Thermal Performance
It's been over a year since NVIDIA introduced its Ada Lovelace GPUs, kicking things off with the RTX 4090 and finishing up the initial lineup with the RTX 4060. At CES, the company unveiled its new 40 SUPER family, designed to offer a mid-cycle upgrade over the existing cards. The company officially adds more performance by increasing the core counts, offering more VRAM across certain variants, and increasing the performance per dollar value of its Ada family.
NVIDIA kickstarted a SUPER 2024 with its GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER graphics card. A card designed for a great 1440p gaming experience and also prepping up for higher-refresh rate monitors running 1080p resolutions. The GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER starts at $599 US which is the MSRP for the model we will be testing today.
The pricing is the same as what the GeForce RTX 4070 Non-SUPER GPU launched for but that variant has been dropped to $549 US. The 4070 SUPER is a big upgrade when we look at its GPU specifications so let's start the review and see whether the RTX 4070 is SUPER enough to become a $599 price-point king. For today's review, we will be testing out MSI's GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER Gaming X SLIM MLG which comes at $649 US or a $50 US premium over the MSRP and gets you a non-reference design with a touch of anime.
NVIDIA GeForce GPU Segment/Tier Prices
| Graphics Segment | 2023-2024 | 2022-2023 | 2021-2022 | 2020-2021 | 2019-2020 | 2018-2019 | 2017-2018 | 2016-2017 | 2014-2016 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Titan Tier | GeForce RTX 4090 | GeForce RTX 4090 | GeForce RTX 3090 Ti GeForce RTX 3090 | GeForce RTX 3090 | Titan RTX (Turing) | Titan V (Volta) | Titan Xp (Pascal) | Titan X (Pascal) | Titan X (Maxwell) |
| Price | $1599 US | $1599 US | $1999 US $1499 US | $1499 US | $2499 US | $2999 US | $1199 US | $1199 US | $999 US |
| Ultra Enthusiast Tier | GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER | GeForce RTX 4080 | GeForce RTX 3080 Ti | GeForce RTX 3080 Ti | GeForce RTX 2080 Ti | GeForce RTX 2080 Ti | GeForce GTX 1080 Ti | GeForce GTX 980 Ti | GeForce GTX 980 Ti |
| Price | $999 US | $1199 US | $1199 US | $1199 US | $999 US | $999 US | $699 US | $649 US | $649 US |
| Enthusiast Tier | GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER | GeForce RTX 4070 Ti | GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB | GeForce RTX 3080 10 GB | GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER | GeForce RTX 2080 | GeForce GTX 1080 | GeForce GTX 1080 | GeForce GTX 980 |
| Price | $799 US | $799 US | $799 US | $699 US | $699 US | $699 US | $549 US | $549 US | $549 US |
| High-End Tier | GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GeForce RTX 4070 | GeForce RTX 4070 GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB | GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GeForce RTX 3070 | GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GeForce RTX 3070 | GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER | GeForce RTX 2070 | GeForce GTX 1070 | GeForce GTX 1070 | GeForce GTX 970 |
| Price | $599 $549 | $599 US $499 US | $599 $499 | $599 $499 | $499 US | $499 US | $379 US | $379 US | $329 US |
| Mainstream Tier | GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GeForce RTX 4060 | GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GeForce RTX 4060 | GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB | GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB | GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER GeForce RTX 2060 GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER GeForce GTX 1660 | GeForce GTX 1060 | GeForce GTX 1060 | GeForce GTX 1060 | GeForce GTX 960 |
| Price | $449 $299 | $399 US $299 US | $399 US $329 US | $399 US $329 US | $399 US $349 US $279 US $229 US $219 US | $249 US | $249 US | $249 US | $199 US |
| Entry Tier | RTX 3050 8 GB RTX 3050 6 GB | RTX 3050 | RTX 3050 | GTX 1650 SUPER GTX 1650 | GTX 1650 SUPER GTX 1650 | GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050 | GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050 | GTX 950 | GTX 750 Ti GTX 750 |
| Price | $229 $179 | $249 US | $249 US | $159 US $149 US | $159 US $149 US | $139 US $109 US | $139 US $109 US | $149 US | $149 US $119 US |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 SUPER Gaming Graphics Cards
Turing wasn't just any graphics core, it was the graphics core that was to become the foundation of future GPUs. The future is realized now with next-generation consoles going deep in talks about ray tracing and AI-assisted super-sampling techniques. NVIDIA had a head start with Turing & Ampere and its Ada generation will only do things infinitely times better.
