[Hardware] MSI GEFORCE RTX 4070 GAMING X TRIO

[Blackfire]

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• Isn't it great to see capable graphics cards available at prices that won't make you keel over in shock? Okay, they're not exactly cheap, but given the ludicrous GPU market of a couple of years back, GeForce RTX 4070s starting at around $600 / £600 / AU$999 are a dead set bargain. While you can't call a $600 GPU an affordable one, it's good to see the latest generation cards hitting price points that are more attractive than we've seen in a long time.

  Do check out our man James' RTX 4070 Founders Edition review(opens in new tab). Dave goes into some of the more technical details and concludes the RTX 4070 delivers RTX 3080 performance, while running cooler, quieter, and more efficiently than the last-gen hero. Most importantly, the RTX 4070 comes in at a lower price point. You also get the frame generation wizardry of DLSS 3.0. 

  If you add all those things together, it's fairly easy to make a case for the RTX 4070. On the flipside, the RTX 4070 really should compare favorably to the RTX 3080. It'd be a turkey if an xx70 card couldn't beat out the previous generations' xx80.

• And today, here for review I have MSI's RTX 4070 flavor, specifically the MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Gaming X Trio(opens in new tab). The Gaming X series often impresses me, usually delivering a near perfect balance of temperatures and low noise levels that allow the card to hold high boost clocks without much compromise. But given the RTX 4070 is a highly efficient GPU, is the big triple fan Gaming X Trio cooler really necessary?

• The MSI RTX 4070 Gaming X Trio, like all RTX 4070s, is based on the 5nm AD104 GPU, albeit a heavily cut down version of the one found in the RTX 4070 Ti(opens in new tab). It comes with 5,888 CUDA cores, 46 RT cores, and 184 Tensor cores. This compares to the 7,680 CUDA cores, 60 RT cores and 240 Tensor cores of the RTX 4070 Ti.

  Thankfully, Nvidia didn’t gut the memory subsystem. Both the 4070 and the 4070 Ti come with the same 12GB of 21Gbps memory over a 192-bit memory bus. However, no matter how much GDDR memory speeds improve, the idea of a card with a 192-bit bus costing $600 still irritates me.

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  The MSI Gaming X Trio comes with a factory overclock at 2,610MHz, a decent 135MHz increase over the 2,475MHz reference speed. The TDP of the card is a very respectable 215W, a modest 15W increase over the TDP of the 4070 Founders Edition and over 100W less than the RTX 3080.  The MSI Gaming X Trio includes the now common 16-pin 12VHPWR power connector, but MSI ships a 2x 8-pin power adapter for use with older power supplies. For its part, MSI recommends a minimum 650W power supply.

  Like most RTX 4070s, and indeed most RTX 40-series cards as a whole, the MSI includes three DP 1.4 ports plus one HDMI 2.1 port. DP 2.0 would be nice, but given the RTX 4070 isn’t really a high FPS 4K card, let alone an 8K capable one, its omission is not that important

• The card is a big one, as is usually the case with triple fan cards. It measures 338 x 141 x 52 mm, requiring three slots, though it doesn't need the full three slots, giving it some welcome breathing room if used with an adjacent expansion card. 

  In all honesty, there's no need for the card to be this big. The PCB only takes up half the length of the card, leaving a large cutout at the rear of the card. But still, it's better to over deliver on the cooling capacity than under deliver. It is something to note if you’re after a RTX 4070 for a small form factor build though, which is something the regular versions are ideal for.

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  The card doesn't have the bulk and weight of the more powerful RTX 4070 Gaming X Trio's, but it's still a premium design, with attractive RGB elements, a backplate and a tastefully designed shroud.

  Even if it is overkill, the cooler is excellent. The small 295mm² AD104 die is cooled by six heatpipes, with pads for the VRM circuitry and memory chips too. It's one of the quietest cards I've ever tested, and with a peak 3DMark Speedway temperature of just 57°C after 10 minutes of running, its absolute proof that a RTX 4070 can get away with a smaller dual fan, dual slot cooler.

  The MSI RTX 4070 Gaming X Trio comes with a compact and capable PCB that includes 9+2 phase VRM with 55A stages. A 295mm² die with a 192-bit bus and a relatively basic PCB shouldn’t have a huge bill of materials. I hope Nvidia drops the price of RTX 4070 cards in the months ahead as I'm sure there's plenty of margin to do so. 

• [https://www.pcgamer.com/msi-geforce-rtx-4070-gaming-x-trio/]