MSI puts out what could possibly be THE best-looking GeForce RTX 4070 Ti graphics card yet.

For the uninformed, the "unlaunched" NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 12GB was finally "relaunched" earlier this month, in the guise of the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti. Placing beneath the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 16GB and built atop NVIDIA's latest "Ada Lovelace" architecture, it's a good thing that NVIDIA's re-christened the AD104 to be the RTX 4070 Ti instead, as calling the AD104 a RTX 4080 part would have most certainly created confusion amongst consumers in the DIY PC market, especially given the performance gulf between the full-fat RTX 4080 16GB (powered by the AD103 GPU) and the pared-down AD104 GPU.

For today's video, ALKtech checks out what could possibly be the best looking RTX 4070 Ti graphics card yet: the MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPRIM X 12G. Sporting a factory overclock and a triple-fan TRI FROZR 3S cooling system all in a sleek silver aesthetic, read on to see how this card performs with a mix of synthetic and gaming benchmark tests at the 1440p resolution, when paired with a mid-range CPU, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600.

Summary of Specifications 

• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (AD104)
  • 7680 CUDA cores
• Memory: 12GB GDDR6X RAM (192-bit, 21 Gbps)
• Clock Speeds:
  • Boost Clock: 2775 MHz (Gaming & Silent Mode)
  • 2790 MHz (Extreme Performance Mode via MSI Center app)
• Bus Type: PCIe 4.0 x16
• Outputs: 1x HDMI 2.1a, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a
• External Power Required: Yes, 1x 16-pin (12VHPWR)
• Recommended PSU Wattage: 750W and above
• Dimensions: 338mm x 142mm x 73 mm

Packaging & Accessories

The MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPRIM X 12G comes in a sleek-looking white box that is well-constructed, and features the graphics card in its full aesthetic glory on the front and rear. I must say, the overall aesthetic of the box is indeed very appealing, and has got to be one of the nicest-looking for a graphics card that I've come across thus far.

Opening up the box involves simply lifting a lid to reveal the SUPRIM branding in silver on a black background for contrast - no struggling to remove an inner cardboard box from a sleeve required. The box oozes quality, and certainly leaves a great first impression.

The card comes with the following accessories

• SUPRIM mouse pad
• 3x 8-pin to 1x 16-pin (12VHPWR) power adapter cable
• Graphics card support stand
• Quick start guide

For a walkthrough of the accessories that come included with the card, be sure to check out the YouTube video embedded above at the start of this article. That said, some interesting accessories to highlight include a graphics card support stand that feels pretty well-made, as well as a mouse pad with the SUPRIM branding on it.

Aesthetics & Physical Features

First impressions of the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPRIM X 12G - it's a real good-looker all right. The card feels like a quality product, where the fan shroud sports a brushed metal finish in silver, with octagon-shaped fan cutouts and light grey chevrons around each fan opening. The lines of the fan shroud also lend a certain depth and sophistication to the overall appearance of the card.

Appearances aside, the SUPRIM X comes with a triple-fan cooling system that MSI terms "TRI FROZR 3S", where the card sports "TORX FAN 5.0" fans, a copper baseplate as well as "Core Pipe" heat pipes to ensure maximum cooling efficiency.

Moving over to the rear of the card, we see that MSI has included a metal backplate in the same brushed aluminium finish as the front of the fan shroud.

The card comes with illuminated RGB LED elements on the long edge of the card, around the fan openings, as well as on the backplate of the card. These RGB lighting elements can be customised via the MSI Center app within Windows.

The RGB lighting effects sure are mesmerising to look at, and at risk of sounding like a broken record, I find that the MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPRIM X 12G is a really good-looking card. Given its colour scheme, I think that the card would be well-suited for both black and white-coloured PC builds.

MSI has included dual BIOSes (Silent & Gaming) for this card that end-users can toggle between via a switch located along the long edge of the card.

The card draws power from a single 16-pin 12VHPWR connector - do note that MSI has included a 3x 8-pin to 1x 16-pin power adapter cable for folks whose power supplies do not come with a native 16-pin 12VHPWR power cable. That said, it's interesting to note that MSI has opted to include a 3x 8-pin to 1x 16-pin adapter cable instead of the usual 2x 8-pin to 16-pin cable that is commonly found with other RTX 4070 Ti cards. My guess is that MSI wanted to give extra power headroom for the factory overclock that this board comes with, for added peace of mind.

To round up the physical walkthough of this card, MSI has included three DisplayPort 1.4a ports as well as a single HDMI 2.1a port.