The Ada GPU does many traditional things which we would expect from a GPU, but at the same time, also breaks the barrier when it comes to nontraditional GPU operations. Just to sum up some features:
- New Streaming Multiprocessor (SM)
- New Turing Tensor Cores
- New Real-Time Ray Tracing Acceleration
- New Shading Enhancements
- New Deep Learning Features For Graphics & Inference
- New GDDR6X High-Performance Memory Subsystem
- New HDMI 2.1 Display Engine & Next-Gen NVENC/NVDEC
The technologies mentioned above are some of the main building blocks of the Ada GPU, but there's more within the graphics core itself which we will talk about in detail so let's get started.
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GPU will be the first to hit retail shelves in a few weeks and it is going to be a gamer delight, offering the performance of a last-gen BFGPU such as the RTX 3090 at a price point of just $599 US. The graphics card is touted as a 1440p gamers paradise, hitting the right perf/$ mark and even flexing up to 4K gaming by leveraging NVIDIA's DLSS 3 technologies.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GPU Specifications: Upgraded AD104 GPU With 20% More Cores
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER will feature AD104-350 or AD103-175 GPU (PG141 SKU 335) configurations with the same 7,168 cores across both variants. The GPU is expected to get 36 MB of L2 cache. The card will stick with the 12 GB GDDR6X memory across the same 192-bit bus interface. For the RTX 4070 SUPER, the card will have a 20W higher TBP than the existing 4070 at 220W. MSI's XLR8 variant comes with the same TGP of 220W that can be pushed up to 250W and features boost clocks of up to 2655 MHz (a +7.2% increase over the reference model).
The card offers 36 Shader TFLOPs, 82 RT TFLOPs, and 568 AI TOPs while supporting all the latest NV encode technologies such as AV1 and H.264. All of these combined put the RTX 4070 within 95% of the performance of the 4070 Ti.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GPU Performance: Faster Than An RTX 3090 & Just 5% Slower Than A 4070 Ti On Average
In terms of gaming performance, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is said to be around 15% faster than the RTX 4070 Non-SUPER, marking the biggest uplifts in the SUPER lineup. The card is also stated to be faster than an RTX 3090 without frame-generation though the performance is going to vary on a game-to-game basis. NVIDIA also confirms that the card is just 5% slower than an RTX 4070 Ti which retailed for $799 US. That too has been replaced by the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER.
AI is a major talking point for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER and the RTX 40 SUPER series in general, delivering up to 2x faster performance with DLSS 3.5, 70% faster image generation & 50% faster video generation speeds using ML optimizations through the Tensor-RT and Tensor-RT LLM stack that has been available on Windows and is being updated on the go.
