The HD 7970 and the Reactor Core GPU
The website coolaler.com has some nice pictures of MSI’s Radeon HD 7970 Lightning. On some of the pictures, we can see the Reactor Core GPU. The Reactor Core GPU, is the kind of blue cover on the back plate of the board. This blue cover actually hosts a battery of capacitors that are used to filter and stabilize GPU voltage (like the NEC/Tokin Proadlizer film capacitors in GeForce GTX 570 DirectCU II or in EVGA GTX 580 Classified Ultra). Why these capacitors are outside the PCB? According to lab501.ro, it’s for a simple reason: because there was not enough place on the HD 7970 Lightning board to add them… Reactor Core GPU, or how to transform a problem in a feature!
Update (2012.03.16): MSI has officially published the homepage of the HD 7970 Lightning. You can find it HERE.
MSI provides more details about the GPU Reactor:
Well, well… but what about clocks? Still unknown?
1100MHz for the GPU and 1500MHz real speed for the memory…
1100 MHz core against 925 stock is fine(+18.9%), mem is however not so good 1500 vs 1375 (only +9,1%). I’m curious if 7970 lightning could keep up with that kepler which may soon arive 😉
@Promilus: GK104 will lag behind for sure…
how is the ripple 13% lower? from them numbers its 13% higher!
The good thing with MSI is that they’ve got a pattern number instead of a patent number ….
M422121 !
“because there was not enough place on the HD 7970 Lightning board to add them…”
What a sloppy design. Will not buy this ever.