MSI N770 Lightning Testing ( GTX 770 Lightning )

[TheGoat Eater]

Hello all, I have been testing the MSI 770L, and I am going to be posting here my findings. Having tested MSI's 680TF, 670PE, and 660 that this is one hell of a card.

Also, due to the fact that my drivers were pre-release I am going to be re-testing with the official version here asap...
I unfortunately realized this when I was testing that I didn't update the driver that I downloaded before testing.

Please feel free to ask for specific tests you want to see and I will try to make that happen if I am able to.

*Please note that a proper Afterburner version for the 770L is going to be released fairly soon as HQ is still working on it.*

= Benchmark Results =
Setup:
CPU: Intel 4670 ES
Cooling: Corsair H100
Mobo: Z87 MPOWER
DDR3: G.Skill F3-17000CL9D-8GBXM
SSD: Corsair Force 3 120GB
GPU: MSI N770 Lightning
PSU: Corsair HX 650W

Most of these were run at 5GHz w/ 1300MHz mem and stock GPU settings. some of them will show I was posting it a bit more. When the 770L afterburner is ready I will be pushing this much more ( that and I will have a custom *AB X.X.X -ryan* version that is completely unlocked )


-Ryan

I put the results in a easier to view gallery on my site HERE

 

[Borealis7]

whats the voltage for that sexy 5GHz OC? i doubt it's actually the 0.968V CPU-Z says it is.
and what method did you use? (offset,constant,interpolated)

 

[BallaTheFeared]

5GHz on a Haswell i5 with a H100?

Forget the 770, what were your temps and how much voltage did you give it?

Also did you delid?

 

[Highmodulus]

multi-monitor resolutions would be nice to see if you have them, with a card this powerful it would be interesting to see how a 3x monitor set up runs.

 

[TheGoat Eater]

whats the voltage for that sexy 5GHz OC? i doubt it's actually the 0.968V CPU-Z says it is.
and what method did you use? (offset,constant,interpolated)

1.3v constant + vdroop control
current CPU-Z 1.64 has issue reading vcore on Haswell
Corsair H100 is the cooler with MX-2 and very high CFM fans on the rad

5GHz on a Haswell i5 with a H100?

Forget the 770, what were your temps and how much voltage did you give it?

Also did you delid?

I don't delid my CPUs and this is Intel's CPU (engineering sample)

multi-monitor resolutions would be nice to see if you have them, with a card this powerful it would be interesting to see how a 3x monitor set up runs.

Sorry but I don't have a setup for 3x testing

 

[_Rick_]

How loud is the Lightning under full load, at stock OC settings?
I'm currently running a GTX 560Ti that gets very loud (under load, IC diamond) at stock settings, especially in summer. I would expect that at 230-250W the Lightning is similar in noise?

 

[toyota]

How loud is the Lightning under full load, at stock OC settings?
I'm currently running a GTX 560Ti that gets very loud (under load, IC diamond) at stock settings, especially in summer. I would expect that at 230-250W the Lightning is similar in noise?

why would the noise from 560ti with a completely different cooler have any relevance to this card?

 

[_Rick_]

It's the Hawk. TF3 (vs 4), 200W+... Overclocked full gx1x4 chip.. many similarities. Essentially the same power output and cooling solution.

 

[TheGoat Eater]

The cooler is very quiet, and I cannot hear it over my high speed fans on my cooler - my thoughts on the sound should have little bearing on what you think as I use my setup on a bench (caseless). My ideas of what are acceptable will definitely not echo yours, but it is much more quiet from others I have had on the bench

 

[CrazyElf]

It's the Hawk. TF3 (vs 4), 200W+... Overclocked full gx1x4 chip.. many similarities. Essentially the same power output and cooling solution.

It's not the same. The TF4s are over 10C better than the TF3s at load. Check out this 680 Lightning picture. Now compare it with the TF3 version of the 680.

But yeah all indications are that this is one hell of a card. Some of the 680 Lightnings could do 1,400 MHz on air.

 

[_Rick_]

Thanks for that chart, but of course a temperature only chart is only half the story. I'll check the article though, and see if they got noise data to go with that.

Edit: At roughly the same clocks, the Lightning (680!) is roughly twice as loud (+3db), according to their measurements. This looks very much like an identical cooler with just a slightly more aggressive fan curve (especially the idle value of the 680 Lightning is scary - it's the same as the OC load value for the base TF 3 version)

 

[CrazyElf]

3db for 10 degrees is a pretty good tradeoff.

The fan itself is actually somewhat larger, 10 cm large in fact versus the 560ti's 80 mm, which works about to about 56.25% more fan area. I think the 680 TF3s cam with 92 mm fans.

I'm not sure whether they redesigned the heatstink but for sure the PCB was redesigned. In any event, if all you care about is quiet, then you can through Afterburner make your own fan curve. Truth be told, if you're after quiet and not performance, there are some pretty decent passive midrange GPUs out there.

But the real reason why these cards are good is because of their overclocking potential. 1,400 MHz was not uncommon in the heyday of the 680 Lightning. We'll have to see what these 770s bring.

 

[exar333]

Waiting for the GTX 780 Lightning myself...they both look great!

 

[blackened23]

3db for 10 degrees is a pretty good tradeoff.

The fan itself is actually somewhat larger, 10 cm large in fact versus the 560ti's 80 mm, which works about to about 56.25% more fan area. I think the 680 TF3s cam with 92 mm fans.

