Msi Lightning 7970 vs. regular 7970

[plattman02]

Hey everyone,
So last night I was playing bf4 when all of a sudden all three of my eyefinity monitors went black. There was still sound but it was as if the monitors were in standby mode. Tried everything without going into the case. Nothing. Decided to open it up and found that my water loop was leaking. I had a plastic filter between two of the tubes and it appears to have been cracking for a while just from old age I guess. It was right about my 2 msi Lightning gpus. The water was dripping right onto the power supply to the card. So I took the top one out, cleaned it, and it looks corroded.
Long story short one of the two of my msi Lightning 7970s is doomed and the other is fully functional. The LEDs won't even light up on the broken one. So I'm thinking about replacing it, but I was wondering first how a regular 7970 compares to the msi Lightning. I know that in the Lightning, they have put it on a "lighting board" but I'm not sure what that means at all...I also know that there is a core stabilizer that allows it to be overclocked with more stability and be more power efficient.
My main question is can I replace this lightening with say, an xfx 7970? Will it affect the performance in crossfire? I'm aware that the ports and coolers are different, but will I even notice a difference between another Lightning or a regular 7970?

Any help would be appreciated!! Thanks!

 

[doubletake]

The only thing that matters is the core and memory speeds you can attain with the replacement 7970. If these frequencies are comparable between the cards, there will of course be no perceptible performance difference, a 7970 is a 7970. Nothing magical about the expensive overclocking-oriented boards like the Lightnings that improves performance, just greatly improved power delivery components.