In addition to the Asus card that Nvidia sent over for the RTX 4070 Ti launch, MSI also sent over their flagship RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X. Their Suprim lineup always goes way over the top on cooling performance and the X means that this is also an overclocked card. So today I’m going to check out the MSI RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X to see if MSI is still keeping the Suprim styling as a clean opulent model which focuses on better build quality and performance. Without a Founders Edition for the new RTX 4070 Ti that leaves a big opening for anyone like me who may not want the crazy “gamer” styling that most cards have and the styling and build quality that the Founders Editon cards have. Will this be the best option when shopping for an RTX 4070 Ti? I’m going to check out what sets it apart and then put it through our test suite to find out!

Product Name: MSI RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X

Review Sample Provided by: MSI

Written by: Wes Compton

Amazon Affiliate Link: HERE

What is the RTX 4070 Ti all about?

Like with the RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 the new RTX 4070 Ti is also based on the Ada Lovelace and with that has brought a few big upgrades like the new 4^th generation tensor cores for AI processing and 3^rd generation ray tracing cores. The 4070 Ti is based on the AD104 GPU which is different from the RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 which were on the AD102 and AD103 GPUs. Being Ada based the 4070 Ti is designed to work with DLSS 3 which includes frame generation which helps with huge performance improvements when running DLSS 3 even for CPU-limited situations and games. The AD104 GPU in the 4070 Ti has 35.8 billion transistors compared to 45.9 billion on the RTX 4080. But in the specifications below where I compare the 4070 Ti with the 4080 and last generation’s 3070 Ti you can see how big of a jump it is over the 17.4 billion that the 3070 Ti had. The new GPU has 5 GPCs (Graphics Processing Clusters) which each have 6 TPCs (Texture Processing Clusters) which each TPC has two SMs (Streaming Multiprocessors) making for 60 in total. For comparison, the 3070 Ti had 48 and the 4080 has 76. This translates to 7680 CUDA cores on the 4070 Ti, 240 of the new 4^th-gen Tensor cores, and 60 of the new 3^rd-gen ray tracing cores.

Nvidia has the RTX 4070 Ti boost clock turned up compared to both the 3070 Ti which ran at 1770 MHz and the RTX 4080 which runs at 2505 MHz, the 4070 Ti has a boost clock of 2610 MHz. the 12GB of GDDR6X memory is clocked lower than the RTX 4080 though running at 1325 MHz compared to 1400 MHz which is still faster than last gens 3070 Ti which had its 8GB of memory running at 1188 MHz. The one area where the RTX 4070 Ti drops in specs is its memory interface which is 192-bit whereas both the 3070 Ti and the 4080 have 256-bit memory interfaces. With that its total memory bandwidth is lower than either of the other cards at 504 GB/sec vs 608 GB/s on the 3070 Ti and 716 GB/sec for the RTX 4080. Like with the other Ada-based GPUs, the 4070 Ti does have a much larger L2 Cache compared to the last gen, the 3070 Ti had 4MB whereas the 4070 Ti has 49 MB. That is lower than the RTX 4080 which has 64MB, as expected. It is built on the same TSMC 4N NVIDIA Custom Process as the other 4000 Series cards and has the same 3 DisplayPort and 1 HDMI configuration as last gen and this gen. That is HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4a and while the extra doesn’t matter on this range of card for comparison AMD did include DisplayPort 2.1 on their 7900 XT which is the competitor for the RTX 4070 Ti. For TGP Nvidia has the 4070 Ti listed at 285 watts which is 5 watts less than the 3070 Ti and because they don’t have a Founders Edition of this GPU at all the power connection will depend on the model with some having the new 12vHPWR PCIe Gen 5 cable and others with two 8-pin PCIe power plugs.