I'm not sure whether they redesigned the heatstink but for sure the PCB was redesigned. In any event, if all you care about is quiet, then you can through Afterburner make your own fan curve. Truth be told, if you're after quiet and not performance, there are some pretty decent passive midrange GPUs out there.

But the real reason why these cards are good is because of their overclocking potential. 1,400 MHz was not uncommon in the heyday of the 680 Lightning. We'll have to see what these 770s bring.

Honestly, the 770 lightning won't be hitting the same speeds as the 680 lightning did for the GPU core. The 680 was very flexible due to triple unlocked voltage, although it did require the original BIOS release. Subsequent versions of the 680 lightning had a locked BIOS, but flashing back to the original LN2 BIOS was a simple process and that unlocked the voltage.

The 770L will higher higher VRAM speeds due to higher quality chips. But the core is locked, unlike the 680 lightning. Out of the box with no adjustments to either card, the 770L should be 2-3% faster, but the 680L has a lot more breathing room with respect to core adjustment and voltage adjustment. Going from 1202mhz on the 680L to 1402mhz resulted in a near 20% increase. I don't think VRAM overclocking on the 770L would result in nearly the same percentage increase, although I could be wrong.

 

[_Rick_]

3db for 10 degrees is a pretty good tradeoff.

The fan itself is actually somewhat larger, 10 cm large in fact versus the 560ti's 80 mm, which works about to about 56.25% more fan area. I think the 680 TF3s cam with 92 mm fans.

I'm not sure whether they redesigned the heatstink but for sure the PCB was redesigned. In any event, if all you care about is quiet, then you can through Afterburner make your own fan curve. Truth be told, if you're after quiet and not performance, there are some pretty decent passive midrange GPUs out there.

Ah, but I'm looking at a card that can render between 2560x1600 and 3760x1600, without turning into a banshee, just because I want temps to stay under 90°C in summer. My hope with the Lightning is, that it turns out that because it can keep reasonably cool at high OC with the stock cooler, that at factory OC level it will have a decent noise level @90°C (or whatever recommended long term max temps are on the 28nm GPUs)
But with 100mm fans it should in theory be slightly less noisy than the Hawk.

..I'm actually secretly lusting for the Titan cooler. A blower makes more sense in my case, but I'm not sure I trust the cheaper EVGA solution.

 

[CrazyElf]

Honestly, the 770 lightning won't be hitting the same speeds as the 680 lightning did for the GPU core. The 680 was very flexible due to triple unlocked voltage, although it did require the original BIOS release. Subsequent versions of the 680 lightning had a locked BIOS, but flashing back to the original LN2 BIOS was a simple process and that unlocked the voltage.

If that is the case, I suspect that a simple flash back to the 680 Lightning BIOS will solve the issue. Then combined with Afterburner 2.2.3 (before lock), it should be possible to aggressively push. We'll see though. But yeah, I hate Project Green Light as much as any enthusiast. I suspect the real goal is to try to prevent OCing in order to force upselling and perhaps to reduce RMAs (although Nvidia denies this one).

Ah, but I'm looking at a card that can render between 2560x1600 and 3760x1600, without turning into a banshee, just because I want temps to stay under 90°C in summer. My hope with the Lightning is, that it turns out that because it can keep reasonably cool at high OC with the stock cooler, that at factory OC level it will have a decent noise level @90°C (or whatever recommended long term max temps are on the 28nm GPUs)
But with 100mm fans it should in theory be slightly less noisy than the Hawk.

..I'm actually secretly lusting for the Titan cooler. A blower makes more sense in my case, but I'm not sure I trust the cheaper EVGA solution.

Temperature wise to noise wise, an axial cooler will usually outperform a blower type cooler, for single GPU setups provided that the case has good airflow.

 

[TheGoat Eater]

I will be posting up soon some overclocking with +100mv on the gpu core. There is a way to edit one of the files with the latest afterburner to unlock higher control with this card

 

[_Rick_]

Temperature wise to noise wise, an axial cooler will usually outperform a blower type cooler, for single GPU setups provided that the case has good airflow.

I'm in a SilverStone FT03 though, where I suspect that a blower will benefit more, simply because it will be a much cleaner airflow. The card basically bisects the case, and there's very little ventilation to the top, and only a single bottom intake, that directs the airflow onto where a blower would have its intake. Coupled with the vertical orientation, I suspect a blower will do at least as well as a twin-fan axial solution.

Goat Eater: is your card straight from a retailer, or is it a "picked" card? Can you measure (estimate) power consumption?

 

[TheGoat Eater]

I'm in a SilverStone FT03 though, where I suspect that a blower will benefit more, simply because it will be a much cleaner airflow. The card basically bisects the case, and there's very little ventilation to the top, and only a single bottom intake, that directs the airflow onto where a blower would have its intake. Coupled with the vertical orientation, I suspect a blower will do at least as well as a twin-fan axial solution.

Goat Eater: is your card straight from a retailer, or is it a "picked" card? Can you measure (estimate) power consumption?

The card was just a sample out of the US retail stock from MSI. I am getting runs in of 1350+ in benching and just got the new Afterburner, ready for the 770L w/ + 100mv available on the GPU core So yeah guys you can over-volt these - all three voltages too I am running my games so far at 1330 most of the time. I am going to do some more fine tuning as that is rough since BF3 has issues now w/ latest driver