Ultra-fast flash: MSI GTX 1080 Ti Lightning Z in review

With the Lightning z, MSI really played with the muscles, which you also need as a customer when unpacking this chunk of graphics card. With a combat weight of just under 1.7 kilograms, the card competes to conquer the PCs of this world - the necessary K... MSI uses its own design for this board, which is also significantly different from the MSI GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X. The three 8-pin sockets for the external power supply are followed by three coils in the entrance area for smoothing the tips, as well as a s... Benchmarks in 2560 x 1440 pixels We have deliberately dispensed with Full HD (1920 x 1080p) as the MSI GTX 1080 Ti Lightning Z races into the CPU limit even in the highest settings. In WQHD (2560 x 1440 pixels), on the other hand, the actual work begins... Benchmarks in 3840 x 2160 pixels The MSI GTX 1080 Ti Lightning Z is between 9 and almost 12 percent faster than a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition, depending on the game, depending on the game. TitanX (Pascal). In total, v... Power consumption at different loads We measured the power consumption of the card in normal operation and at maximum overclocking. The normal power target of 300 watts can be manually increased up to 350 watts. That's what auc... Overclocking The overclocking with air cooling is terrific when you can withstand the fans working at 2500 rpm at maximum speed. But even so, the clock rates are the best we have ever done with an air-cooled ... Cooling system and backplate MSI has knocked on the new radiator and has not cracked, you can already put that in front of it. Somehow the fighting weight of almost 1.7 kilos has to pay off. Speaking of numbers, first of all the facts in practice... Summary It is almost a map of superlatives, because it is really fast, yet still sufficiently quiet and it still makes a lot of fun even with manual overclocking. Shock moments will probably only be experienced in the end two: the Pr...

Overclocking

The overclocking with air cooling is terrific when you can withstand the fans working at 2500 rpm at maximum speed. But even so, the clock rates are the best we've seen so far with an air-cooled GTX 1080 Ti, even in a closed housing. GPU lottery and selection by the manufacturer make it possible.

With the help of the MSI Afterburner Extreme, the increase of the power target to 116% and a slight voltage increase, there were even 2088 MHz in it as long as the chip was warm below 40°C. But even so, the result can really be seen, because 2063 MHz can also be created with 65% fan input and without voltage increase. At least when the chip is playing along.

Temperatures and clock rates

First, we compare the achieved start and end values for temperatures and GPU clock (boost) in tabular form:

	Initial	Final value
Open Benchtable
GPU Temperatures	40 °C	65 °C
GPU Clock Open	2012 MHz	1962 MHz
Ambient temperature	22 °C	22 °C
Closed Case
GPU Temperatures	42 °C	68 °C
GPU Clock Closed Case	2000 MHz	1949 to 1962 MHz
Air temperature in the housing	25°C	39°C
OC (Open Benchtable)
GPU temperatures (2500 rpm)	28 °C	48 °C
GPU clock	2088 MHz	2063 to 2076 MHz
Ambient temperature	22°C	22°C

Overview Graphs: Temperatures vs. Clock

For better illustrations now again the respective courses considering our timeline of a total of 15 minutes each for the warm-up time.

Thermal analysis of the back of the board

Finally, we consider the thermal analysis of the respective load states. We see that the VRM range and some memory modules are getting warmest, with all readings still in the deep green range. However, the heatpipe attached to the backplate inside is abundantly worthless, because instead of cooling the comparatively cool GPU, the VRM would probably have been better considered.