We’re continuing our tests dedicated to the new “RTX 4000 SUPER” range announced by NVIDIA at CES 2024. Last week, we reviewed the NVIDIA RTX 4070 SUPER Founders Edition, the ASUS RTX 4070 SUPER TUF Gaming OC and the Gigabyte RTX 4070 SUPER Gaming OC. Today, we start with the “RTX 4000 Ti SUPER” models and a card with an MSRP of 889 euros ($799), the MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x. This is MSI’s entry-level model, and is also available in a “Ventus 2x” version, i.e. with two fans and therefore a smaller footprint. As a reminder, when the RTX 4070 Ti graphics cards were launched in January 2023, the MSRP for the RTX 4070 Ti was 899 euros.
The last model to arrive at the end of January is the RTX 4080 SUPER, with an MSRP of 1109 euros ($999). Of course, we’ll be testing this one for you, so that you’ll have a complete overview of this new refresh from NVIDIA.
IMPORTANT NOTE: we received a patch for our MSI’s BIOS just over 24 hours before publishing our test, but it was impossible to redo all our tests in terms of timing. They will be edited and updated this week. More on this in the conclusion.
Thanks to NVIDIA and MSI for making this copy of the MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x available.
[nextpage title=”The MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x:”]
Architecture:
Our model of the day is part of MSI’s “Ventus 3x” series. This is the first time we’ve tested one from this series, which is MSI’s most affordable in its catalog of custom boards. NVIDIA, as with the RTX 4000 Ti, has no Founders Edition cards, so this MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x plays that role, as it’s priced at MSRP.
This RTX 4070 Ti SUPER has 8448 CUDA cores, 10% more than the RTX 4070 Ti, which has 7680, and features TSMC’s 4 nm manufacturing process with a TGP of 285 watts. Memory-wise, there’s a change, with an increase from 12 GB to 16 GB of 256-bit GDDR6X memory, which translates into a bandwidth of 672 GB/s.
The Ventus 3x bundle:
So what’s in the box? It’s easy to identify the color code of an NVIDIA board, with black and green. The MSI logo identifies the brand. The box is quite large but retains fairly standard dimensions, measuring 410 x 250 x 90 mm. The box opens on the front to reveal this MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x.
Once the case has been opened, we find an adapter to power the card. This is a 16-pin (12 4) to two 8-pin 150w (300w total) adapter. This adapter is necessary for those who don’t have a power supply with a 16-pin port or the adapter specific to their power supply. There’s also a case support for the graphics card, to prevent it from bending when inserted in your motherboard.
Cooling :
This MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x has dimensions of 308 x 120 x 58 mm and will occupy 2.5 slots on your motherboard. This model is part of the entry-level “Ventus” series. MSI will also be offering a model equipped with just two fans, with the reference Ventus 2x. Aesthetically, the board is sober, with black and silver-gray accents and a plastic fairing. The rear features a black plastic backplate with a perforated section to allow air to be expelled through the radiator.
As you can see, the PCB is shorter than the heatsink, making it possible for MSI to offer a Ventus 2x. This is a custom board, i.e. with its own cooling system. The board is labelled “Ventus 3x” to indicate the presence of three 100 mm TORX FAN 4.0 fans.
The blades are linked in pairs to concentrate the airflow towards the radiator. MSI uses its patented ” Zero Frozr ” technology for this board. The principle is to completely shut down the radiators when the GPU temperature is low, in order to eliminate noise pollution.
As the card is an entry-level model, we only have one BIOS, and in the end, that’s quite sufficient. The same goes for the backlight: this Ventus 3x model does without it. All these choices help to reduce costs and offer a price as close as possible to NVIDIA’s MSRP.
Connectors :
The new 16-pin mini-connectors are used to power the card. As mentioned above, NVIDIA includes an adapter in its bundle, enabling two 8-pin connectors to be plugged in.
Finally, the board’s video outputs include three DisplayPort 1.4 and one HDMI 2.1 port. MSRP for this MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x will be 889 euros ($799). We’ll find out tomorrow whether this price is respected by online retailers, bearing in mind that there is a Ventus 2x version that should be less expensive.
[nextpage title=”Specifications and PCB:”]
Technical specifications:
In terms of frequency, the base frequency is announced at 2340 MHz, while the Boost peaks at 2610 MHz. This model doesn’t appear to be an ” overclocked ” version and we should be on the base frequencies of an RTX 4070 Ti SUPER. As for the 16 GB of G-DDR6X memory, it runs at 1313 MHz (672 GB/s) on a 256-bit bus. If we look at the “NVIDIA BIOS” tab, we can see that the power limit is 285 watts, and is therefore blocked on this MSI.
Let’s go to GPU-Z to check that the information read is correct. The GPU frequency is 2340 MHz, and the Boost frequency is 2610 MHz. Don’t forget that the latter will be higher in benchmarks, depending on the quality of your chip and determined by GPU Boost 4.0. Memory has a frequency of 1313 MHz.
We remind you how GPU Boost works here.
[nextpage title=”The test configuration: “]
As we said in the introduction, we’re busy (again) updating all our graphics using the latest drivers from NVIDIA, AMD and, of course, INTEL. We’ve also taken the opportunity to slightly modify our test configuration and add new games to our protocol. So here we go again, with a new series of tests and graphics on this slightly modified configuration:
- Motherboard: ROG Maximus Z690 APEX
- Processor: Intel Alder Lake i9-12900K
- Memory : 32 GB Corsair Vengeance 7200 CL38 DDR5
- Graphics card: MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x
- Cooling system: ROG Ryujin II 360
- SSD: Western Digital Black SN750 2 TB radiator EKWB
- Power supply: Corsair AX1600i adapter 12VHPWR 600W
- Operating system: Windows 11 64-bit (23H2)
For this test, we used a high-end configuration featuring an i9-12900K processor and DDR5. The use of a 144 Hz 4K display is also a sine qua non. For our tests, we’re using the ROG PG27UQ.
Our test protocol :
All cards are tested at stock frequencies and without any optimization. For the various benchmarks, whether synthetics or games, we’ll opt for 1080p, 1440p and 2160p resolutions, depending on the card’s performance. Here, with this model, we’ll be using 1440p and 2160p resolutions for rasterization and ray tracing , as we feel this is the most appropriate.
Some cards may straddle the line between two definitions. That’s why we’ve also added the Intel A770 ARC 16GB and the NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti 8GB/16 GB to the 1440p definition, even if this will remain very complicated for the Intel model. Our current reference card in definition is the NVIDIA RTX 3070 Ti 12GB. For a long time, we hesitated to choose a card with more memory, but in the end, the RTX 3070 Ti 12GB still delivers 1440p definition without difficulty.
As you can see, we’re now running Windows 11 and have activated the ” ReSize BAR ” in the BIOS, which can be seen in GPU-Z. As a reminder, our tests are still underway on the previous generation, and other cards will be added to the various definitions. Now that you know everything about our test configuration, it’s time to get started!
[nextpage title=”Synthetic and application benchmarks: “]
Our first series of tests will be dedicated to synthetic benchmarks. These are often used for overclocking competitions, but are also very interesting for comparing different GPUs. We’ll be focusing on benchmarks from the 3DMark series. Our scores may sometimes appear slightly lower, but that’s because we’re testing them with a native definition of 2160p on our ROG PG27UQ screen. If we change our screen definition to 1080p for 3DMark tests, the GPU score is better.
As we said in the introduction, we’re busy re-screening all our graphics cards, and our table should be complete again for the release of the other SUPER models. In the meantime, you can find our latest chart with our graphics card panel here.
We’ll be testing the following benchmarks:
- Fire Strike (1080p)
- Fire Strike Ultra (2160p)
- Time Spy (1440p)
- Time Spy Extreme (2160p)
- 3DMark Speed Way
- 3DMark Port Royal
3DMark Fire Strike and Fire Strike Ultra :
Let’s start with 3DMark Fire Strike, one of today’s most widely used benchmarks. It consists of two graphics tests, a CPU test and a fourth test that combines GPU and CPU. Don’t forget to deactivate the demo, which makes no contribution to the final score and prolongs the benchmark’s duration (unnecessarily). The version used for these tests is, of course, the latest available.
This is the first benchmark we’ve run with this MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x, and the least we can say is that the results are very disappointing: we outperformed the RTX 4070 Ti by 1.5%. We’d like to take advantage of this first test to warn you, as we had contacted NVIDIA regarding the poor results, and we only received the new BIOS on Monday morning – too short a notice to repeat our tests.
Under Fire Strike Ultra, the results are identical, but let’s not forget that the Fire Strike benchmark series is well in favor of AMD cards.
3DMark Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme:
The second test is 3DMark Time Spy. Although this one is performed in 1440p, its main feature is that it uses DirectX 12. It consists of two graphics tests and a CPU test. As with Fire Strike, don’t forget to disable the demo. These first two benchmarks are provided by UL Benchmark.
The performance obtained in Time Spy is often representative of what we’ll get in games. Here, our sample of the day scores 22990 points. We’ll see if we get the same differences in rasterization and 1440p definition.
Under 3DMark Time Spy Extreme, we obtain a rather low score of 11170 points, compared with 10741 points for the RTX 4070 Ti.
3DMark Speed Way :
Ulbenchmark’s latest benchmark, and it’s nice to be able to say we’re going to benchmark this Speed Way. It uses DirectX 12 and defaults to 1440p. We haven’t modified anything, so we’re using the original benchmark.
Here, too, our MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x scores 6184 points, finally gaining on the RTX 4070 Ti by almost 10%.
3DMark Port Royal:
Here’s a benchmark we left out last year, but which you may have wanted to see again in our tests. It’s still widely used, especially in the overclocking community. So we’ve decided to add it to our tests.
There were no surprises in this latest benchmark in the 3DMark series, with a score of 15205 points and fourth place in our graph. Next month sees the arrival of a new benchmark, Steel Nomad, which we will of course be adding to our tests.
Blender” application test:
We’re planning to add a few new application benchmarks, starting today with Blender version 4.0. Don’t hesitate to leave us a comment to let us know which benchmarks you’d like to see in this section.
We’ve used the three tests of Blender version 4.0.0, which in the end produce virtually identical graphics. As you can see, our RTX 4070 Ti SUPER outperforms the RTX 4070 Ti by between 5.6% and 15%, depending on the benchmark. We will shortly be adding another software program, PugetBench for DaVinci Resolve.
[nextpage title=”Gaming performance 1440p rasterization: “]
We decided to select eight games, as we felt they were sufficiently representative. We opted for DirectX12 and Vulkan with the following games:
- Borderlands 3
- Red Dead Redemption II
- Far Cry 6
- Watch Dogs: Legion
- Cyberpunk 2077
- Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
- Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3
- Assassin’s Creed Mirage
- Forspoken
We’ve chosen to use the built-in benchmarks for these games.
Why do you ask? Quite simply to enable you to compare your results with ours if you also own a copy of one of these games. It’s a thought-provoking approach that will enable you to compare your results with ours.
As we mentioned on page 4 of this article, we have activated the Resizable Bar in the BIOS, which is now supported by all (recent) GPUs. Finally, we’ve opted for 1440p definition, but also 2160p, as this RTX 4070 Ti SUPER should have what it takes to titillate UHD definition.
Borderlands 3:
Let’s start with Borderlands. The graphics options are set to ” Brutal “. It’s worth noting that Borderlands 3 is quite greedy, and that this choice of settings has quite a strong impact on FPS. It’s a game that’s often praised in announcements of new graphics cards, and precisely in this Brutal mode.
As you can see, you’ll see performance in 1440p and 2160p definition for our various games. And it’s off to a good start, with a gain of 6% in 1440p and 7% in 2160p. There’s no doubt that in 1440p, this MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x will come out on top most of the time.
Red Dead Redemption 2:
Second and by no means least, the sublime Red Dead Redemption II. The advantage of this opus is the possibility of testing the integrated Vulkan benchmark. We opt for the ” ultra ” graphics options.
Secondly and by no means least, RDR2 offers the possibility of testing the integrated Vulkan benchmark. The positions in our graphics are once again identical for our MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x. The gains are 5.2% at 1080p and 5.5% at 2160p.
Far Cry 6:
Far Cry 6 supports DXR and FSR from AMD. You’ll also find it on the next page. For our benchmarks, we opted for ” ultra ” graphics quality.
Although our report on this game showed an advantage for the RX 6000 cards, our RTX 4070 Ti SUPER once again came through perfectly, maintaining its lead over the RTX 4070 Ti.
Watch Dogs Legion:
Let’s move on to Watch Dogs Legion, which will also be used for our Ray Tracing tests. For our benchmarks, we have opted for a graphics quality of ” very high
“. Even though this game is not very recent, it’s quite interesting, since it requires a lot of memory.
The positions remain the same, with the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER model still ahead of the RTX 4070 Ti, but with slightly narrower gaps.
Cyberpunk 2077:
Here’s a game we’ve been wanting to add for a while, and now we have, with an integrated benchmark. We’ll also be using this game for our Ray Tracing tests. For our benchmarks, we’ve opted for “ultra” graphics quality.
In 1440p, we obtain an average of 98.7 FPS, i.e. a gain of 2% in 1440p and 43.1 FPS in 2160p, or 4.5%. The trend seems to confirm that the gain is better in 2160p, and this is quite logical.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora:
One of the three new games we’ve just included in our rasterization tests. It’s a recent game from 2023 that tends to put a strain on our graphics cards. For our benchmarks, we’ve opted for ” ultra ” graphics quality. This game will also feature in our DLSS/FSR/Xess tests, as it supports FSR3.
The graph speaks for itself. Our graphics cards are suffering, and few of them manage to pass the symbolic 60 FPS mark at 1440p. In 2160p, our MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x does as well as the RTX 3090 Ti.
Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3:
We couldn’t do without adding Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3 to our graphics card tests. For our benchmarks, we have opted for ” extreme ” graphics quality. This game will also feature in our DLSS/FSR/Xess tests, since it supports frame generation.
A little surprise, since Call Of Duty Modern Warefare 3 seems to give pride of place to AMD cards. Although our ranking has changed slightly, the order of our RTX 4000s is identical to what we’ve seen so far.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage:
With a fairly recent integrated benchmark, we decided to add Assassin’s Creed Mirage to our tests.
As always, our RTX 4070 Ti SUPER stays ahead of the pack, and in particular widens the 2160p gap with the RTX 4070 Ti.
Forspoken:
This is the last game we’re adding, as it will also be used on the next page, with the presence of FSR 3. It’s also a fairly recent game, and it, too, puts a strain on our graphics cards.
We’re not going to change anything on this last test, with the gains more pronounced at 2160p than at 1440p. Let’s see what the average of our 9 games looks like in rasterization.
Game average :
For the gaming average, the RTX 3070 Ti is still our reference card in 1440p definition. Other cards score either higher or lower, depending on their performance against this model.
So what’s our first conclusion? First of all, overall performance is lower than expected. NVIDIA has provided us with a new BIOS, which we’ll be testing, and which is supposed to improve performance. Unfortunately, timing did not allow us to repeat all our tests. In 1440p, the MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x beats the RTX 4070 Ti by 3.7%, and in 2160p, by 6.2%. Let’s not forget, too, that the MSI has base frequencies, whereas the RTX 4070 Ti is a factory-overclocked model, which may also explain the smaller differences. Tomorrow, we’ll be testing the Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Gaming OC, which will enable us to highlight the performance differences.
[nextpage title=”Ray tracing and DLSS/FSR 1440p performance:”]
Let’s take a look at the eight games we’ve selected that support ray tracing, DLSS, AMD’s FSR and Intel’s XeSS technology. As we’ve already reminded you, while DLSS remains the property of NVIDIA, FSR and XeSS can be used with any card from AMD, Intel or even NVIDIA. We’ve chosen to remove Watch Dogs: Legion since it’s the only game that supports only one technology, DLSS.
The eight DirectX 12 games we’ll be testing with ray tracing, if available, as well as DLSS, FSR or XeSS are :
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider (RT – DLSS – XeSS)
- Far Cry 6 (DXR – FSR)
- Cyberpunk 2077 (RT – DLSS 3 – FSR – XeSS)
- Hitman 3 (RT – DLSS 3 – XeSS – FSR)
- Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (DLSS – XeSS – FSR 3)
- Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3 (DLSS 3 – XeSS – FSR)
- Assassin’s Creed Mirage (DLSS – Xess – FSR)
- Forspoken (DLSS – XeSS – FSR 3)
No change for this new series of games, as we’re sticking with 1440p and 2160p definition, as for rasterization. Depending on the card, we’ll use either DLSS for NVIDIA or FSR or XeSS for AMD and Intel models. If FSR is not available in a game, we’ll use XeSS technology on our AMD card.
DLSS 3: watch out for our results!
As you know, NVIDIA unveiled DLSS 3 with the arrival of the RTX 4000 graphics cards, and in particular with the launch of the RTX 4090 version. So why the warning? Because NVIDIA now offers DLSS 3 support on many games, but this is only supported by RTX 4000s. To put it simply, if we test a game that benefits from DLSS 3, our RTX 4060 Ti will take advantage of it, but an RTX 30xx will make do with DLSS 2, resulting in even greater discrepancies, especially thanks to frame generation. We currently have three games that support DLSS 3, and we’ll be increasing this number over the coming weeks.
But AMD has also reacted by offering its FSR 3, also combined with frame generation technology, which significantly increases the number of FPS. But now it’s time for the graphics, which will speak volumes in terms of performance.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider:
First, which we’re adding to this comparison and which supports Ray Tracing and DLSS 2.0. Three levels of Ray Tracing are offered in the game (medium – high – ultra) and the four levels of DLSS (performance – quality – balanced – ultra performance).
For our benchmarks, we opted for ” very high ” graphics quality, ” ultra ” Ray Tracing and ” balanced ” DLSS.
With Ray Tracing activated in ultra, an average of 154 FPS is achieved in 1440p, and 80 FPS in 2160p. The performance achieved with DLSS 2 in this game is much better than that achieved with FSR 1.
Far Cry 6:
Far Cry 6 supports DXR and AMD’s FSR, but not DLSS.
For our benchmarks, we opted for Ultra graphics quality, activated both DRX options and FSR in ” balanced ” mode.
In Far Cry 6, FSR is the only choice available to boost FPS after activating Ray Tracing. So all our cards can benefit, regardless of manufacturer. Our RTX 4070 Ti SUPER benefits slightly at 1440p, but it’s above all at 2160p that the gain is most interesting.
Cyberpunk 2077:
Cyberpunk 2077 features DLSS and FSR activation in its settings. Note that this was the first game to enable DLSS3 for RTX 40xx graphics cards, as well as frame generation. For our benchmarks, we opted for “ultra” graphics quality, “ultra” Ray Tracing and ” balanced ” DLSS/FSR.
This is one of our most demanding games, where our cards have a hard time keeping up. Here, an average of 50.6 FPS is achieved at 1440p, and 24 FPS at 2160p. The contribution of the new DLSS 3 and frame generation boosts the number of FPS in both 1440p and 2160p.
Hitman 3:
Hitman 3 now supports DLSS, FSR and XeSS technology. Depending on the model of card tested, we opt for one of these three technologies.
For our benchmarks, we opted for “high” graphics quality, ” enabled ” Ray Tracing and ” balanced ” DLSS/Xess.
We find ourselves in a familiar situation, with our RTX 4070 Ti SUPER in first place at 1440p. Hitman 3, which also benefits from DLSS 3 and frame generation, achieves an FPS gain of almost 176% at 2160p.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora:
One of the three new games we’ve just included in our rasterization tests. It’s a recent game from 2023 that tends to put a strain on our graphics cards. For our benchmarks, we’ve opted for ” ultra ” graphics quality. This game will also feature in our DLSS/FSR/Xess tests, as it supports FSR 3. The idea is to balance games that benefit from DLSS 3 and FSR 3.
There’s no ray tracing here, so we’ve taken the rasterization performance and activated the technologies that enable FPS gains. DLSS 2 does the job perfectly, but we can also see that AMD’s FSR 3 could start to rival DLSS 3.
Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3:
We couldn’t do without adding Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3 to our graphics card tests. For our benchmarks, we have opted for ” extreme ” graphics quality. This game will also feature in our DLSS/FSR/Xess tests, since it supports frame generation.
As with Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, there’s no ray tracing here, so we’ll be activating each manufacturer’s own technology. And in this little game, NVIDIA comes out on top with DLSS 3 combined with frame generation. With over 200 FPS, we’re perfectly at ease in 1440p. Our MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x has nothing to be ashamed of in 2160p either, with an average of 145 FPS thanks to DLSS 3 combined with frame generation.
As we mentioned in this newsletter, FSR 3 is now supported in Call Of Duty Modern Warefare 3. We haven’t yet had a chance to replay the AMD models of our 1440p graphics, but the two 2160p models have been tested with FSR 3.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage:
With a fairly recent integrated benchmark, we decided to add Assassin’s Creed Mirage to our tests.
Here, even if our RTX 4070 Ti SUPER retains the advantage in rasterization and also when DLSS 2 is activated, AMD cards are not to be outdone.
Forspoken:
This is the last game we’re adding, as it will also be used on the next page, with the presence of FSR 3. It’s also a fairly recent game, and one that also plays havoc with our graphics cards.
It’s FSR 3 and frame generation that are the most brutal here. Now, that’s nothing to worry about with our RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, which goes from 89 to 126 FPS with DLSS. In 2160p, activating DLSS performance enables us to reach an average of almost 100 FPS.
What about ray tracing with the MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x?
In the 8 games we tested, our MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x performed perfectly. When ray tracing is enabled, it’s no problem at all, since DLSS is always present behind it. In fact, NVIDIA dominated the exchanges, thanks in particular to the arrival of DLSS 3 and frame generation, but now AMD is fighting back. The reds also came out in force with FRS 3 and frame generation, which also brought an increase in FPS. But it’s NVIDIA that still has the upper hand, as the number of games supported is far greater on the green side. FRS 3 is doing very well, but previous revisions are struggling against DLSS 2, for example. DLSS therefore remains the most interesting technology when available.
A word about the performance gap between the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER and the RTX 4070 Ti. We’ll see whether the new BIOS we’ve received, which is too short in terms of timing to repeat our tests, will solve the problem and increase the performance difference.
[nextpage title=”Temperature and power consumption: “]
Temperature :
To record temperatures, we opted for the Superposition stress test in Extreme mode. We opted for three 5-minute runs with 10-minute intervals between each test. We took advantage of this benchmark to record the graphics card’s power consumption for the table above.
To find out the Idle temperature, after completing the three stress test loops, we let the card rest for 20 minutes before taking the temperature reading. Bear in mind that most boards benefit from “0 dBa” technology, so the fans cut out below a certain temperature, often between 50 and 55°C. It therefore takes longer to dissipate heat after a period of stress testing or gaming. A card that does not benefit from this technology will be noisier than others at rest. A quick reminder: our temperature readings are taken in Open-Air. In a closed case, the cards will inevitably be warmer.
Temperatures are quite high compared to the competition. The cooling system is a little lighter than on some more expensive custom boards. The cooling is correct, but if you want cooler temperatures, you’ll have to turn to another model, but this will have an impact on the card’s price.