Before getting into testing I did also run GPUz to double-check that our clock speeds match up with the specifications. The MSI RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X is an overclocked card which can be seen with its boost clock speed sitting at 2775 Mhz to the 2610 MHz that Nvidia has as their reference boost clock. This is also higher than the 2730 MHz of the Asus TUF 4070 Ti OC that I took a look at for the launch. While GPUz didn’t have full support for the 4070 Ti at the time of testing it did document the BIOS revision and testing was done with the 527.62 driver which was provided by Nvidia to the press to test before the launch.

Packaging

Like with the card itself, MSI doesn’t brand their Suprim cards like their standard gaming cards and the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X is no different. The box has a white background with a grey angular design on it and the MSI Gaming dragon logo is in the top left corner in a holographic finish. The Suprim X branding is down at the bottom next to Nvidia’s wrap around which has the 4070 Ti branding in it and MSI went with the same holographic finish for the Suprim X branding as well. Then across the front of the box, they have a picture of the card, not enough products put the product right out in the front and I’m happy MSI did here but it's not a surprise considering how good the card looks. Around on the back, there is another picture of the card, this time zoomed in more on the fan side and with the RGB lighting showing now the white lighting. The back has the Nvidia wrap-around at the bottom and then MSI has highlighted some of the key features above that. They touch on their Torx Fan 5.0, Core Pipe heatpipes, copper baseplate, and the Tri Frozr 3S cooler design.

When you open things up, right up on top under the protective foam MSI has included a Suprim branded mouse pad which has the MSI Gaming dragon logo and Suprim logos on a grey angular design. It’s a cloth pad with the edge stitched for extra durability. Under that, the MSI RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X is sitting in the foam tray and inside of its static bag.

Being a Suprim card MSI does go above and beyond with the accessories and I don’t just mean the mouse pad. They also included a Suprim branded support bracket. Most cards from this generation include brackets but this one is a step ahead of the rest with the sliding part is machined aluminum and the base having a rubber grip on the bottom as well. The MSI RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X also has the Nvidia 12VHPWR power adapter which for this card is a three 8-pin to 12VHPWR adapter, the Asus TUF RTX 4070 Ti that I took a look at only had a dual 8-pin adapter so MSI has stepped things up there to support more power.

For documentation, MSI has kept things simple with the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X and just included their standard quick user's guide which has QR codes on the front for more detailed installation instructions.

Card Layout and Photos

Like with the packaging, MSIs Suprim cards go a different direction than most of their gaming cards. These are designed to be their highest-end cards using higher quality materials and are designed with a little more elegance in mind. The most obvious change is with aluminum being used in the fan shroud where most cards these days just have basic molded plastic shrouds. The RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X does have the angular styling that is popular and to get that they have small darker grey aluminum pieces added to the shroud in a few locations. This ties in the angular look and also gives some contrast both in color between the light and dark grey, but also in texture with the add-ons having a sandblasted finish where most of the shroud has a brushed aluminum finish. Around each fan, the hole looks angular as well but MSI has used small glossy black plastic inserts here to give that look while also keeping the fit between the fan and shroud tight.

For fans, the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X has three axial-style fans all blowing down into the cooler. All three fans are the same size and measure 95 mm. They all have nine fan blades and each blade has a heavily curved shape. From there they are split up into three groups and tied together at the ends for extra strength, I am surprised that MSI hasn’t just gone with a full ring like a lot of fans. Looking through the Torx Fan 5.0’s we can see that the heatsink itself does have waves on the edge facing the fans. MSI is on their third version of this, they call it the Wave Curved 3.0, the size of these waves is different in different areas to make sure the entire cooler gets good airflow. This closer look does give a better look at the gloss black ring around each of the fans to keep that tighter, but you can also see on the right side of each fan there is a V-shaped accent which is made of translucent plastic and has addressable RGB LEDs behind it for accent lighting.

