Lightning Strikes

[Jor-El]

Ok these things are back on the market officially, now the question is who's gonna pop $500 again to find out if MSI fixed them or only flashed their BIOS?!

The BIOS flash will not work on most of the faulty cards (volts would not scale). I wish MSI would release an official statement like Toyota...

[Witchdoctor]

I hear ya jor ...

but their only value will be possibly hardware, If the 2GB Matrix and SOC are in a different catagory ..... Their global days are numbered IMO and if it ends up being only one 5870 catagory the hardware will be limited as well .... not convinced they are worth the risk with these new cards on the horizon ....

Plus who knows what non reference 480's will bring to the table .....

[Dentlord]

Mine will be here Friday ;)

MSI seriously owes Bren some money on this one, without his convincing I would NEVER have given them another penny.

[Jor-El]

I hear ya jor ...

but their only value will be possibly hardware, If the 2GB Matrix and SOC are in a different catagory ..... Their global days are numbered IMO and if it ends up being only one 5870 catagory the hardware will be limited as well .... not convinced they are worth the risk with these new cards on the horizon ....

Plus who knows what non reference 480's will bring to the table .....

I would only recommend it for those who don't have any 5870 results like me, otherwise I would sit and wait for a while. Shammy's retail results on the 480 are looking good too.

Mine will be here Friday ;)

MSI seriously owes Bren some money on this one, without his convincing I would NEVER have given them another penny.

Yeah I hear ya! I will keep a close eye on your results Dent. :thumbsup:

[Patch]

Guess mine was one of the lucky ones that a bios flash fixed. Now I just need a copy of ABE 1.5.1 cause it completed 3D06 at 1350 with 1.35v at -140. It might be a 1400+ card if I could give it 1.5+v.

I'm really in the mood for some "butterflies in the stomach" type benching sessions.

[GFDuke]

From what i've seen the Fermi cards won't touch the Lightning or any othr 5870 for single card result. Hence, they will only be hardware point cards and i have had enough of that. I want GLOBAL. And, seriously from what i've heard though the comms i fear that the SOC won't touch the "working" lightning. Lets hope its been made good.

[Splave]

mine was supposed to be here today, now it says tomorrow lol

[Hondacity]

fermis can do alot of damage with 06 and vantage....

From what i've seen the Fermi cards won't touch the Lightning or any othr 5870 for single card result. Hence, they will only be hardware point cards and i have had enough of that. I want GLOBAL. And, seriously from what i've heard though the comms i fear that the SOC won't touch the "working" lightning. Lets hope its been made good.

[Neuromancer]

Plus who knows what non reference 480's will bring to the table .....

According to a BSN article. Lower power consumption 2x6 PCIE power and a good HTPC card. LMAO.

Mine will be here Friday ;)

MSI seriously owes Bren some money on this one, without his convincing I would NEVER have given them another penny.

I get confused on the real name/nom de guerre intermixing. I should know but off hand cant think of it.. who is Bren?

Shammy's retail results on the 480 are looking good too.

Shammy's Frankenstein creation can no longer be considered a retail sample. He completely rebuilt the power system with an add on card..

[Dentlord]

Dont count fermi out completely, shammy just set the vantage record with a retail card without the craziness, and only 1.35v (according to him)

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=281346


And Bren = Rom ;)

[Neuromancer]

Dont count fermi out completely, shammy just set the vantage record with a retail card without the craziness, and only 1.35v (according to him)

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=281346


And Bren = Rom ;)

Really? That is good news. And DOH! I knew I knew who the name was lol

I dont talk to him on IM so makes it harder to remember I guess.


Well FxFxFx that hte new rev is better for yah...:good:

[GFDuke]

Dont count fermi out completely, shammy just set the vantage record with a retail card without the craziness, and only 1.35v (according to him)

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=281346


And Bren = Rom ;)

But he's using the SR2 with 2 cpus. That would help a bit. lol

[Dentlord]

Shammy's fermi GPU score is 27807, Nick's WR at the bot has a GPU score of only 26070 with a lightning.

The performance is definitely hiding in the 480s, it will be a force in the coming months I bet.

[Splave]

But he's using the SR2 with 2 cpus. That would help a bit. lol

both are at 6c6t so it should be similar to a 980x :)

[RomDominance]

Kind of ironic the early samples of fermi sucked. Its been said before, but I believe that the 480 will eventually overtake the lightning in Vantage, 06 and 01. I still think the 5870 retains the crown in 03 & 05 simply due to higher frequencies. The driver development on the green team will make the difference.

[Witchdoctor]

It would be great if they can turn it into a winner .....

That would put the ball back in ATI's court for a possible 5890/485 gun fight :thumbsup:

We all win

[FACE]

Indeed.... their battle will bring savings to everyone.... . unless it's like a WWE kinda battle, where it is staged and we pay just to see it.... then we lose

[Dentlord]

My second lightning was a total failure ... even worse than the first one I had.

Back to newegg it goes, along with all those juicy global points I was going to get this weekend.

[Witchdoctor]

That sucks bro .... They seem really hit or miss ... efen worse than betting on a CPU

Matrix or the SOC is what I am waiting for .... Hopefully they will be ready for prime time

MAybe some non reference 480 will hit the streets as well

Once I get back up in June I am preping for an all out assult ... seven cards sitting here plus what ever is the global slut as of then .......... :thumbsup:

[Patch]

What sucked about it?

Tried any mods?

[Dentlord]

I managed to smash through an artifact-riddled vantage run @ 1250, but any more than 1.3v and Id get wild stuff happening even on desktop, and 3d would crash immediately.

Once again, every reference 5870 I have owned was better than this high dollar pos.

[Jor-El]

My second lightning was a total failure ... even worse than the first one I had.

Back to newegg it goes, along with all those juicy global points I was going to get this weekend.

I managed to smash through an artifact-riddled vantage run @ 1250, but any more than 1.3v and Id get wild stuff happening even on desktop, and 3d would crash immediately.

Once again, every reference 5870 I have owned was better than this high dollar pos.


Sorry to hear that Dent MSI sure did a number on this one :thumbdown:

[Chuchnit]

Screw that bro. Time to wait on the SOC giga or go fermi.

[Dentlord]

RMA is approved at the egg, if they have fermi in stock when I get my money back, Im going green!

[RomDominance]

You were always happy flying the Rom flag Winger. This Klingon red shit is hard to handle sometimes. They sure did screw with you.

[Patch]

Testing the limits of my Lightning under cold with Vmem mod.

While I'm not happy with some of the limits, I can't say I'm too displeased so far. Since my CPU is still under SS for now, I only played with 3D03 - Trolls and Nature pretty much give me an idea.

1) Cold Bug -120 :thumbdown:
2) GPU 1360 max clock to complete Trolls. Does at 1.51v. Can't clock higher with 1.55v, but that's as much as I wanted to push it this early on.
3) Mem 1300 max clock to complete Nature, though hit or miss. 1290 max for consistency.
4) 1.72v absolute max Vmem. Can see pixels fall out predictably while in 2D at 1.72v. I kept at 1.67v for rock stability.

I'm gonna bench it like this for a while before doing OCP and VDDCI mods. Baby steps. Killed too much expensive hardware lately to risk losing out on some quality benches before jumping to suicidal stuff.

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/931/3d03ln2cardcpusscropped.jpg

http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/296/3d03cardln2.jpg

[Kal-EL]

Good testing patch. Wish she bumped up higher for yah.