MSI Makes 'Lite Edition' of its GTX 780 Lightning

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MSI unleashes its GTX 780 Lightning LE.

MSI's GTX 780 Lightning has been on the market for a while now, and to spike a little extra life into the series MSI is now launching a Lite Edition, or 'LE,' version of the card.

The hardware on the GTX 780 Lightning LE is as good as much of the hardware of the non-LE version, with the exception of the card's clock speeds. The GPU is clocked at 889 MHz, and will boost up to 941 MHz. For reference, the non-LE GTX 780 Lightning is clocked at 980 MHz and will boost up to 1033 MHz.

On the card, users will find the new TriFrozr cooler, as well as a dual-BIOS (one of which hopefully removes various restrictions, like the non-LE card), a 16+3 phase VRM circuit, and 3 GB of GDDR5 memory which runs at the reference 6.0 GHz.

Niels Broekhuijsen
Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

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12 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Estix
    Just to point it out, that represents a 10% performance difference out-of-the box. I imagine the price difference will be less than 10%, though, probably putting this at an MSRP of $699 versus the non-LE's $749.

    That's all purely speculation, of course :-)
    Reply
  • maxiim
    12165628 said:
    Just to point it out, that represents a 10% performance difference out-of-the box. I imagine the price difference will be less than 10%, though, probably putting this at an MSRP of $699 versus the non-LE's $749.

    That's all purely speculation, of course :-)

    The 780 lightning sits at 549$ on newegg atm....so this one will most likely be 509 give or take.....
    Reply
  • rolli59
    If priced right it will be a good seller.
    Reply
  • Optimus_Toaster
    These have been on sale in the UK for a while now. The LE version sells for £420 and the "full" version sells for £456. However it reminds me of the GTX 680 power edition/lighting edition. They were also based on exactly the same hardware, and also had a big price gap between them, the only difference seemed to be the default clock speeds. It was only once I bought a power edition that I realised why it was so cheap. They don't overclock. They are lightnings that failed the binning process and thus were loaded with a different bios and sold under a different name. Nearly every 680 power edition needed +100mv core voltage to reach lightning stock speeds which made them hot, loud and power hungry. If this LE card is the same, I wouldn't advise anyone to purchase one. Even at stock speeds the lightning is worth the extra money.
    Reply
  • hannibal
    Optimus is right, these are chips that failed the binning proses for "real" Lightning. But if the price is right, you can get very desent card, just don't expect them to overclock.
    Reply
  • Steveymoo
    I wonder what variations on the 780 chip make such a difference to their OC ability? Quality of silicone? Thickness? Structural stability?

    Intriguing.
    Reply
  • Tavo_Nova
    the standard ref is 747.62$ converted in my area. (haven't seen the 780 lightning in stock but probably more. I can see this at 860.90$ converted. on our weird retail stores who never deducted those nvidia price cuts except on a few brands and a 5$-10$ nvidia price cut on the 780's non ref cooler. (instead of the big ass price cut)
    Reply
  • hannibal
    12173280 said:
    I wonder what variations on the 780 chip make such a difference to their OC ability? Quality of silicone? Thickness? Structural stability?

    Intriguing.

    Every made chip has variationg among them. The production node is very small, so very small variation in electronic circuits can cause guite big difference is operation speed. The sam is True with Intel or AMD CPUs or Nvidia and AMD GPUs. There have been an allways will be chip that are better or worse than the next chip.
    Those circuits are printed in many layers and sometime the thicknes of layer may vary, or it has a guite differen widenes os something else. All affect how much the circuit will leak.
    Reply
  • Mike Stewart
    funny, they made the same thing with 680 Lightning but called it 680 Power edition !
    still happy with my 680 Power edition,, just switch the bios button on the card and you have a true 780 Lightning ,,its that simple ! it worked on my 680 Power Edition\Lightning
    Reply
  • Optimus_Toaster
    Yeah except the 680 power edition doesn't overclock well.
    Reply