INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   After many months of waiting NVIDIA has finally unveiled their brand new GeForce RTX 4080 & 4070 Super graphics cards and this means two things for gamers, better performance for less money (MSRP is less compared to the non-super models at launch while performance according to my colleagues is roughly 15-20% up) and further reduced prices for the non-super models. So, if you're out in the market looking to get your hands on a GeForce graphics card the non-super 4080 & 4070 models should become quite appealing before long. Now i may not have one of these Super cards here with me today but i do have one GeForce RTX 4070 model which hasn't gotten nearly the attention it deserves, the Gaming Slim by MSI.

   MSI is a world leader in gaming, content creation, business & productivity and AIoT solutions. Bolstered by its cutting-edge R&D capabilities and customer-driven innovation, MSI has a wide-ranging global presence spanning over 120 countries. Its comprehensive lineup of laptops, graphics cards, monitors, motherboards, desktops, peripherals, servers, IPCs, robotic appliances, and vehicle infotainment and telematics systems are globally acclaimed. Committed to advancing user experiences through the finest product quality, intuitive user interface and design aesthetics, MSI is a leading brand that shapes the future of technology.

   The GeForce RTX 4070 is based on a cut-down version of NVIDIA's AD104 chip which in this case packs a total of 5888 CUDA cores, 46 streaming multiprocessors (SM's), 46 ray accelerators (or ray tracing cores), 184 Tensor cores, 64 raster units (or render output units) and 184 TMUs (texture mapping units). It's memory setup includes a grand total of 12GB GDDR6X on a 192-bit interface which results to 504.2GB/s of bandwidth. Even though the GeForce RTX 4070 made its debut back in April of 2023 the Gaming Slim line by MSI wasn't introduced until August of that year and so it's a rather new model still. As its name suggests the Gaming Slim is a two-slot (46mm) graphics card (available in both black and white color) which MSI has paired with a dual heatsink cooler together with a nickel plated copper baseplate (Tri Frozr 3 design), three fans (Torx Fan 5.0), partial metal backplate and a single ARGB zone. As expected, the Gaming Slim is powered by a single +12VHPWR connector and as for clocks even though at default the card maintains its stock/vanilla ones (1920 core, 2475MHz boost and 1313MHz memory) according to MSI these can easily increase by using their MSI center software (up to 2490MHz boost). Finally, in regards to available connectivity the GeForce RTX 4070 Gaming Slim by MSI comes ready with three DisplayPort v1.4a ports and a single HDMI v2.1a port.

 

 

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Typically, the front of the box is mostly taken by a product picture located under the company logo and over the model name.

 

 

At the top of the box, we find a short product description in 23 languages.

 

 

The main product features along with a second product picture are placed at the rear of the box.

 

 

As expected, the card is placed inside a formed piece of cardboard and wrapped inside a static-free bag.

 

 

Along with the MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Gaming Slim inside the box you’ll also find an 2x8pin to 12VHPWR adapter, card holder/support with 2 extra pads and a quick start guide.

 

 

THE GEFORCE RTX 4070 GAMING SLIM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The GeForce RTX 4070 Gaming Slim measures just 307mm in length, 125mm in height and 46mm in thickness.

 

 

All three fans spin counter-clock wise and feature rings around them for optimal airflow.

 

 

The cooler MSI has used is a dual heatsink one with several nickel plated copper heatpipes going through both of them.

 

 

It’s not everyday that we see a dual-slot graphics card so this was a nice surprise.

 

 

The card uses a single +12VHPWR connector for power.

 

 

Roughly 60% of the total rear is taken by a metal backplate.

 

 

Moving at the front of the card we find three DP v1.4a ports and a single HDMI v2.1a port.

 

 

It may not offer the best ARGB light show around but the single zone at the top of the card does look nice (short video is available on TikTok & YouTube).

 

 

MSI SOFTWARE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more control you can download the MSI center and MSI Afterburner.

The MSI center includes many programs so you will be asked what your use for it is at launch.

 

 

For example, Gaming mode includes the Gaming highlights, MSI companion, Graphics fan tool and the Mystic light programs.

 

 

The graphics fan tab can be a very useful program since from here you can disable the zero-RPM fan mode (Zero Frozr) and do a quick 30 second test of the fans.

 

 

You can check the state of clocks, usage and temperatures from the Hardware monitoring tab.

 

 

The Mystic light tab allows you to select and adjust one of the nine available ARGB effects.

 

 

The system diagnostics tab monitors your drives and the system RAM.

 

 

The Afterburner software doesn’t need any introductions I believe, it was introduced by MSI many years ago and became the to go software for people overclocking their NVIDIA cards.

 

 

TEST BED

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TESTING METHODOLOGY

   Since I changed my graphics card test rig i decided to tweak things a bit and so the entire testing methodology has changed. So, for the foreseeable future for tests, I’ll be using the EV3285 monitor by EIZO (later on i may also add tri-monitor results since i do have 2 cockpits here in the lab) for 2160p UHD (3840x2160p), 1440p (2560x1440p) and 1080p Full HD (1920x1080p) tests. Needless to say, since most of you voted for it, I’ll also be using the Intel Core I9-13900K (5.8GHz P/4.7GHz E/4.9GHz RING), EVGA Z790 DARK test rig which I’ve completed with the Kingston FURY RENEGADE 32GB DDR5 7200MHz CL38 dual-channel kit.

   Most games have also been changed so instead of manually testing every single one (and always allowing a small percentage of error) i chose all the latest ones to feature a built-in benchmark. In certain cases, built-in benchmarks may perform better than in-game but my purpose is comparison and not what one can expect in terms of in-game performance. So, this list includes Chernobylite, Cyberpunk 2077, F1 2022, Far Cry 6, Forza Horizon 5, Guardians Of The Galaxy, Horizon Zero Dawn CE, Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Returnal. Also, since some of you have asked for Synthetic benchmarks in the past, I’ll also be using Speed Way and Port Royal from 3D Mark.

   As with the past options like power saving, sharpness and overlays are all disabled in the cards we’re testing (to achieve the purest and maximum performance) and all tests are repeated a total of 3 times in a fresh Windows 10 Pro installation with all updates installed until the day of our review (same as all the games used). Room temperature is as usual controlled and steady at 23 degrees Celsius for all tests and to record the temperatures of the cards we used AIDA64 and GPU-Z. Recording noise levels is done with an ExTech HD600 dBA meter from a distance of just 15cm away while power consumption is measured again using GPU-Z.

 

 

TEST RESULTS – SPEED WAY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3DMark Speed Way’s engine is assembled to demonstrate what the latest DirectX API (12 Ultimate) brings to ray traced gaming, using DirectX Raytracing tier 1.1 for real-time global illumination and real-time raytraced reflections, coupled with new performance optimizations like Mesh Shaders.

 

 

TEST RESULTS – PORT ROYAL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3DMark Port Royal is the world’s first real-time ray tracing benchmark for gamers. It shows you how well your PC handles ray tracing effects in real-time.

 

TEST RESULTS – CHERNOBYLITE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chernobylite is a 1st person RPG set in the hyper-realistic, 3D-scanned wasteland of Chernobyl's Exclusion Zone. It's based on Unreal Engine 4 and will be used at Ultra graphics (RT Ultra/Off).

 

TEST RESULTS – CYBERPUNK 2077

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cyberpunk 2077 is the latest game by CD Project and is based on their REDEngine 4. Graphics are set at Ultra/Psycho (RT Psycho/Off).

 

TEST RESULTS – F1 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

F1 2022 is built on Codemasters' in-house engine, EGO, which has been upgraded to include DX12 and Ray-Tracing. Graphics are set to Ultra High (RT is enabled in all tests).

 

TEST RESULTS – FAR CRY 6

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Far Cry 6 is based on the Dunia engine. Graphics are set to Ultra with DXR enabled.

 

TEST RESULTS – FORZA HORIZON 5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Forza Horizon 5 uses ForzaTech, a proprietary engine built by Turn 10. Graphics are set to Extreme (RT is always enabled at high).