Like with just about any card these days, the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X is huge. The card is 13.25 inches or 337 mm long and the top of the card sits 35 mm taller than the top of the PCI bracket which is over 20mm taller than a “standard” PCI device. But it’s the thickness of the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X when combined with everything else that gives it its heft. It is 70 mm thick which means it is a 3.5-slot card. This isn’t the biggest card out there, but this will be one of the largest RTX 4070 Tis. The PCI bracket view here also gives us a good look at MSI’s anti-bending plate which is die-cast and runs the length of the card as additional support to hold the weight of the card to keep it from sagging in the future. MSI has also used thermal pads on this to tie it into the cooling to pull heat out of the PCB as well.

Looking around at the bottom, top, and end of the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X gives us a much better idea of what MSIs Tri Frozr 3S cooler design has going on. What stood out to me the most was just how much heatsink they packed into the space that they have. The heatsink is extremely tight to the PCB with the only open spaces being visible around a few components and next to the center where the heat pipes bend up into the middle of the heatsink from being up against the GPU. The heatsink is also denser, with the space between each aluminum fin being tighter. The end of the card shows that the card has 6 heatpipes in total. The heatpipes switch to squared pipes at the contact area over the GPU and MSI is also using a copper baseplate to pull heat from the GPU and the memory around it to transfer to the core pipes. The end also has three tapped screw holes built into the bracket for a card support bracket if needed on top of the adjustable stand that MSI included with the card. The heatsink layout is orientated with the fins in a vertical layout which has the axial fans blowing down through the heatsink and the warmed air going up or down out of the top and bottom of the card. This does mean that heat will gather under the card, which is where some M.2 drives are mounted so keep that in mind. But these days most cases are designed to handle warm air in those locations.

Also up on the top edge of the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X MSI has tucked away a small dip switch for switching between the dual BIOS. They do have this labeled on the backplate for visibility and on the PCB as well. You have silent and gaming modes, our card shipped in the silent mode which is what I will test using. Right next to that the PCB drops down slightly and this is where the power connection is on the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X. It has one of the new 12VHPWR plugs which is a more compact 16-pin connection using the new PCI Gen 5 standard. MSI did include the triple 8-pin adapter to help with this plug. Like with the other 4000 series cards, I do wish that this was installed at an angle, being directly up does mean with the large card the connection will be strained which is what has caused some of these connections to have issues. Also on the top edge, MSI has all of their branding. The Suprim and MSI branding is both backlit and then below those they also have GeForce RTX printed on the card as well.

MSI went with a full metal backplate with thermal pads on the backside to not only provide much needed support for the long and heavy card but to also transfer some heat out from the PCB. MSI’s design also has a few holes in it that help with ventilation as well as styling. On the far left there are hexagon-shaped holes cut out once you get past the PCB for airflow to blow through from the fan on the front side. MSI has the back of the GPU open as well with the back bracket also exposed, then two small slices in the backplate go with the different finishes that MSI has used on the back. Near the GPU area, the backplate has a sandblasted finish but then to the left, they have the brushed finish going one way and up at the top, the brushed finish goes a different direction which continues the angular styling and also gives some contrast as well. The back also has a gem-like shape which is the Suprim logo built into the backplate, this is backlit as well. They also have the Suprim and GeForce RTX branding on the backplate as well. Then right near the PCI bracket, MSI has tucked away their sticker with the serial number on it which means it should be visible when installed in a traditional case should you have any problems and need to contact support.

The triple PCI bracket adds even more room for activities on that end of the card and MSI filled all of that extra space with more ventilation holes even though the heatsink design isn’t pushing air in that direction at all. The vent holes have a random angular design which fits with the cooler styling. The PCI bracket itself has a tinted steel finish, I would love to see this being blacked out to better match most cases. For display connections, the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X has the standard three DisplayPort and one HDMI layout running down on the bottom edge with the HDMI at the bottom, not mixed into the middle which can make blind plugging confusing.

Because I did already check out the Asus TUF RTX 4070 Ti I did want to put the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X next to it as well and you can see the size difference between the cards here. The RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X has a little extra height and is a lot longer. Only with thickness are the cards similar in size but the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X is still thicker pushing well beyond the 3 slots. Even with both being triple fan designs.

