Conclusion; MSI's Redemption
MSI’s Lightning series has always been first and foremost when it comes to overclocking and features. That’s why we were so disappointed with the GTX 770 version; it just didn’t live up to our expectations of the Lightning brand. Now, the GTX 780 Lightning has gone a long way towards redeeming many of its predecessor’s shortcomings. Sure it took a while to release but for the most part, the wait was certainly worth the end result.
From a paper specification perspective, MSI wasn’t really out to make the GTX 780 Lightning a dominant force for people who tend to look the other way when it comes to overclocking. Its default clock speeds certainly aren’t spectacular and they’re curtailed –in our sample at least- by an odd voltage and Power Limit cap. This prevented it from hitting higher Boost Clocks than its competitors. Actual in-game performance isn’t noticeably better than a reference GTX 780 in most titles. But this is a purebred overclocker and not a card that you should leave at its standard clock speeds….ever. You hear that? EVER.
The hunt for record breaking core clocks is where this card should spend most of its life and where the Lightning ultimately meets with its greatest successes. It was a willing participant during overclocking, never shying away from higher frequencies. We typically compare all comers to EVGA’s Classified in this regard but it’s important to remember that that card hit 1.3GHz with a significant voltage increase while the Lightning nearly hit that same mark while operating within NVIDIA’s voltage limits. This won’t hold true for every sample but what we’ve seen gives us hope.
Unfortunately, memory frequencies are held back by those universally hated Elpida GDDR5 modules but performance isn’t really held back by bandwidth anyways. You’ll still be able to hit blistering performance levels, even without Samsung’s latest modules.
Is the GTX 780 Lightning perfect? No. Features, packaging, presentation, components and accessories may all be top notch but let’s not forget this is a $770 graphics card. That’s $100 more than the ASUS DirectCU II and $120 higher than Gigabyte’s WindForce OC. Even EVGA’s ACX Superclocked currently sits in a $110 lower price bracket. As overclockers and many gamers will tell you: they don’t really care about premium packaging or countless accessories. Rather than paying a premium for those items, give them a high performance card at a slightly lower price (look no further than the Classified for that) and happiness will follow.
Is this all worth $70 more than the EVGA Classified? That’s entirely up to you. The Lightning has an edge in component selection, features, included accessories, and boasts some truly remarkable acoustic results. Meanwhile, the Classified has a significantly lower price, better out-of-box performance, slightly higher average overclocks according to online results from both cards and is backed up by EVGA’s legendary customer support. The choice certainly isn’t an easy one and we just can’t choose one over the other.
With the GTX 780 Lightning, MSI has designed a drool-worthy graphics card. You may have to pay dearly to get one but when pushed, it is a fundamentally rewarding GPU that is worthy of the Lightning logo.
Conclusion
MSI’s Lightning series has always been first and foremost when it comes to overclocking and features. That’s why we were so disappointed with the GTX 770 version; it just didn’t live up to our expectations of the Lightning brand. Now, the GTX 780 Lightning has gone a long way towards redeeming many of its predecessor’s shortcomings. Sure it took a while to release but for the most part, the wait was certainly worth the end result.
From a paper specification perspective, MSI wasn’t really out to make the GTX 780 Lightning a dominant force for people who tend to look the other way when it comes to overclocking. Its default clock speeds certainly aren’t spectacular and they’re curtailed –in our sample at least- by an odd voltage and Power Limit cap. This prevented it from hitting higher Boost Clocks than its competitors. Actual in-game performance isn’t noticeably better than a reference GTX 780 in most titles. But this is a purebred overclocker and not a card that you should leave at its standard clock speeds….ever. You hear that? EVER.
The hunt for record breaking core clocks is where this card should spend most of its life and where the Lightning ultimately meets with its greatest successes. It was a willing participant during overclocking, never shying away from higher frequencies. We typically compare all comers to EVGA’s Classified in this regard but it’s important to remember that that card hit 1.3GHz with a significant voltage increase while the Lightning nearly hit that same mark while operating within NVIDIA’s voltage limits. This won’t hold true for every sample but what we’ve seen gives us hope.
Unfortunately, memory frequencies are held back by those universally hated Elpida GDDR5 modules but performance isn’t really held back by bandwidth anyways. You’ll still be able to hit blistering performance levels, even without Samsung’s latest modules.
Is the GTX 780 Lightning perfect? No. Features, packaging, presentation, components and accessories may all be top notch but let’s not forget this is a $770 graphics card. That’s $100 more than the ASUS DirectCU II and $120 higher than Gigabyte’s WindForce OC. Even EVGA’s ACX Superclocked currently sits in a $110 lower price bracket. As overclockers and many gamers will tell you: they don’t really care about premium packaging or countless accessories. Rather than paying a premium for those items, give them a high performance card at a slightly lower price (look no further than the Classified for that) and happiness will follow.
Is this all worth $70 more than the EVGA Classified? That’s entirely up to you. The Lightning has an edge in component selection, features, included accessories, and boasts some truly remarkable acoustic results. Meanwhile, the Classified has a significantly lower price, better out-of-box performance, slightly higher average overclocks according to online results from both cards and is backed up by EVGA’s legendary customer support. The choice certainly isn’t an easy one and we just can’t choose one over the other.
With the GTX 780 Lightning, MSI has designed a drool-worthy graphics card. You may have to pay dearly to get one but when pushed, it is a fundamentally rewarding GPU that is worthy of the Lightning logo.
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