GPU-Z Screenshot

Testing Methodology

To get a sensing of the card's performance, the following tests were run:

Synthetics

• 3DMark Time Spy v1.2
• Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0

Gameplay

• Cyberpunk 2077 v1.61 in-game benchmark
• Far Cry 6 in-game benchmark
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider in-game benchmark
• Fortnite (Actual Gameplay)

All tests above were run at the 1440p resolution with the card set to the default "Gaming" BIOS mode. In addition, test runs on the Heaven benchmark and Cyberpunk 2077 in-game benchmark at 1080p resolution were also conducted, so as to get a flavour of the card's performance at 1080p. The results shown were taken from benchmark runs that were performed without any screen capture software running in the background. Where necessary, readouts from MSI Afterburner as well as HWiNFO64 were obtained so as to measure FPS performance and other relevant hardware status metrics.

Test Setup

To put the graphics card through its paces, a test bench with the specifications below was used:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600
• CPU Cooler: Stock AMD Wraith Stealth
• Motherboard: Gigabyte X570 GAMING X Rev. 1.0 (BIOS F37d)
• Memory: 16GB (2x8GB) Kingston HyperX Fury DDR4 3200 CL16
• Storage: Gigabye NVMe SSD 512GB (GP-GSM2NE3512GNTD)
• Graphics Card: MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPRIM X 12G
• PSU: Cooler Master V1000 80 PLUS Gold
• Case: OEM open-air test bench
• Monitor: Gigabyte G27Q 27" LCD monitor (144 Hz, 1440p)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro (21H2)
• Graphics Driver: NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready Driver 528.02
• Resizable BAR: Enabled

3DMark Time Spy v1.2

With the 3DMark Time Spy test, the test bench achieved a graphics score of 23170, a CPU score of 7717 and an overall Time Spy score of 17818.

Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0

The test setup scored 3673 points for Unigine's Heaven Benchmark 4.0, with an average FPS of 145.8, a minimum FPS of 44.8 and a maximum FPS of 349.7. The test was run at 1440p resolution on the maximum possible graphics settings, with DirectX 11 rendering on Ultra Quality, extreme tessellation, stereo 3D disabled, multi-monitor disabled, and anti-aliasing set at x8.

Dialing down the resolution to 1080p with the same graphics quality settings, the test setup scored 6066 points, with an average FPS of 240.8, a minimum FPS of 51.5 and a maximum FPS of 469.5.

Cyberpunk 2077 v1.61 In-game Benchmark

With Cyberpunk 2077 v1.61's built-in benchmark tool, the test bench attains an average FPS of 103.48, a minimum FPS of 63.53 and a maximum FPS of 156.91 - these results were obtained on the 1440p resolution using the "Ultra" graphics preset with ray tracing disabled, and all upscaling technologies such as AMD's FSR 2.1 and NVIDIA's DLSS switched off.

To get a sensing of the card's ray tracing capabilities, test runs on the "Ray Tracing Medium" preset at 1440p resolution were also conducted, with DLSS disabled and enabled so as to determine the amount of performance uplift one could get by enabling NVIDIA's upscaling feature. With DLSS disabled, the test system achieves an average FPS of 58.45, a minimum FPS of 48.83 and a maximum FPS of 80.87. Enabling DLSS on the "Auto" mode increases the average FPS figure by slightly over 60%, with an average FPS of 93.96, a minimum FPS of 51.74 and a maximum FPS of 124.38.

With DLSS set to "Auto" during the in-game benchmark, for the most part, I did not observe any graphical distortion or artifacts, except for one scene at the El Coyote Cojo bar (pictured above), where I did notice that the drain covers on the floor exhibited signs of distortion with DLSS enabled.

Bumping down the resolution to 1080p, the test setup achieved an average FPS of 137.71, a minimum FPS of 57.99 and a maximum FPS of 203.05 while on the "Ultra" graphics preset with ray tracing disabled, and all upscaling technologies such as AMD's FSR 2.1 and NVIDIA's DLSS switched off.

Test runs on the "Ray Tracing Medium" preset at 1080p resolution were also conducted, with DLSS disabled and enabled to determine the amount of performance uplift with upscaling. With DLSS disabled, the test system achieves an average FPS of 88.89, a minimum FPS of 52.01 and a maximum FPS of 114.05. Enabling DLSS on the "Auto" mode increases the average FPS figure by around 9.5%, with an average FPS of 97.32, a minimum FPS of 53.07 and a maximum FPS of 132.55.

Far Cry 6 In-game Benchmark

With Far Cry 6's built-in benchmark test, the test bench achieves an average FPS of 88, a minimum FPS of 66, and a maximum FPS of 139. The game was set to the 1440p resolution, with maximum possible graphics settings (Ultra), DXR Shadows and DXR Reflections enabled. FSR was also disabled for the test.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider In-game Benchmark

Moving on to Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the test bench achieves an average FPS of 105 with the game's built-in benchmark tool. The results pictured above were obtained while on the 1440p resolution with all graphics settings turned up to the highest possible settings, where Ray Tracing Shadow Quality was set to "Ultra" and all forms of upscaling technologies (e.g. XeSS) were disabled.

Fortnite (Actual Gameplay)

To round off the gameplay tests. I played several rounds of Fortnite on the test bench, which saw the system achieve an average FPS of 64.9, a minimum FPS of 49.4 and a maximum FPS of 110.3. The game, in its latest iteration powered by the Unreal Engine 5.1, was set to the highest possible graphics settings on the 1440p resolution, with Temporal Super Resolution set to the "Native" setting, anti-aliasing and super resolution set to the "TSR Epic" option, Nanite Virtual Geometry enabled, as well as Global Illumination and Reflections set to the "Lumen Epic" settings. The FPS figures shown above were obtained via MSI Afterburner, which was used to track the game's performance in the background.

Power Consumption, Thermals & Acoustics

Power Consumption

Idle:

• Avg. GPU Power: 16.1w
• Min. GPU Power: 15.1w
• Max. GPU Power: 17.1w

Under Load (Fortnite Gameplay on Max Settings):

• Avg. GPU Power: 235.6W
• Min. GPU Power: 191.6W
• Max. GPU Power: 251.9W

The figures above were obtained from the "GPU Power" readouts from HWiNFO64.

Thermals

Idle:

• Avg. GPU Temperature: 40.5°C
• Min. GPU Temperature: 40.3°C
• Max. GPU Temperature: 40.6°C
• Avg. GPU Hot Spot Temperature: 50.1°C
• Min. GPU Hot Spot Temperature: 49.9°C
• Max. GPU Hot Spot Temperature: 50.3°C

Under Load (Fortnite Gameplay on Max Graphics Settings)

• Avg. GPU Temperature: 63.1°C
• Min. GPU Temperature: 57.4°C
• Max. GPU Temperature: 65.9°C
• Avg. GPU Hot Spot Temperature: 72.5°C
• Min. GPU Hot Spot Temperature: 64.2°C
• Max. GPU Hot Spot Temperature: 76.3°C

The figures above were obtained from "GPU Temperature" & "GPU Hot Spot Temperature" readouts from HWiNFO64.

The ambient temperature of the test bench's surroundings was measured to be approximately ~26°C.

In terms of acoustics, the card's triple fans weren't noisy when the test bench was under heavy graphics loads, though a slight whiff of coil whine could be detected at times. Given that I did use an open-air test bench after all, I'd think that end-users would likely be unable to hear the coil whine (which wasn't very loud to start with) when the card is installed within an enclosed PC case.

As I did not have a decibel meter to measure noise output, I made do with a noise measurement app on my smartphone instead, where placing my phone 30cm away from the graphics card, I recorded an average noise level of around 46dB when the system was running Fortnite, where the coil whine contributed to the noise levels measured. On idle (with just the CPU and power supply fans spinning), an average noise level of 43dB was recorded. The baseline noise level of the test bench's surroundings (with the test bench switched off) was measured to be approximately 41dB.

Conclusion & Pricing

Just going by its looks alone, the MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPRIM X 12G would be a clear winner amongst the sea of other RTX 4070 Ti offerings, where I'd say that this card is quite possibly the best-looking graphics card in my book till date. For readers out there that also dig this graphics card's appearance, but would like to get a more powerful GPU instead, fret not, as MSI also has SUPRIM variants of the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 too, which also sport a similar aesthetic.

That said, from a GPU performance and value perspective, the RTX 4070 Ti shapes up to be an excellent card for 1440p gaming with all graphics settings turned up, especially if you have a mid-to-high-end CPU. In terms of competition, AMD's Radeon RX 7900 XT can be considered the RTX 4070 Ti's closest competitor, where for the most part, Team Red has the RTX 4070 Ti beat from a rasterisation perspective by a slight margin when ray tracing is switched off. Enable ray tracing however, and the tables turn in favour of the RTX 4070 Ti, especially when upscaling technologies such as DLSS and FSR are removed from the equation.

Focusing our attention back to the RTX 4070 Ti SUPRIM X, MSI's clearly positioned this offering at the higher-end of the RTX 4070 Ti graphics card spectrum given its aesthetics and features, where as of end-January 2023, the card is available to purchase in Singapore from offline and online retailers for a price of around $1549 Singapore dollars. For international readers, the same card is available to purchase from Newegg for $924.99 US dollars.

With the above pricing data in mind, it's worth noting that MSI's VENTUS variant of the RTX 4070 Ti, a more "entry-level" RTX 4070 Ti offering, is priced at $829.99 US dollars, nearly $100 US dollars cheaper than the SUPRIM X. Of course, a trade-off in features does come with this price discount, such as lower clock speeds, a more ordinary-looking aesthetic and so on. All in all, consumers would do well to understand the key differences in features within the RTX 4070 Ti graphics card spectrum, and determining whether or not these features would be valued in their own use-cases, before making a purchase.

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The graphics card featured in this article was a review unit provided on loan from MSI.