MSI GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Gaming X TRIO review (Page 24)

MSI GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Gaming X TRIO review

Graphics cards 1048 Page 24 of 24 Published 2019-07-09 15:00 by Hilbert Hagedoorn

Conclusion

Final words and verdict

I am always curious that if you increase the boost clock with 30 MHz that you can see a fair effect in FPS. Well, the answer is not that simple these days. MSI likely is tweaking a bit more on the power limiter/allowance as well, which explains a slightly higher energy consumption. next to that, if a card is better cooled, limiters kick in less often, keeping that boost frequency higher. And there you have it, the Gaming X TRIO. The GeForce RTX 2070 Super, on its end, sees a nice increase in perf over the non-Super model thanks to the added 256 shader processors resulting in 2560 of them for which NVIDIA needed the TU104. Here, however, the memory stays at 8GB and thus the ROP count remains the same as well as many other variables. However, the new clock frequencies do give it an advantage over, say, even a GTX 1080 Ti and closer to the RTX 2080, which is an interesting performance level. Come to think of it, remember the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti lighting edition? Well, this card is precisely as fast as that fracker. And as such this 499 USD (it'll likely end up at 550 bucks for this Gaming X TRIO model). From our point of view, MSI has done a good job with the GeForce RTX 2070 Super Gaming X Trio (aside for a way toooooo long product name).

Aesthetics

With a dark design, the cooler once powered on just looks amazing. The RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio offers improved looks. It sits in the Gaming line, was made a little darker to look at, and that works for me. The RGB lighting effects are funky to see. That LED inclusion that has been done subtly and can be configured in any manner you prefer with Mystic Light software, the choice is yours. While I always will remain skeptical about backplates (they potentially can trap heat and thus warm up the PCB) MSI does have vents there. The flip-side is that they can look better and can protect your PCB and components from damage and, well, they can look nice as they can have a certain aesthetic appeal. I have to admit, this is looking very nice but looks are always personal, of course. So in the end, on looks, you certainly get that premium feel of detailed aesthetics and quality.

Cooling & Noise Levels

The card tops out at roughly only 66 Degrees C while gaming. So that's not bad at all, the acoustics I'd rate as silent, we doubt you'll ever hear the card once mounted into a chassis. We've heard no noticeable coil whine. But I do want to note that any graphics card at a high-enough FPS can make some coil-whine.

Overclocking

Anything and everything is regulated by NVIDIA these days. Speaking, in general, you can expect another 5 to 10% of extra perf out of both cards when you bump up the graphics memory and GPU a bit. That it is, however, paired with an increased board power limiter and, as such, that will cost a bit more energy. Both traditional overclocking, as well as the OC Scanner functions, bring us close to that value. In retrospect though, you have to remember, that the 'older' RTX models could also be tweaked to 15~16 Gbps on that GDDR6 memory. Our +100 MHz on the base clock resulted in the product Boosting in the 2000~2050 MHz range. Not bad.

Concluding

The good news is that MSI is able to offer a competitive price compared to other AIB products, the bad news is that the card will remain the premium model and as such will be priced like that. The RTX 2070S is positioned at 499 USD, and really should not be much higher in retail even with pimped up AIB cards. If it is priced too high, hey the founder edition cards have become much more competitive with their competing clocks and cooling design. Relatively speaking among the AIB cards, MSI manages this product well. The PCB layout and component usage are good, the cooler I would qualify as excellent even. The factory tweak is however too small, I mean 30 MHz, come on. Then again we do think that MSI increased the power limiter a bit and sure, on the opposing side that leaves plenty of headroom for a nice manual tweak with afterburner of course. But overall the card was only 2% faster than reference/founders. Tweaking wise the card did not disappoint though. The 2070 Super is plenty fast for any gaming up-to Ultra HD based on shading performance. With Raytracing enabled you'll be in the 1080p or 1440p range. The good news is that the card is TU104 based, and that means it is fitted with an NVlink slot, yep you could pair up two of these and go for SLI. However, given its track history, Multi-GPU is dying. As stated, the factory tweak is pretty weak, however manual tweaking makes up for that. Combined with a silent cooling and that really nice factory tweak we'll hand out a recommended award, as the product they MSI has released here really deserves that.

Update: Newegg has them listed at $514.99 after a 15 bucks mail-in rebate at the time of writing this, that is a great price.