For lighting before testing, I did get the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X on the testbench to take a look at the lighting MSI included on the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X. Up on the top edge they do have backlit branding with both the MSI and Suprim brands, the MSI is behind a thicker clear plastic as well where the Suprim logo has the brushed finish around it. I’m never a big fan of the backlit branding, I feel like it makes your PC look like time square when all you see are brands. But for the RTX 4070, Ti Suprim X MSI did go beyond that with accents on the fan side and backplate as well. The fan side of the card has V-shaped accents with each of the fans and by default, they are set to white which looks great with the Suprim styling. In addition to that MSI has given these a cool effect which I have shown below. With MSI's software, you can control all of the lighting to set other effects or colors as well. Then around on the backplate right next to the blow-through vent holes the gem-like Suprim logo is also backlit as well, given that this side is one of the most visible when you have the card installed in most traditional PC cases having lighting on the backplate isn’t a bad tough.

Test Rig and Procedures

Test System

CPU: Intel Core-i9 12900K – Live Pricing

Motherboard: MSI MEG Z690I UNIFY Gaming Motherboard – Live Pricing

Cooling: Corsair H100i Elite LCD Display - Live Pricing

Noctua NT-H1 Thermal Paste - Live Pricing

 Memory:  Crucial 32GB Kit (2 x 16GB) DDR5-4800 UDIMM– Live Pricing

Storage:  Sabrent Rocket Q4 2TB – Live Pricing

Power Supply: Corsair AX1200 - Live Pricing

Case: Primochill Wetbench - Live Pricing

OS: Windows 11 Pro 64-bit - Live Pricing

Synthetic Benchmarks

As always I like to start my testing with a few synthetic benchmarks. 3DMark especially is one of my favorites because it is very optimized in both Nvidia and AMD drivers. It's nice to not have to worry about it being favored too much either way and the repeatability of the results makes it a nice chance to compare from card to card, especially when comparing with the same GPU. For the MSI RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X, I have taken a look at one other 4070 Ti already so we can compare them together. Beyond that, I will be keeping an eye on how the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X compares with the RTX 4080, the AMD 7900 XT, and Nvidia’s last generation of cards as well. The RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X is overclocked more than the Asus TUF 4070 Ti with its clock speed of 2775 MHz to the TUF’s 2730 MHz so it will be interesting to see how much that extra clock speed helps.

The first round of tests were done in the older Fire Strike benchmark which is a DX11 test. There are three detail levels, performance, extreme, and ultra. The RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X sits just ahead of the TUF 4070 Ti in the base and Ultra Fire Strike tests but the TUF did edge it out in the Extreme test by a few points. Overall both cards came in ahead of the 3090 Ti but still behind the 4080 of course.

The next two were both based on the Time Spy benchmark. One is the standard test and then there is the extreme detail level. The RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X once again edged out the Asus TUF 4070 Ti by a small margin with its larger overclock but the difference wasn’t enough to make a dent in the gap between either of the 4070 Tis and the 7900 XT in the standard Time Spy benchmark. It did close the gap slightly on the 3090 Ti in the Extreme test, however.

I did also test using the new 3DMark Speed Way which is their latest benchmark. Speed Way is DX12 as well but adds in more future-focused tech like Ray Tracing which up until now 3DMark has only used in feature tests. Here the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X didn’t outperform the TUF 4070 Ti which is interesting, though it was only 7 points behind.

The last test was using the Unigine-based Superposition benchmark and I tested at 1080p with the extreme detail setting as well as the 4K optimized setting. In the extreme detail 1080p setting and the 4K test, the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X came in behind the RTX 3090 Ti but ahead of the 3080 Ti. The RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X did also improve on the scores in both tests compared to the TUF 4070 Ti by a small margin.