The card will be challenging the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE and RX 7800 XT. The GRE retails for $649 US while the 7800 XT retails for $499 US. Having 4070 Ti or 3090-class performance at $599 US is a very aggressive approach by NVIDIA and one that should definitely be appreciated by gamers. At the same time, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 will continue to live on with a $549 US price tag but at this point, it is better to go for the new SUPER variant.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GPU Power Efficiency: Absolutely Shattering Perf/Watt
Another talking point for the NVIDIA GeForce RT 40 SUPER GPUs such as the RTX 4070 SUPER is its class-leading performance efficiency. While the GPU is rated at 220W, the actual gaming wattage is around 200W on average which is less than half the TGP of the RTX 4090 and much lower than what the Radeon RX 7900 series consumes. Even the 7800 XT is rated at a much higher 263W TBP. The video playback power is also 16W out of the box while idle power is 11W, something that the AMD RDNA 3 GPUs had trouble fixing during launch.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GPU Pricing & Availability
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GPU will be available on the 17th of January in both Founders Edition and custom variants, starting at $599 US. There are plenty of custom models to select from such as the ones shown below:
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER Founders Edition Gallery:
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Desktop GPU Family:
| Graphics Card | GPU SKU | GPU Cores | TMUs / ROPs | Clock Speed (Boost) | VRAM / Bus | Bandwidth | TGP | Price (MSRP) | Launch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GeForce RTX 4090 | AD102-300 | 16384 | 512 / 176 | 2520 MHz | 24 GB GDDR6X / 384-bit | 1008 GB/s | 450W | $1599 US | October 2022 |
| GeForce RTX 4090D | AD102-250 | 14592 | 456 / 176 | 2520 MHz | 24 GB GDDR6X / 384-bit | 1008 GB/s | 425W | 12999 RMB | January 2024 |
| GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER | AD103-400 | 10240 | 320 / 112 | 2550 MHz | 16 GB GDDR6X / 256-bit | 736 GB/s | 320W | $999 US | January 2024 |
| GeForce RTX 4080 | AD103-300 | 9728 | 320 / 112 | 2510 MHz | 16 GB GDDR6X / 256-bit | 716 GB/s | 320W | $1199 US | November 2022 |
| GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER | AD103-275/AD102-175 | 8448 | 264 / 96 | 2610 MHz | 16 GB GDDR6X / 256-bit | 672 GB/s | 285W | $799 US | January 2024 |
| GeForce RTX 4070 Ti | AD104-400 | 7680 | 240 / 80 | 2610 MHz | 12 GB GDDR6X /192-bit | 504 GB/s | 285W | $799 US | January 2023 |
| GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER | AD104-350/AD103-175 | 7168 | 224 / 80 | 2475 MHz | 12 GB GDDR6X / 192-bit | 504 GB/s | 220W | $599 US | January 2024 |
| GeForce RTX 4070 | AD104-250 | 5888 | 184 / 64 | 2475 MHz | 12 GB GDDR6X / 192-bit | 504 GB/s | 200W | $549 US | April 2023 |
| GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB | AD106-350 | 4352 | 136 / 48 | 2535 MHz | 16 GB GDDR6 /128-bit | 288 GB/s | 165W | $449 US | July 2023 |
| GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB | AD106-350 | 4352 | 136 / 48 | 2535 MHz | 8 GB GDDR6 / 128-bit | 288 GB/s | 160W | $399 US | May 2023 |
| GeForce RTX 4060 | AD107-400 | 3072 | 96 / 48 | 2460 MHz | 8 GB GDDR6 / 128-bit | 272 GB/s | 115W | $299 US | June 2023 |
The MSI GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER Gaming X SLIM graphics card comes inside a standard cardboard box. The front of the package has a large "GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER" brand logo along with the "MSI" logo in the top left corner. A picture of the MLG Mascot is featured in the center.
The packaging has put a large emphasis on the RTX side of things as the first feature enlisted by AIBs will be NVIDIA Ada architecture, Ray Tracing & DLSS support. NVIDIA has bet the future of their gaming GPUs on Ray Tracing support as these are the first cards to offer support for the new feature. The back of the box is very typical, highlighting the main features and specifications of the cards.
There's also a focus towards GeForce.com on each AIB card through which users can download the latest drivers and GeForce Experience application which are a must for gamers to access all feature sets of the new cards.
The sides of the box once again greet us with the large GeForce RTX branding. There's also the mention of 12 GB GDDR6X (RTX 4070 SUPER) memory available on the card.
Outside of the box, the graphics card and the accessory package are held firmly by foam packaging. The graphics card comes with a few accessories and manuals which might not be of much use for hardcore enthusiasts but can be useful for the mainstream gaming audience.
The bundled accessories include the 16-pin to 2x 8-pin power adapter, a support bracket, a few stickers & a second backplate. The card is nicely wrapped within an anti-static cover which is useful to prevent any unwanted static discharges on various surfaces that might harm the graphics card.