 

TEST RESULTS - GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guardians Of The Galaxy is based on the Dawn Engine by EIDOS. Graphics are set to maximum (RT Ultra/Off).

 

TEST RESULTS - HORIZON ZERO DAWN CE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Horizon Zero Dawn CE (Complete Edition) is based on Guerrilla Games' Decima engine. Graphics are set to Ultimate Quality.

 

TEST RESULTS - METRO EXODUS ENHANCED EDITION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition is based on the 4A Engine and contains huge graphical upgrades compared to the normal version, including Ray Traced Emissive Lighting. Graphics are set at Extreme quality.

 

TEST RESULTS – RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For Red Dead Redemption 2 Rockstar has used their RAGE engine (Rockstar Advanced Game Engine). Graphics preset level slider is set to favour quality.

 

TEST RESULTS – RETURNAL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Returnal is also based on Unreal Engine 4. Graphics are set to EPIC (RT EPIC/Off).

 

TEST RESULTS - OVERCLOCKING

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even by just using the OC tab from Afterburner hitting 2180MHz on the core, 1475MHz on the RAM and 2735MHz boost was easy and since anything more wasn’t 100% stable, I decided to go with this (so consider this as a rather safe OC).

 

TEST RESULTS - POWER CONSUMPTION / TEMPERATURES / NOISE LEVELS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   I never liked very large cards for the simple reason that they take up too many slots and are too long for “normal” cases. Actually, when the very first dual-GPU cards by ATI (Radeon HD 295x2/6990/7990) and NVIDIA (GeForce GTX 590/690/TITAN Z) made their debut last decade i had no problem with the extra size but only because it brought along with it 50-80% better performance compared to the single GPU models. Today however that’s not the case so the GeForce RTX 4070 Gaming Slim 12GB model by MSI was a somewhat pleasant surprise for me. Yes, it may not come overclocked from the factory (there’s a Gaming Slim X model that does) and its cooler may not be the best around but during my tests it did extremely well across the board. In terms of performance the GeForce RTX 4070 Gaming Slim exchanged numerous blows with the Radeon RX 7800 XT Nitro+ by SAPPHIRE with the former surpassing the latter in most of my tests something which to be honest I wasn’t expecting (especially from a stock/vanilla clocks model). My sole concern is that the 12GB of the card may not be quite enough soon but considering that this card was made for 1440p/1600p gaming that shouldn’t be an issue. Performance aside the GeForce RTX 4070 Gaming Slim also did very well in regards to power consumption and temperatures and even though noise levels weren’t particularly high at max (again, this is how loud the card got during my tests, not how noisy the fans are at 100% speed) it’s still not as silent as some other models in the charts. Having three DP v1.4a ports is also very good if you plan on using the card on a tri-monitor setup and surprisingly enough this isn’t how every manufacturer goes about it (some offer 2xDP and 2xHDMI). Finally in terms of looks the single ARGB zone may not stand out very much but it’s still better than nothing at all.

   Currently the GeForce RTX 4070 Gaming Slim 12GB by MSI retails for USD584.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 687.11Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) a price tag which is quite good for what you’re getting in return. Unfortunately, the new GeForce RTX 4070 Super Gaming Slim model retails close to USD1000/1000Euros so at least for now the non-super model will probably represent a much better price/performance ratio for most consumers. Overall, I only have good things to say about the GeForce RTX 4070 Gaming Slim 12GB by MSI, performance is very good, the 12GB are plenty for 1440p/1600p gaming (even 4k in some games without RT) and last but not least this is a 2-slot model which should easily fit in just about any case around so the Golden Award is in order.

PROS

- Build Quality (Materials / Backplate)
- Very Good Performance
- 2 Slot Model (46mm Thick)
- Good Overclocking Headroom
- Power Consumption, Noise Levels & Temperatures
- ARGB Zone
- Available In Black & White
- Supported Technologies

CONS

- 12GB (4K & RT Already Push It)