VR Benchmarks

As for Virtual Reality, I love it but it is more demanding than traditional gaming. This is partially because of the resolutions needed to render for two eyes and because they render more than what is immediately visible. But also because of post effects to get the proper “fisheye” effect for it to look proper in your eyes with the HMD. You also have to have much higher expectations for frame rates in VR, skipping frames or lower FPS can cause motion sickness in VR. Because of that, I ran a few tests.

My first test was again in Superposition. This time I tested the VR Future test using the Oculus resolution. Here the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X came in sitting between the RTX 3090 Ti and the RTX 3080 Ti. This was well below the 7900 XT which scored a 9619 but still good when compared to past Nvidia cards. In this test, it was 3 points behind the TUF 4070 Ti as well.

My second round of VR testing was in VRMark which has three tests that are similar to the VR tests in Superposition. I only focused on just the most demanding test called Blue Room which is looking more at future VR performance. The RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X performed here just like it did in the Superposition test sitting again between the 3080 Ti and the 3090 Ti but did edge back in front of the TUF as well.

In-Game Benchmarks

Now we finally get into the in game performance and that is the main reason people pick up a new video card. To test things out I ran through our new benchmark suite that tests 10 games at three different resolutions (1080p, 1440p, and 4k). Most of the games tested have been run at the highest detail setting and a mid-range detail setting to get a look at how turning things up hurts performance and to give an idea of if turning detail down from max will be beneficial for frame rates. In total, each video card is tested 54 times and that makes for a huge mess of results when you put them all together. To help with that I like to start with these overall playability graphs that take all of the results and give an easier-to-read result. I have one for each of the three resolutions and each is broken up into four FPS ranges. Under 30 FPS is considered unplayable, over 30 is playable but not ideal, over 60 is the sweet spot, and then over 120 FPS is for high refresh rate monitors.

So how did the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X do when we step back and take a look at the overall playability? At 1080p it's not a surprise at all that it dominated with each of the 16 tests coming in at over 120 FPS with most of those more in the double of that range. At 1440p the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X handled things as well with 15 out of 16 of the tests coming in at over 120 FPS, this was an improvement over the Asus TUF 4070 Ti which had two in the 60-119 FPS range. Then at 4K, you start to see the limitations of the card more with 5 still up over 120 FPS, 10 over 60 up to 119 FPS, and 1 under 60 FPS as well. The RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X improved on the TUF here as well with one test moving from the green into the orange making for one more over 120 FPS which given how close the cards perform together is surprising that with a little more of an overclock it affected these graphs at all.

Of course, I have all of the actual in game results as well for anyone who wants to sort through the wall of graphs below. To help get a look at the performance I also have a table below with the average frame rates for each card from all of our tests other than CS:GO which with its ultra-high frame rates skews the results. With both 4070 Ti’s being overclocked the gap between them wasn’t much but the Suprim X did average one more FPS across the board at 1080p and 1440p. At 1080p which is often CPU limited this put both of them up over the 7900 XT but at 1440p which has fewer CPU limited issues the 4070 Ti’s both were below the 7900 XT but out ahead of last year's flagship from Nvidia, the RTX 3090 Ti. At 4K the 3090 Ti regains the lead due to the limitations of the RTX 4070 Ti with its lower memory bus size. The game results themselves show a similar result with the 4070 Ti Suprim X holding its own well at 1440p and 1080p but falling behind some at 4K in some of the tests. All of the graphs are sorted by 1440p which makes for a few weird results when looking at 4K but 1440p is the resolution you are most likely to be using this card at.

Compute Benchmarks

Now some people don’t need a video card for gaming, they need the processing power for rendering or 2D/3D production, or in some cases people who game also do work on the side. So it is also important to check out the compute performance on all of the video cards that come in. That includes doing a few different tests. My first test was a simple GPU Compute benchmark using Passmark’s Performance Test 10 and the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X edged out the TUF 4070 Ti by 9 points. Both cards sit out in front of both of AMD's new cards as well as the 3090 Ti from the last gen.

