MSI GTX 1080 Ti Lightning Review

Clock Speeds

In Lightning mode the MSI matches up to the OC Edition of the ASUS Strix, just a shade behind the water-cooled models we’ve tested. The Silent mode doesn’t compromise the card completely, as it handily beats the Palit Game Rock, Gigabyte Aorus and EVGA iCX even in Silent mode.

Now I know lots of you are all going to be asking…. Did it get to 2100MHz on the core? Well yes it did but the average boost clocks actually took a dive.

1800MHz Boost – 2100MHz Peak – 1975MHz Average

We saw this and backed our overclock off a little and then magical things happened.

1750MHz Boost – 2037MHz Peak – 2020MHz Average

The average clocks jumped right up! We tried all sorts to get round this but the core wasnt playing ball. Sadly this is almost normal Strix OC Edition out of the box kind of clocks but having to be dialled in manually. This is purely down to the Silicone Lottery though and sadly hints that the binning process for the Lightnings may not be as great as we have hoped. Its a capable card on paper but that nothing without a decent core at the heart of it. Its also proves when you hear someone saying their card is at 2100MHz doesn’t actually mean its running at its possible fastest for anything other than a screenshot.