Conclusion

Conclusion

The end-result for this Quick Silver edition is simple, this product is as good as the GTX 1070 GAMING X model is with two distinct changes, the color and the back-plate with LED lit dragon shield logo. The Quick Silver edition in both the regular and OC models have been released to insert a SKU onto the market that is a little different. It actually is a bold and daring move from MSI as I do not think that a lot of people will prefer this color-tone over the black/red GAMING versions. This card as such is only interesting for those that have an all black or black/titanium/silver colored motherboard. Other then that it's all good of course. Though the 1070 might not use that exquisite GDDR5X memory the 1080 series uses, the 1070 uses GDDR5 graphics memory, still it's effectively running at a nice data-rate of 8 Gbps which brings in a very nice memory performance boost compared to the last gen products, in fact it tweaks towards 9 Gbps as well.
 
  

 
That said, I was happy to see that our sample had Micron memory, combined with the latest BIOS I am happy to report that we had no issues that we could detect. We could add another 500 MHz (x2 double data-rate) thus a full GHz of effective memory bandwidth. That's actually not that far away from what the Samsung ICs offer, these are merely notch better imho. Next to that I have got to mention the actual volume size of it, 8 GB 256-bit GDDR5 graphics memory feels like an excellent and well-balanced amount of graphics memory anno 2016. Would you ever use 8 GB of memory? Well, not anytime soon. The largest number we ever measured as like 5 or 6 GB. But hey, who knows with titles like The Division / GTA5 and technologies like Ultra HD and / or DSR versus performance and VRAM what you find valid, or not. High up there in the enthusiast space there certainly is a market for cards like these. That makes these 8 GB models relevant for gaming. 
  

The color might be unusual, but the reality here is that 1+1 becomes 1. Motherboards like these are the real reason for a Quick Silver edition graphics card series.

Aesthetics

MSI tweaked the design a bit to match their titanium color motherboards, even the stylish TwinFrozr VI cooler has gotten that color job and looks serious, but a little unusual. The cooler is fitted with RGB LED lighting control. Switch it on/off or to any color and animation you prefer, the choice is yours. Cool dibs is that back-plate, with opening at the proper areas (GPU/VRM) for venting. As you can see, I remain skeptical about back-plates, they potentially can trap heat and thus warm up the PCB. But the flip-side is that they do look better and can protect your PCB and components from damage. Consumer demand is always decisive, and you guys clearly like graphics cards with backplates. Both the front IO plate and backplate are dark matte black which certainly gives the card that premium feel. All that combined with a nicely design 10 phase PCB again in matte black, and the end result is a lovely looking product.

Cooling & Noise Levels

The reference design (founder editions) of the GTX 1070 are set at an offset threshold of 80 degrees C. Once the GPU gets warmer the card will clock down / lower its voltage etc to try and keep the card cooler, that's throttling and it part of the design. MSI however throws in a cooler that manages roughly 500 to 600W of cooling performance. It is a really good one, so good that up-to a degree or 60 on the GPU, this card remains passive and thus inaudible. Once the fans kick in, you can expect to hover at the 70 Degrees C marker, with seriously demanding games. Please do note that you will need proper ventilation inside your chassis to achieve that number. So MSI shaved off a good 10 Degrees C over reference. Noise wise, we can’t complain about cooling whatsoever. Expect sound pressure values in the 38 dBA range at max under load and warm circumstances, and that simply is silent. That's measured 75 CM away from the PC. This means you can barely hear the card while using it. Once overclocked with added voltage we always do recommend a little more fan RPM, this does increase noise a tiny bit, but it's nothing dramatic by any standard. Overall this is a very silent and solid cooling solution. We did heara tiny bit of coil noise, nothing that would bother me though.
  

Power Consumption

Any GP104 Pascal GPU and thus GP104 based graphics card is rated as having a 160~180 Watt TDP under full stress, our measurements back that up albeit a notch higher due to the faster clocks and thus voltage usage. We noticed that the Quick Silver 1070 did consume slightly more power due to its tweaks and design, it was roughly 170 Watts under full stress (peak value). That's OK though. Here again keep in mind we measure peak power consumption, the average power consumption is a good notch lower depending on GPU utilization. Also, if you plan to overclock the CPU/memory and/or GPU with added voltage, please do purchase a power supply with enough reserve. People often underestimate it, but if you tweak all three aforementioned variables, you can easily add 200 Watts to your peak power consumption budget as increasing voltages and clocks increases your power consumption.