The MSI XLR8 cooler is a high-end variant and you can expect a large cooling solution. The card measures 307 x 125 x 46.0 mm. The card features a standard 2-slot height which is great since it offers compatibility with 90% of the ATX cases out there unlike the 2.5 or 3-slot designs that have become a common occurrence in the high-end space.
The cooling shroud extends to the back of the PCB and it requires a casing with good interior space for proper installation.
The back of the card features a solid backplate that looks stunning. The backplate offers a lot more functionality than just looks which I will get back to in a bit.
In terms of design, MSI is using its latest generation of Tri Frozr 3 cooling solution which is already tested by us and delivers exceptional cooling performance coupled with great aesthetics. The GPU design is more or less a return to the renowned red and black theme from MSI which hasn't been featured on a GeForce card for sometime now since the move to the newer Gaming, Ventus & the SUPRIM lineups.
The heatsink comes in two modules, each of which is stacked with numerous amounts of fins made out of aluminum. The card uses a rather large but slimmed-out heatsink structure that directly connects to the GPU and the memory.
MSI is using its latest Torx Fan 5.0 design which comes in a triple-fan solution and each fan has an MSI Dragon sticker placed on top of it.
Each fan is 90mm in size and compared to the traditional 90mm fans, these are said to offer 23% more airflow than traditional axial-tech fans thanks to the improvements made to the ring arcs that have three sets of fan blades. There are a total of 3 sets which include 9 fan blades. The fans also come with Zero Frozr 0db fan technology and the limit of fan operation is set at 60C for fan off and on modes.
I am back at talking about the full-coverage, full metal-based backplate that the card uses. The whole plate is made of solid metal with rounded edges that add to the durability of this card. The brushed metallic finish on the backplate gives a unique aesthetic. The graphics card also comes with a compact PCB design which means that the shroud, heatsink, and backplate are all extended beyond the PCB. The third fan blows air through the heatsink and blows it out from the cutouts that are situated at the very end of the backplate.
There are cutouts in screw placements to reach the points on the graphics card easily.
Since the screws are made out of metal, they allow users to slot in the backplate cover which comes with the MSI MLG anime theme.
With the outside of the card done, I will now start taking a glance at what's beneath the hood of these monster graphics cards. The fin stack runs from the front and to the back of the PCB and features layers upon layers of aluminum fins. The heatsink makes use of a total of 4 heat pipes that extend throughout the internal assembly and dissipate heat from the various components to the fins.
The base itself is a nickel-plated copper plate, transferring heat to the heat pipes in a very effective manner. The heatsink uses MSI's renowned Core pipes technology which is squared heat pipes & makes direct contact with the GPU baseplate to spread heat along the full length of the heatsink in an effective manner.
To top it all off, I/O on the graphics card sticks with the reference scheme which includes three Display Port 1.4a & a single HDMI 2.1 port.
MSI GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER Gaming X SLIM MLG Teardown:
The MSI GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER Gaming X SLIM MLG graphics card comes with an 8+2+1 phase VRM design and features a total of 6 GDDR6X memory dies that are rated to operate at 21.0 Gbps speeds. The card runs at up to 2655 MHz clock speeds out of the box and has a TGP rating of 220W.
MSI GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER Gaming X SLIM MLG RGB Lighting Gallery:
The MSI Gaming X SLIM graphics card comes with several RGB accent zones. There's the glowing 'MSI Dragon' logo on the sides and then there are red-colored claws which have a more subtle hint of LED lighting. The fans don't feature any LEDs but overall, the card looks great. Following is what the graphics card looks like when lit up.
We used the following test system for comparison between the different graphics cards. The latest drivers that were available at the time of testing were used by AMD and NVIDIA on an updated version of Windows 11. All tested games were patched to the latest version for better performance optimization for NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.