Blender is always my favorite compute benchmark because the open-source 3D rendering software is very popular and it isn’t a synthetic benchmark. With the latest version of Blender, they redid the benchmark so we now have a new test that runs three different renderings and gives each a score. I have all three stacked together so we can see the overall performance. The RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X edged out the TUF 4070 Ti once again in all three of the Blender renders which once combined puts 55 points between them. Like in most of our tests though the overclock difference is small compared to the gap between them and the 3090 Ti which they are in front of and the even bigger gap between them and the RTX 4080 which is ahead of them.

For CUDA-based cards, I also check out OctaneRender performance using their OctaneBench 2060.1 benchmark which allows me to check out both RTX and non-RTX rendering performance. Here the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X edged out the TUF 4070 Ti by two points in the RTX test and a half point in the total score without RTX. Both cards were just barely ahead of the RTX 3090 Ti in the no RTX test but stand out in the RTX test compared to last generation's flagship.

For an additional CUDA-based test I also ran V-Ray Benchmark 5 to check out CUDA and RTX performance in the 3D rendering and simulation software. The RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X outperformed the Asus TUF in the CUDA test but came in below it in the RTX test. Both cards were close together way out in front of the RTX 3090 Ti and even farther behind the RTX 4080.

RTX and DLSS

Being an RTX card I also like checking out the performance of some of Nvidia’s features. Namely the ray tracing performance and the performance improvements you can see by using DLSS combined with the tensor cores. My first test goes back to our synthetic benchmarks with 3DMark where I check out their Port Royal benchmark. This is the one test that does also have AMD Ray Tracing support which is great to get a look at how different cards including older non-RTX cards perform. The RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X improved on the TUF’s score by 29 points, not a big margin at all. This was also not enough to catch up to the 3090 Ti which is ahead in this test.

3DMark also has added a few feature tests, one being a look at DLSS performance. For this one, I have the resolution set to 1440p and DLSS 2.0 turned on. I then have run the test on every card supported to get a comparison of how their test performs with and without DLSS. The RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X gained an FPS over the TUF 4070 Ti and both sit behind the RTX 4080 but ahead of the 3090 Ti in the DLSS on results but behind the 3090 Ti with DLSS off. I did a second set of tests at 4K across all three versions of DLSS and twice with the new DLSS 3 to test the performance and quality settings. The idea with this test was to check out the performance difference between the different DLSS versions, but I did also include performance numbers from a few cards for comparison as well. No matter the card it is impressive that DLSS 3 can match DLSS 2’s performance when running on the quality setting and the performance gap going from 2 to 3 is big as well. With the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X, it improved performance from 80.96 FPS to 105.53 FPS which is an improvement of 30%.

I then jumped into game tests, this time with Watch Dogs: Legion. For this one, I wanted to get an idea of the performance you will see when taking advantage of Nvidia’s RTX and DLSS features. I tested at 4k with the ultra detail setting and with ultra being the setting for DLSS and RTX when they are on as well. I then test with no RTX or DLSS on and then with RTX DLSS on and off and on together. Here the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X comes in just behind the 3090 Ti but more importantly it shows that turning RTX dropped performance from 69 FPS down to 37 but pairing it with LSS put it at 90 FPS which is faster while also getting ray-traced graphics. Or if you want, running only DLSS nearly puts the average FPS up over the 120 high refresh rate range with it averaging 119 FPS which is two FPS higher than the TUF 4070 Ti did.

Next, I wanted to check out the performance in Metro Exodus which we have used for testing for a long time now. This test is similar as well with it set to 4K and Ultra detail, I use the included benchmark to test DLSS and RTX individually and then with them both on and both off to give us a look at overall frame rates depending on which direction you go. I should point out that this is using the Enhanced Edition where our normal benchmark uses the standard version for testing with AMD but that version DLSS no longer works. That said you can see how big of an improvement running DLSS goes with it nearly doubling the performance.