Gaming performance

If you plan to upgrade my biggest advice to you is this, you'll need to look at your monitor first and foremost. A GeForce GTX 1070 would be perfect for Wide Quad HD Gaming at 2560x1440. It has plenty power and has the graphics memory to deal with games for years to come, even with the best quality settings and some niche AA levels. Price performance wise one should also take SLI into deliberation. We'll test it at one point but two GeForce GTX 1070 cards setup in SLI might be a true sweet-spot for Ultra HD gamers or the ones that like to go a little dirteeh with DSR and of course the latest gaming titles. Performance wise, really there's not one game that won't run seriously good at the very best image quality settings at 2560x1440. And sure, the cool factor remains you get the advantages of an 8 GB framebuffer. As such we feel the card is rather future proof. We mentioned SLI already, but starting with Pascal the primary focus for Nvidia in terms of multi-GPU setups is that they will support 2-way SLI, but really that's it and all. For those of you that want to run 3 and 4-way configuration, it's going to be difficult but remains possible as the game needs to support and you will need to obtain a driver key from the Nvidia website. Do not expect Nvidia to enhance drivers for it, they'll just open up the floodgate and have you deal with the rest. Some of you might be disappointed about this news. Me personally, I am fine with the choice to focus on proper 2-way SLI opposed to all the arbitrary configurations that less then 0.01% of the end-users uses.

Overclocking

Due to the many limiters and hardware protections Nvidia has built in all and any cards will hover roughly against that 2.0 GHz on the Boost marker. Now, the one factor that can actually positively influence the boost speed a little is temperature as the GPU will then will throttle less. We reached roughly 2037~2050 MHz, not the best result but results do vary per batch and sometimes even product. On 3DMark Firestrike with this card tweaked for example it may hover at ~2037 MHz, while in Rise of the Tom Raider (2016) you will be close towards 2.06 GHz. The reality is that Nvidia monitors and adapts to hardware specific loads, e.g. an application that is nearly viral like on the GPU will have the effect of the GPU protecting itself by lowering clocks and voltages. The opposite applies here as well, if a game does not try & fry that GPU, it'll clock a bit faster withing the tweaked thresholds at your disposal. Tweaking is fun, but definitely more complicated anno 2016. The memory (Micron) could reach 9.0 Gbps effectively. So if you can find a high enough stable tweak, definitely go or it if you are seeking that last bit of extra performance.

Concluding

So then, the only valid reason for you to buy the Quick Silver edition over the GAMING X would be the color theme and the back-lit logo, and that is the honest truth. You will not gain higher tweaking experiences. Personally I would have liked to have see higher clock frequencies as this model can certainly handle it. Fact remains that the differences in performance in-between all models is hard to notice during gaming. I mean to date we have tested like six tweaked SKUs from varying manufacturers and the differences in-between ALL cards are like 3 FPS give or take 1 FPS. For PC gamers out there that play their games up-to the WQHD domain and 2560x1440 ('ish) the 1070 is a truly nice upgrade. Especially if you come from the GeForce GTX 960/970 range. Seen from GTX 980 and higher, not so much of course. The new architecture proves its agility and the die shrink to 16 nm FiNFET shows low power consumption due to lower voltages and obviously the high clock-speeds and that 8 Gbps GDDR5 memory offer the product that the GTX 1070 is. The MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Quick Silver OC is a simply terrific choice for the ones that game in up-to 2560x1440 resolution domain and even some games in the Ultra HD realm. Added benefits over a founders edition card has the better looks, the better cooling, and simply is a very silent product. Tweaking your card i something that pretty much is pre-determined by Nvidia, with a few exception here and there. All cards from any vendor are hover in a maximum realm of 2.0~2.1 GHz, sometimes a tiny bit more, sometimes a tiny bit less. In the end the Quick Silver editions is aimed at those who purchased a titanium series motherboard from MSI, for them this would be a perfect match to complement their PC build. That does make the MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Quick Silver OC 8G what it is, a very serious gaming product with an all sturdy and armored up design - but a product released for aesthetics mainly. We do like it a lot, and certainly would like to recommend the card to any serious gamer if you can find it for the right price. In closing, the MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Quick Silver edition does very much recommended, it ticks all the right boxes. And if you own that silver colored MSI motherboard and need that little extra bling, this could be a perfect 10 for you.

Recommended  Downloads

• Sign up to receive a notice when we publish a new article
• Or go back to Guru3D's front page