The Wccftech Test Bench
| CPU | Intel Core i9-13900K @ 5.0 GHz |
|---|---|
| Motherboard | MSI MEG Z790 ACE |
| Video Cards | ASRock Intel Arc B570 Challenger OC Intel Arc B580 Limited Edition GALAX GeForce RTX 4070 OC 2X (GDDR6) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER FE MSI RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER ASRock Radeon RX 7800 XT Phantom Gaming ASUS GeForce RTX 4070 Ti TUF Gaming NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 FE NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti FE MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Gaming X Trio GALAX GeForce RTX 4060 Ti EX Gamer PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Dual MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X MSI GeForce RTX 3070 Ti SUPRIM X MSI GeForce RTX 3070 Gaming X Trio MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Gaming X MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Gaming X MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Lightning MSI Radeon RX 6950 XT Gaming X Trio MSI Radeon RX 6900 XT Gaming Z Trio MSI Radeon RX 6800 XT Gaming X Trio MSI Radeon RX 6650 XT Gaming X |
| Memory | G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series 32GB (2 X 16GB) CL38 7200 Mbps |
| Storage | Teamgroup T-Force A440 Pro 2 TB Gen 4 |
| Power Supply | MSI MEG Ai1300P 1300W PSU |
| OS | Windows 11 64-bit |
| Drivers | AMD Radeon Adrenalin Edition 24.2.1 NVIDIA GeForce 560.81 WHQL Intel Driver 6256 |
- All games were tested at 3840x2160 (4K) resolution.
- Image Quality and graphics configurations are provided with each game description.
- The "reference" cards are the stock configs except where mentioned otherwise.
Speed Way
Developed with input from AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, and other leading technology companies, Speed Way is an ideal benchmark for comparing the DirectX 12 Ultimate performance of the latest graphics cards. 3DMark Speed Way’s engine is assembled to demonstrate what the latest DirectX API 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.
3DMark Speed Way Graphics
Firestrike
Firestrike is running the DX11 API and is still a good measure of GPU scaling performance. In this test, we ran the Extreme and Ultra versions of Firestrike which runs at 1440p and 4K and we recorded the Graphics Score only since the Physics and combined are not pertinent to this review.
3DMark Firestrike Extreme Graphics
3DMark Firestrike Ultra Graphics
Time Spy
Time Spy is running the DX12 API and we used it in the same manner as Firestrike Extreme where we only recorded the Graphics Score as the Physics score is recording the CPU performance and isn't important to the testing we are doing here.
3DMark Time Spy Graphics
3DMark Time Spy Extreme Graphics
Port Royal
Port Royal is another great tool in the 3DMark suite, but this one is 100% targeting Ray Tracing performance. It loads up ray-traced shadows, reflections, and global illumination to really tax the performance of the graphics cards that either have hardware-based or software-based ray-tracing support.
3DMark Port Royal Score
3DMark Pure Ray Tracing Feature Test
Doom Eternal
DOOM Eternal brings hell to earth with the Vulkan-powered idTech 7. We test this game using the Ultra Nightmare Preset and follow our in-game benchmarking to stay as consistent as possible.
DOOM Eternal (Nightmare 4K)
Red Dead Redemption 2
Developed by Rockstar San Diego, Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the most visually stunning open-world games I've played to date that is backed up by a rich story set around the protagonist, Arthur Morgan. The game is based on the RAGE engine which features an insane amount of graphics fidelity but also requires a lot of power to run maxed out. For this test, we set the graphics settings to Ultra with AA turned disabled.
Red Dead Redemption 2 (4K Maxed)
Wolfenstein: Youngblood
Wolfenstein is back in The New Colossus and features the most fast-paced, gory, and brutal FPS action ever! The game once again puts us back in the Nazi-controlled world as BJ Blazkowicz. Set during an alternate future where Nazis won the World War, the game shows that it can be fun and can be brutal to the player and to the enemy too. Powering the new title is, once again, id Tech 6 which is much acclaimed after the success that DOOM has become. In a way, ID has regained its glorious FPS roots and is slaying with every new title.
Wolfenstein
Alan Wake 2
Alan Wake 2 sets you up in a horror thriller that takes place between two dimensions and lets you play better two different protagonists, Alan himself and Saga, who once again have to find a way to fix the darkness that erupted in Bright Falls.