Next, I tested using a benchmark based on the game Boundary. For this one, I wanted to see how all of the different DLSS settings would perform, including turning it off completely. This is run using the free benchmark and with the resolution set to 4k and RTX on. Like with the TUF 4070 Ti, the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X outperformed but the extra overclock was enough to keep it ahead of the 3090 Ti even at the highest quality setting where the TUF card didn’t. This does a good job of showing the range of performance you can see depending on what settings you run. The RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X runs as low as 27 FPS and as high as 128.6 FPS.

The last tests were done in a benchmark based on the game Bright Memory with their free steam benchmark. This is similar to the previous Boundary test only it is looking at RTX settings individually with the resolution set to 4K and DLSS is set to the balanced setting. Here the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X came in below the RTX 3090 Ti but ahead of the 3080 Ti. This test shows the range that DLSS detail settings can range in performance and that is before you even start to mix in things like frame generation. The RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X ranges from 53 FPS up to 82 depending on what you run.

Cooling Noise and Power

For my last few tests, rather than focusing on in game performance, I like to check out other aspects of video card performance. These are also the most important ways to differentiate the performance between cards that have the same GPU. To start things off I took a look at power usage.

For this, our new test setup utilizes the Nvidia-designed PCat v2 along with cables to handle both traditional 6 or 8-pin connections as well as the new 12VHPWR. The PCat also utilizes a PCIe adapter to measure any power going to the card through the PCIe slot so we can measure the video card wattage exclusively, not the entire system as we have done in the past. I test with a mix of applications to get both in game, synthetic benchmarks, and other workloads like Blender and AIDA64. Then everything is averaged together for our result. I also have the individual results for this specific card and I document the peak wattage result as well which is almost always Time Spy Extreme. The RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X averaged 9 watts lower than the Asus TUF 4070 Ti OC and was 6 watts lower on its peak power draw as well showing that while MSI did give it a larger clock speed they were more conservative on their power profile which would explain why in a few benchmarks the TUF card did edge out the Suprim X. That lower power is great to see heading into cooling testing.

With having exact peak wattage numbers when running Time Spy Extreme I was also able to put together a graph showing the total score for each watt that a card draws which gives us an interesting look at overall power efficiency in the popular and demanding benchmark. Having a lower peak power draw but being faster than the TUF means that the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X did end up ahead of the TUF in this putting it up at the top of the chart as the most efficient card tested which is cool as well.

 My next round of tests were looking at noise levels. These are especially important to me because I can’t stand to listen to my PC whirling. Especially when I’m not in game and other applications are using the GPU. For my testing, though I first tested with the fan cranked up to 100% to get an idea of how loud it can get, then again at 50% to get an idea of its range. The RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X fell into the middle of the pack on both the 50% and 100% fan speed tests at 41.8 decibels for 50% and 60.3 for 100% fan speed. This matches up with the total RPM speeds of the card which is nearly in the middle of the pack as well. I also take a look at noise performance while under load. For that when running AIDA64’s stress test I wait until the temperature of the card has leveled off and then measure how loud things are when the card is at its worst-case scenario with the stock fan profile. Here the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X did even better coming in at 37.8 decibels. When running under a full load the fans maxed out at 37% fan speed.

To finish up my testing I of course had to check out the cooling performance. To do this I ran two different tests. I used AIDA64’s Stress Test run for a half-hour each to warm things up. Then I documented what temperature the GPU leveled out at with the stock fan profile and then again with the fans cranked up to 100%. With the stock profile, the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X peaked at 68c with a GPU hotspot of 82cwhich is right in the middle of the pack and is 5c higher than the TUF 4070 Ti but we also know that it was only running at 37% fan speed at this time. Cranking the huge triple-fan cooler on the Suprim X helped lower temps down to 54c but surprisingly this only matched the temperatures of the TUF 4070 Ti at 100% fan speed. The GPU hotspot was improved at 65c as well. Even with a little less power draw and a larger cooler, it didn’t end up translating to better cooling. There was however a bigger delta between the stock fan temperature and 100% fan speed temps meaning you do have room to adjust there.

