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...

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 figures, first of all the facts at a glance:

Cooling system at a glance
Type of cooler:	Air Cooling, 2.5 Slot
Heatsink:	Nickel-plated copper heatsink Heatpipes on the back
Cooling fins:	Aluminum, horizontal alignment very narrow, larger cooling area
Heatpipes	2x 8mm and 4x 6mm Copper composite material, nickel-plated
VRM cooling:	via internal cooling frame
RAM cooling	via internal cooling frame
Fan:	2x 10 cm, 9.5 cm rotor diameter 1x 9 cm, 8.5 cm rotor diameter 14 rotor blades each, optimized for static pressure consistent, semi-passively regulated
Backplate	Aluminum, blackened Built-in heat pipe for GPU back with backlit LED frame

The backplate is primarily used for optical enhancement, stabilizes the cooling frame on the top of the board as a counterpart, has a cross-sectional, internal heatpipe that only contacts two capacitors under the CPU socket via a thermal guide pad. However, it does not really provide a measurable amount for cooling.

Between the radiator and the board sits a cooling or mounting frame that is very similar to that of the EVGA 1080 Ti FTW3. MSI now also works with a heatpipe. which should absorb the waste heat over the VRM series and distribute it more evenly to the plate. The surface of the plate was also enlarged with "bumps" and other structures.

Thick thermal guide pads are now located on the coils and cup capacitors, so that some waste heat can be disposed of here via direct contact with the cooling fins. It would have been even more efficient if the fins of the cooler had been angled by 90° in these places in order to extend the support surface.

The flat, nickel-plated heat sink rests large on the GPU and the heatpipes are flattened to its back. The other side of the heatpipes contacts the cooling fins, which have been angled by 90° in this area. With the four narrower heatpipes, a very fast and efficient removal is achieved, so that the two 8 mm heatpipes are very well complemented.

The processing quality of the cooler is neat, especially since the effort was also made to adjust the radii of the heatpipes to the actual thickness and not to tighten it too tightly.

Fan curves and noise emission ("volume")

The fan curves indicate a conservative and volume-optimized control, but at least the first time you get a real scare when the actually semi-passively controlled fans start up. The power-on pulse is just under 2500 rpm, i.e. the maximum fan speed! However, this short howling should be recitable by a firmware update.

In the stress test, the fan speeds are even slightly lower, because Boost already slows down the power consumption of the GPU a little.

Measurements for fans and noise emission
Fan speeds Open Benchtable Maximum	1310 rpm
Fan speeds Open Benchtable Average	1196 rpm
Fan Speeds Closed Case Maximum	1515 rpm
Fan Speeds Closed Case Average	1278 rpm
Noise emission (air) Maximum	38.8 dB(A)
Noise Emission (Air) Average	35.4 dB(A)
Noise Emission (Air) Idle	0 dB(A)
Sound characteristic / Hearing impression	light engine noise< 1 Hz hardly spool-feathers Air/demolition noise at full load

To illustrate our subjective audio impression once again, we now have a high-resolution graphic with the complete frequency spectrum of our laboratory measurement: