Overall and Final Verdict
With the MSI RTX 4070 Ventus 3X being a stocked clocked card it not only matches the RTX 4070 Founders Edition in clock speed but also in its price. Its design however takes a completely different direction. Where the Founders Edition is more compact and has its all-metal housing the MSI RTX 4070 Ventus 3X is a long card with three fans and has a plastic fan shroud and plastic backplate as well. I don’t mind the plastic fan shroud because it opens up different styling options but I’m still not a big fan of the plastic backplate. It is better than having nothing as it does protect the back of the card some, but it doesn’t help prevent card sag and it doesn’t transfer heat out away from the PCB. The black design does look good and goes well with the silver and black design of the rest of the card.
The MSI RTX 4070 Ventus 3X didn’t stop with being different with its card size and length. It also has dropped the 12VHPWR connection for a standard 8-pin plug and while I wouldn’t prefer this on a higher-end card because the new connection does keep your wiring cleaner as long as you are using a new ATX 3.0 power supply, but with just one 8-pin connection it is easier and you don’t have to worry about making sure it is connected perfectly. I am curious how they got away with the one connection when Nvidia is using a dual 8-pin adapter for the Founders Edition. Especially with the MSI RTX 4070 Ventus 3X pulling slightly more power. Even with the different power profile the MSI RTX 4070 Ventus 3X, like the 4070 FE, is still a surprisingly efficient card when it comes to the wattage for performance in Time Spy Extreme. This translated to good card temperatures and quiet performance when under load as well. But I did run into a significant temperature issue with a major hotspot up at the top of the card on the PCB above the GPU. So hot in fact that I’m concerned that it will damage itself in the future.
As far as traditional performance the MSI RTX 4070 Ventus 3X and the 4070 FE performed nearly the same across the board trading places over and over again in our tests. This put it close to the RTX 3080 in performance as well with it outperforming the 3080 at 1080p, matching at 1440p, and falling behind at 4K. Like with our RTX 4070 Founders Edition review, the big variable for the overall performance depends on how you plan on using the card. For just raster performance currently, AMD is a better value with the 6800 XT and especially the 6950 XT for as long as those are marked down. It is only when you also figure in ray tracing and DLSS performance, which we will see more in future games, does its price better match up with the performance you get. In those situations, it outperforms the 69050 XT while at a cheaper price. The MSI RTX 4070 Ventus 3X has an MSRP of $599 which is the base MSRP of the RTX 4070. As it sits with the heat issue that I am experiencing with our card it is hard to recommend the Ventus 3X. But once that issue gets worked out, assuming it is just a defect that is, the MSI RTX 4070 Ventus 3X has the potential to be a decent buy for a budget 4070 with a solid cooler to keep things cool.
Live Pricing: HERE