Alan Wake 2 (Maxed Out / Rasterized)
Atomic Heart
Atomic Heart is set in an alternate universe where the Soviet Union achieved incredible technological breakthroughs thanks to a scientist named Dr. Sechenov, who invented a liquid programmable module called Polymer that links robots in a so-called Kollektiv network.
Atomic Heart (4K Maxed)
Battlefield V
Battlefield V brings back the action of the World War 2 shooter genre. Using the latest Frostbite tech, the game does a good job of looking gorgeous in all ways possible. From the open-world environments to the intense and gun-blazing action, this multiplayer and single-player FPS title is one of the best-looking Battlefields to date.
Battlefield V (Maxed)
Baldur's Gate III
2023's GOTY is well-deserved its title. The creation from Larian Studios is a turn-based RPG that has gorgeous interiors and exteriors shown through a bird's eye top-to-bottom view. You can sink in countless hours in the game and if you're a fan of the D&D playstyle, then this epic is just for you.
Baldurs Gate III (Maxed Out)
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 is an action role-playing video game developed by CD Projekt Red and published by CD Projekt. The story takes place in Night City, an open world set in the Cyberpunk universe. Players assume the first-person perspective of a customizable mercenary known as V, who can acquire skills in hacking and machinery with options for melee and ranged combat. The game uses CD Projekt Red's in-house Red Engine which is one of the most visually breathtaking and also one of the most graphics-intensive engines designed to date.
Cyberpunk 2077 (Maxed Out)
Dead Space (Remake)
Remaking Dead Space was a bold choice but I would say that the team at EA Motive nailed every bit and piece of this horror classic. The remake makes the USG Ishimura twice as scarily beautiful. The gore, the endless corridors of terror, the void of space, all of it looks incredible while the game remains true to its core to the original Dead Space formula. Modern cards can run the game well but it can also be demanding if you crank the settings to the max with ray tracing enabled.
Dead Space Remake (Ultra / No RT)
Death Stranding
Sam Porter Bridges has delivered one of PS4's most anticipated games to the PC community and opened a whole new world of possibilities. This was the first game to feature the Decima Engine on PC and unarguably did it the best. Death Stranding may not feature ray tracing effects, but it does showcase that DLSS can be used effectively even when RT isn't around. We tested this one just like we did in our launch coverage with DLSS enabled.
Death Stranding DLSS/FSR/XeSS (Quality)
Forza Horizon 5
Forza Horizon 5 carries on the open-world racing tradition of the Horizon series. The latest DX12-powered entry is beautifully crafted, amazingly well executed, and a great showcase of DX12 games. We use the benchmark run while having all of the settings set to non-dynamic with an uncapped framerate to gather these results.
Forza Horizon 5
Halo Infinite (DX12 Highest)
Next up, we have the latest entry in the Halo franchise, Halo: Infinite, which uses the brand new Slipspace engine (although there are rumors it will be ditched in the future for Unreal Engine) based on the DX12 API. The game rocks some incredible environments for Master Chief to visit on the Halo ring.
Halo Infinite
Hitman III (DX12 Highest Settings)
Hitman III is the highly acclaimed sequel to the 2016 Hitman & 2018 Hitman II, which was a redesign and reimaging of the game from the ground up. With a focus on stealth gameplay through various missions, the game once again lets you play as Agent 47. The game runs on the IO Interactive Glacier 2 engine which has been updated to deliver amazing visuals and environments on each level while making use of DirectX 12 API.
Hitman III
Metro Exodus
Metro Exodus continues Artyom's journey through Russia's nuclear wasteland and its surroundings. This time, you are set over the Metro, going through various regions and different environments. The game is one of the premier titles to feature NVIDIA’s RTX technology and does well in showcasing the ray-tracing effects in all corners.
Metro Exodus Extreme Preset
Resident Evil Village
Resident Evil Village is the latest in the horror franchise that was wonderfully rekindled with RE7 and onto the RE2 Remake. But now the RE Engine is back and better than ever with Ray Traced Reflections and Lighting that makes the world just come to life, unironically. The game was tested in the center of the village itself with all graphical settings maxed out and with raytracing enabled.
