With their GeForce GTX 770 Lightning, MSI has another super weapon in it's back pack, when it comes to extra powerful graphics cards. Usually the Lightning cards are the cream of the crop and it's hard for any other manufacturer to keep up with MSI, when it comes to high-end VGA's. The question that remains then, what will the GTX 770 Lightning be like? Will it raise the bar once more or is MSI going to loose ground to the competition?
With the MSI GeForce GTX 770 Lightning OC you get a card which features
a custom PCB as well as a custom cooler. The ASIC quality
measured on our sample was 75.0 % which is quite low but it's good news since
overclockers will have more fun feeding this beast with liquid nitrogen.
About ASIC quality:
MSI is using the latest NVIDIA Kepler GK104-425-A2 chip,
which is manufactured by TSMC with the latest 28 nanometer process technology.
With the GeForce GTX 770 you get eight SMX units which results in 1'536 CUDA
cores. Following the specs further, there are 128 TMUs, 32 ROPs, a 256 bit wide
memory interface and 2 Gigabyte of GDDR5 memory, which is clocked at 7'000 MHz. In the end there is a memory bandwidth of 224.4 Gigabyte
per second. Concerning the GPU's clock speeds it runs at a base clock of
1'150 MHz
and a boost clock of 1'202 MHz. During our tests the highest boost clock we
measured was 1'228 MHz, which happened to be the average boost clock too. In
other words under load the GPU was always running at 1'228 MHz.
The GTX 770 also supports GPU Boost 2.0. The very first version of GPU Boost
stopped overclocking the GPU when a certain power target was hit. This new,
second version of GPU Boost stops overclocking the card, when a certain
temperature is being reached. This makes sense since the temperature is the
bigger inhibitor than the power target in most cases. In this case the
temperature target is 80 degrees Celsius. In other words, as long as the GPU
runs below 80°C it will keep overclocking until the maximum frequency has
been reached. This is why in our case the average boost clock was 26 MHz higher
than the typical boost clock the manufacturer advertises, the card never was
near the target temp.
nVidia GeForce
MSI Lightning
ASUS DCU 2 OC
GeForce GTX 770
GeForce GTX 680
Chip
GK104-425-A2
GK104-425-A2
GK104-425-A2
GK104
Process
28 nm
28 nm
28 nm
28 nm
Transistors
3.54 billion
3.54 billion
3.54 billion
3.54 billion
GPU
clock
1'150 MHz
1'059 MHz
1'046 MHz
1'006 MHz
GPU Boost
clock
1'202 MHz
1'111 MHz
1'085 MHz
1'059 MHz
Memory GDDR5
2'048 MB
2'048 MB
2'048 MB
2'048 MB
Memory
clock
1'750 (7'000) MHz
1'750 (7'000) MHz
1'750 (7'000) MHz
1'500 (6'000) MHz
Memory
interface
256 Bit
256 Bit
256 Bit
256 Bit
Memory
bandwidth
224'400 MB/s
224'400 MB/s
224'400 MB/s
192'300 MB/s
TMUs
128
128
128
128
Shader Cores
1'536 (8 SMX)
1'536 (8 SMX)
1'536 (8 SMX)
1'536 (8 SMX)
ROPs
32
32
32
32
TDP
260 Watt
230 Watt
230 Watt
195 Watt
PCB Type
Custom Design
Custom Design
Reference Design
Reference Design
Lenght (PCB - Total)
28.2 - 29.3 cm
27.0 - 27.0 cm
26.7 - 26.7 cm
25.6 - 25.6 cm
Height (PCB - Total)
13.0 - 14.0 cm
xx.0 - xx.0 cm
11.0 - 11.0 cm
11.0 - 11.0 cm
Slots
2
2
2
2
Cooler
MSI Twin Frozr IV
ASUS Direct CU II
NVIDIA Reference
NVIDIA Reference
MSRP
$XXX
$XXX
$399
$499
MSI decided to equip its GeForce GTX 770 Lightning with the latest version
IV of their famous
Twin Frozr cooler. In this case you get three six millimeter, nickel-plated
copper heatpipes, which are surrounded by two eight millimeter ones. The latter are in
contact with the GPU through a nickel-plated copper base plate. This one, unfortunately,
doesn't have a mirror finish. Soldered to the heatpipes you find the fin stack
which is being provided with fresh air via two 100mm PWM DC brushless two ball
bearing fans. Those are manufactured by Power Logic and carry the model number
PLD00015B12H.
A closer look at the PCB shows that MSI equipped this card with a digital 12 phase
PWM design. In this case, the GPU gets eight phases, twice as much as on the
reference model. The memory can rely on three phases, which take the power
directly from the 8-pin power connector. Compared to the reference analog 2-phase PCI-E shared power design,
this is by far the better way to implement it. The remaining phase feeds
the PLL.
This card also features an unlocked BIOS (LN2 BIOS) that can be selected via a
DIP switch, located at the top end of the card. Switching to this BIOS will
disable
all protections such as ASP (Active Phase Switching), higher the OCP
(Over Current Protection) from 380 to 800W and higher the TDP from 300 to 900W.
There are also two heatsink plates that keeps the card safe and cools the memory
chips as well as the MOSFETs.
Component wise, the Lightning complies with MSI's Military Class III Components
standard. It doesn't mean you will find military/NASA class components on the
PCB, otherwise the card would have been so expensive you couldn't afford it.
Still you find top quality components such as
Golden SSC (trio R17 1320),
CopperMOS (IR 8304 ARJH 1234 & IR 8327 9SUF 1228),
All Hi-c CAPs for GPU (470 3330M) and
Dark Solid CAPs (FP5K 35Ao 271 16).