While running the stock fan profile testing I also took the time to get a few thermal images so we could see what is going on. The fan side of the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X has behind the fans running up to 32c and down to 22.9c and the hotspot when viewing the side is the top edge of the card where you have a view of the PCB itself and also where the card is pushing the warmed air up and out. The top view has most of the heat on the left side of the card where it is running at 49c. On the right side of the top edge, you can see the temperatures drop the farther to the right you go. The 12VHPWR connection that I was a little concerned with being in the middle of the heatsink is running cool but you can see where the cable itself does have more heat in it from the heatsink blowing on it. Then at the back of the card, the metal backplate is pulling some of the heat out across it but the hotspot is still right behind the GPU where the PCB is exposed. The blow-through side of the card however is significantly cooler running 20c lower. 

Overall and Final Verdict

With all of our testing out of the way and having taken a closer look at the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X already we can finally sit back and process everything we saw. Like with previous Suprim cards, MSI did a great job with the styling on the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X. It avoids a lot of the gimmicky “gamer” focused trends and has a cleaner design. It also shows that you can get the better quality construction that the Founders Edition series of cards are known for outside of that lineup which is important for the 4070 Ti because Nvidia doesn’t have a Founders Edition for this generation. MSI gave the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X a metal fan shroud, thick internal supports to help hold the weight of the card, and a thick backplate to tie it all together. They also used different finish types on the same panels to add to the styling for that signature Suprim look. The RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X is a very large card though and it isn’t going to fit in some cases so you will need to keep that in mind. It also has the new 12VHPWR connection up on top and while MSI did recess it some I would have preferred to see that positioned at an angle where it won’t be under as much strain when pressed up against the side panel in a lot of cases.

Like with the Asus TUF 4070 Ti OC that I already took a look at, the MSI RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X is overclocked and had a slightly higher overclock than the TUF card. This helped it edge the TUF out in a majority of tests. MSI did however go a little more conservative on the power profile on the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X which affected one or two results. More importantly, though that also meant that it used less power than the TUF 4070 Ti in our power tests by 9 watts on average. The 4070 Ti is the most efficient card we have tested for points per watt in 3DMark Time Spy Extreme and the better power profile put the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X at the top of our chart. I was also expecting the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X with its larger heatsink and lower power to do a little better than the TUF 4070 Ti in cooling but when testing with the fans cranked up they both came out at the same temperature. The extra cooling did translate to quieter performance when under load though. For the bigger picture of the card's performance, it fell right into the gap that Nvidia left under the new RTX 4080 and impressively it outperformed the RTX 3090 Ti which was the Nvidia flagship just months ago. It doesn’t however outperform the RX 7900 XT, at least when it comes to regular raster performance. The 7900 XT does fall behind once you start looking at other new technologies like ray tracing and DLSS 3 which the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X did extremely well with. Overall the RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X dominated 1080p and 1440p performance and 4K is more than playable as well with all of our results at that resolution coming in at 60 FPS or higher but about half of them not reaching the high refresh rate capable of 120+ FPS. DLSS 3 does offer ways to help with that in games that support it.

As for pricing, the RTX 4070 Ti itself has an MSRP of $799 which is a nice improvement over the original expected MSRP of the 4080 12GB which was $899. As for the MSI RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X, sadly ahead of the launch, I haven’t been able to get the MSRP of MSIs flagship card but I do know that other companies have their highest-end RTX 4070 Ti’s up into the $1049 range and I wouldn’t expect this card to be any different given its build construction and being their highest end card. If at a price like that it does put it in a more precarious position with the 7900 XT outperforming the 4070 Ti and with that starting to get up into the RTX 4080 range. The MSI RTX 4070 Ti Suprim X is one of if not the best 4070 Ti card out there, but depending on its pricing it may be the card that only the people who want the best will be looking at.  

Live Pricing: HERE

Author Bio

Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org

Editor-in-chief

You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.