Flashing MSI GTX 1080 Ti Lightning X to Lightning Z

[Morgoth97]

I've had an issue where I couldn't access voltage control over my GPU. I got the MSI GTX 1080 Ti Lightning X as the Lightning Z was out of stock when I purchased it. After running Afterburner I wasn't able to access voltage control and monitoring using the software which I found abnormal as the reviews I saw of the Lightning Z had full control over "Quad-Voltage control" MSI advertised.

After doing some research I found some users finding a boost in performance simply by flashing their cards to the Lightning Z model.

So after flashing my card to the Lightning Z, I still couldn't find voltage control until I downloaded the beta version of the software- I tried this with the Lightning X bios prior to flashing but I soon reverted back to the previous version. 

I was soon greeted to a small boost in performance.

 

Prior to the flash, I was only able to run my card at 2025 MHz max and 1999 MHz on average.

After the flash, I could run my card at 2088 MHz max and 2050 MHz on average.

Sure, it's a small boost in performance but after running some gaming benchmarks I've also noticed a small FPS boost in all my games.

On  Overwatch, I got 166 FPS on average compared to the 150 FPS prior to the flash. Max settings, max settings at 1440p. Granted, this is no way a graphics intensive game.

On Wticher 3 at max settings and 1440p, I got 93 FPS on average compared to 81 FPS prior to the flash.

On FireStrike ultra 4k, I got a boost of almost 230 points in graphics score, I've done 3 tests and compared the averages between them.

Temperature wise, both BIOS settings appear to be the same however the fan spits slightly faster after the BIOS update during work load.

 

My results are possibly note very valid as I haven't considered to conduct repeats and taking into account control variables such as ambient temperature (Room temperature).

But I think my results do show that the BIOS settings of the Lightning Z cards add more stress on the graphics card and in turn gives a small boost of performance.

During my research, I've come across interesting results, one Lightning Z user couldn't get their Card past 1999 MHz and one Lightning user (lowest tier card) managed to get to 2100 MHz max and 2075 MHz on average after flashing his BIOS to Lightning Z. This may suggest that the tiers aren't separated by binning but rather "BIOS settings" which explains the small 10$ tier differences.

 

TL;DR

MSI marketed their  Lightning 1080 Ti cards into 10 dollar tiers; Lightning, Lightning X and Lightning Z

Only the Lightning Z BIOS supports advertised features such as "Quad-voltage control" and after contacting MSI, they were very unhelpful and just gave me the generic "Nvidia locks voltage control on the Pascal cards"

It doesn't appear that the tiers are separated by binning, but simply BIOS settings. I'm slightly annoyed of MSI's conduct as I'm not getting full performance of my 1080 Ti using their Lightning X BIOS.

 

 

[WereCat]

Try changing the voltage/frequency curve instead of directly changing the voltage offset in MSI Afterburner by pressing CTRL+F