Apart from that the Lightning also features triple overvoltage for GPU, memory
and PLL via AfterBurner and voltage read-out points for CPU, memory and PLL located at the
right end of the PCB.
Checking the
voltage regulation chips we find a digital multi-phase buck controller CHL8318
from CHiL for the GPU and a three-phase PWM controller uP1612Q for the memory.
The memory chips used are made by Samsung and carry the model number
K4G20325FD-FC28. They are specified to run at 1'750 MHz (7'000 MHz effective).
The card ships well bolstered in a foam made mold.
Bundled with the graphics card there is a user guide, a driver CD, that
includes the overclocking tool AfterBurner, two power converters (6-Pin-PCIe to
1x8-Pin-PCIe), a DVI to VGA adapater, the V-Check cables and a long, flexible SLI
bridge.
Idle, temperature is
taken after 15 minutes @ 30 %, 50 % and 100 % fan speed.
Room Temperature: 25°C
Temperature under
Furmark
For FurMark, temperature is taken
after 15 minutes of GPU Burn test @ 30 %, 50 % and 100 % fan speed.
We stopped the test when the GPU temperature hit 90°C.
Room Temperature: 25°C
Temperature and
fan speed under BattleField 3
For BattleField 3, temperature and fan speed
values taken, are the highest achieved after 1 hour gaming @ auto fan
speed.
The "Performance Index" value is calculated as the sum of all
benchmarks results divided by the amount of games (3DMark and Ungine not
included into the calculation).
Performance/Price
Graphics Cards
Performance Index
Price
(€)
Performance/€*10
nVidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti
30.06
98
3.07
nVidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost
40.25
132
3.05
AMD Radeon HD 7850
45.23
149
3.04
AMD Radeon HD 7870
48.80
160
3.05
nVidia GeForce GTX 660
46.52
158
2.94
nVidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti
51.99
177
2.94
AMD Radeon HD
6870
30.93
110
2.81
nVidia GeForce GTX 760
55.93
213
2.63
nVidia GeForce GTX 670
60.30
253
2.38
nVidia GeForce GTX
580
49.35
225
2.19
AMD Radeon HD
6950
35.91
165
2.18
nVidia GeForce GTX 680
66.70
307
2.17
nVidia GeForce GTX 770
69.98
333
2.10
AMD Radeon HD 7970
62.05
302
2.05
AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
68.30
341
2.00
MSI GeForce GTX 770 Lightning
75.87
388
1.96
AMD Radeon HD
6970
40.13
261
1.54
nVidia GeForce GTX 780
79.80
547
1.46
AMD Radeon HD
6990
73.04
564
1.30
nVidia GeForce GTX TITAN
85.50
832
1.03
More is better
Less is better
More is better
For the price we took the lowest price available on geizhals.eu,
on the day the review has been published.
MSI’s brand new GeForce GTX 770 Lightning is a really nice piece of
hardware. First thing first: the Lightning is a fast card, performance
wise it is on average 8.5 % faster than the reference GeForce GTX 770 in
the games tested. It is also really cool and does its job silent. MSI's Twin Frozr IV
proved to be better than ASUS' DirectCU II in both cases. In addition,
the card comes well equipped also regarding the power design that has
been beefed up to the edge and the overclocking features which make it
LN2-ready almost out of the box.
One word about the bundle, the latter is good with more accessories
you usually get with a graphics card.
- Factory Overclocking
- Performance
- Cooling
- Power Design
- Overclocking features
Cooling / Noise
Level
+
-
That's the first time we get to test with MSI's new
GTX 770 Lightning: the Twin
Frozr IV cooler. We have to say that we have been impressed. GPU Temperatures were
excellent with a maximum of only 63°C
under heavy FurMark load with the fans locked at 30 % fan speed. Now
with the fans in auto, the Lightning did very well too. After
playing BattleField 3 for an hour the maximum temperature hit by the
GPU was 61°C. In this case the maximum fan speed was as low as 44%,
translated it means a noise level of 35 dBA. In comparison the max
values we got with the ASUS GTX 770 DirectCU II OC were 64°C, 76% and
36.2 dBA.
In Idle the MSI card was only 2°C warmer than the ambient temperature.
- inaudible in 2D
- Silent in 3D
Performance
+
-
The 770 Lightning puts itself right in the middle
of the GTX 780 and the GTX 770 performance wise. In other words, the
Lightning ended up being 8.5% faster than the reference GTX 770 and 7%
slower than the reference GTX 780. Too bad MSI can't release its card
with the memory overclocked out of the box (because of hardware
limitation), we would have liked to see it catching up with the 780.
A closer look at power consumption shows, that our test system, equipped
with the GTX 770 Lightning, burns 53 Watts under idle conditions
and 211 Watts under load. Unfortunately we can't say weather it's very
good or very bad since we don't have any card with a reference PCB in
our hand but since the Performance/Watt ratio is the second best one we
can't say anything bad about.
- Performance/Watt
- Power consumption under load
- Power Consumption in idle
Recommendation / Price
+
-
With a starting price of 388 Euros excluding
shipping costs accross the EU, the Lightning isn't really cheap. That's
55 Euros on top of the cheapest 770 and 25 Euros more expensive than the
DirectCU II OC from ASUS for exemple. But considering what you get with
the Lightning we think that's a fair price. So if you are looking for a
strong GTX 770 you are doing nothing wrong going for the MSI Lightning
variant.
- High-End Gaming
- Extreme Overclocking
We gave the
GTX 770 Lightning
from MSI 5 out of 5 stars.