Power consumption (full configuration) :
We use a wattmeter to measure power consumption at the output of our power supply. Our modular power supply is a CORSAIR AX1600i. The result is the average total power consumption of our configuration. Only the graphics card changes between each reading. So it’s easy to calculate the difference between each graphics card.
But the good news is that we should (finally) be properly equipped to isolate power consumption solely from the graphics card, as we have pre-ordered the BENCHLAB from Elmorlabs.
Power consumption is unsurprisingly higher than that of the RTX 4070 Ti, rising from 335 to 376 watts for our complete configuration. Remember that this is the complete power consumption of our PC.
[nextpage title=”The last word:”]
Price?
Let’s get straight down to pricing, which is often the most complicated aspect of partner boards compared to NVIDIA’s Founders Edition. There’s no Founders Edition here, so we’ll be basing ourselves on the MSRP price set by NVIDIA, which is 889 euros ($799). Our example of the day, the MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x, will (logically) be available at this price from tomorrow. Remember that the MSRP for the RTX 4070 Ti was 899 euros. NVIDIA is therefore offering a higher-performance card, but with a 10-euro reduction, i.e. at the same price, except that the memory is increased from 12 to 16 GB.
We looked up the current price of an MSI RTX 4070 Ti Ventus 3x and found it to be around 929 euros, not far from the MSRP of 899 euros.
Performance?
As you’ll have noticed from our various tests, our MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x doesn’t really stand out from the RTX 4070 Ti, gaining 3.7% in 1440p rasterization and 6.2% in 2160p rasterization – nothing to get excited about. Naturally, we asked ourselves why our results were so low. We can already point to the fact that our RTX 4070 Ti is a Gigabyte Gaming OC with factory overclocking, whereas our RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x has base frequencies. The other thing is that the power limit is blocked on the MSI, but what we noticed most of all is that even if the boost frequency increases, it’s not continuous and drops back down quickly. We have contacted NVIDIA, which acknowledges that performance is below what we would expect and is investigating this model. Is there a problem with the BIOS of the MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x? We’re waiting to hear (see below).
What we can say is that tomorrow we’ll be bringing you a second test of a partner card, but not at MSRP prices, and which is the same model as our RTX 4070 Ti, namely a Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Gaming OC. This will enable us to judge the performance and differences between the two chipsets.
New BIOS, a few hours before publication :
As we pointed out in the introduction, we received a new BIOS for our MSI on Monday morning, but due to lack of time it was no longer possible for us to redo all our tests. We nevertheless installed it and ran a few tests to judge its potential. In rasterization, under Cyberpunk 2077, we went from a gain of 2 to 3.1% over the RTX 4070 in 1440p, and from 3.5 to 6.4% in 2160p. There’s no doubt that this BIOS will improve performance, and we’ll be publishing this article with the results of the new BIOS as soon as possible, but GPU news is fairly dense this week, with a release also planned by AMD.
Which card?
Despite being an entry-level model, this MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x suffers from no real defects. The cooling system is good, but not as robust as other high-end models. The fans are quiet, and the ventilation curve could be reworked to improve cooling. Our only negative point concerns the very plastic fairing and the use of a plastic backplate. Its sole purpose is to stiffen the PCB. Finally, we’d be very curious to test MSI’s compact model with its “Ventus 2x” version
What’s next?
We’ll have one model left to test at the end of January, the RTX 4080 SUPER, which will take the place of the RTX 4080 in the NVIDIA range since the latter will no longer be produced.
MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x
As we haven’t had the time to test our MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x with the new BIOS, we’ll refrain from giving it an award for the time being, or giving you a definitive opinion on this RTX 4070 Ti SUPER. We therefore invite you to come back tomorrow to compare two identical models in Gigabyte Gaming OC, but one in RTX 4070 Ti and the other in RTX 4070 Ti SUPER. We’ll then be able to pinpoint the exact performance gain. Thanks to NVIDIA and MSI for providing us with a copy of the MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x.