @ 1.25V, 1025 MHz @ 1.35V, 1040 MHz @ 1.40V, 1045 MHz @ 1.45V, 1065 MHz @ 1.50V. Beyond that the card simply got too hot for any proper testing, I am sure higher clocks could be achieved with better cooling.

Afterburner is also allowing these 1.4V to 1.5v overclocks? Does MSI Lightning get a special version of Afterburner?

 

[Dark4ng3l]

I have a Hawk and the fastest supported voltage without modding the card is 1.35v. I have read some reviews claiming that the actual voltage measured off the card is higher than what afterburner says it is. I have't measured voltages straight off my card to see if there is any difference but if they got their voltages right off the card it might read higher than what afterburner thinks the voltage is.