Resident Evil Village (Maxed)
Resident Evil IV Remake
The remake of the beloved and highly acclaimed Resident Evi IV is here, boasting the latest RE engine which adds stunning visuals and even better ray tracing effects, the game looks just as incredible as it plays.
Resident Evil 4 Remake (Maxed)
Starfield
Bethesda's latest RPG epic is set in space and takes place across a vast universe, filled with lots of planets to explore. Based on the latest iteration of the Creation Engine, Starfield offers a great amount of visual fidelity, whether you are exploring an abandoned base or just roaming a planet on which you just laid your foot.
Starfield (DirectX 12 / Max)
Crysis Remastered (DXVK RT)
Crysis is back with a vengeance to reclaim its title of the graphics crown. The remastered version of the game uses DX11 API but has Vulkan extensions on top which enable Vulkan Ray tracing. That's also something that the original game didn't offer. DXVK, along with improved textures and visual effects, leads to higher performance demand making us question once again "Can It Run Crysis?"
Crysis Remastered (4K Native RT SMAA2TX)
Doom Eternal
DOOM Eternal brings hell to earth with the Vulkan-powered idTech 7. We test this game using the Ultra Nightmare Preset and follow our in-game benchmarking to stay as consistent as possible.
DOOM Eternal (Nightmare 4K / RT)
Alan Wake 2
Alan Wake 2 sets you up in a horror thriller that takes place between two dimensions and lets you play better two different protagonists, Alan himself and Saga, who once again have to find a way to fix the darkness that erupted in Bright Falls.
Alan Wake 2 (Max / RT / No Frame-Gen)
Alan Wake 2 (Max / RT / FSR/DLSS Frame-Gen)
Note - FSR Frame-Gen mod applied to non-RTX 40 GPUs including RTX 30 & RX 7000/6000 series. DLSS 3.5 has been applied to RTX 40 GPUs.
Battlefield V
Battlefield V brings back the action of the World War 2 shooter genre. Using the latest Frostbite tech, the game does a good job of looking gorgeous in all ways possible. From the open-world environments to the intense and gun-blazing action, this multiplayer and single-player FPS title is one of the best-looking Battlefields to date.
Battlefield V Raytracing DLSS/FSR (Quality)
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 is an action role-playing video game developed by CD Projekt Red and published by CD Projekt. The story takes place in Night City, an open world set in the Cyberpunk universe. Players assume the first-person perspective of a customizable mercenary known as V, who can acquire skills in hacking and machinery with options for melee and ranged combat. The game uses CD Projekt Red's in-house Red Engine which is one of the most visually breathtaking and also one of the most graphics-intensive engines designed to date.
Cyberpunk 2077 (Max / RT)
Dead Space (Remake)
Remaking Dead Space was a bold choice but I would say that the team at EA Motive nailed every bit and piece of this horror classic. The remake makes the USG Ishimura twice as scarily beautiful. The gore, the endless corridors of terror, the void of space, all of it looks incredible while the game remains true to its core to the original Dead Space formula. Modern cards can run the game well but it can also be demanding if you crank the settings to the max with ray tracing enabled.
Dead Space Remake (Ultra RT / FSR2/DLSS2 Quality)
Hogwarts Legacy
Hogwarts Legacy, as the name suggests, is set in the world of Hogwarts and retains its landscape true to the books and the movies. The game looks visually stunning although it can be a total hog when running at the highest settings with all visual candy enabled.
Hogwarts Legacy (RT Ultra)
Shadow of The Tomb Raider
The sequel to Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of The Tomb Raider is visually enhanced with an updated Foundation Engine that delivers realistic facial animations and the most gorgeous environments ever seen in a Tomb Raider Game. The game is a technical marvel and shows the power of its graphics engine in the latest title.
Shadow of The Tomb Raider Raytracing DLSS/FSR/XeSS (Quality)
Metro Exodus
Metro Exodus continues Artyom's journey through Russia's nuclear wasteland and its surroundings. This time, you are set over the Metro, going through various regions and different environments. The game is one of the premier titles to feature NVIDIA’s RTX technology and does well in showcasing the ray-tracing effects in all corners.
Metro Exodus Raytracing DLSS (Quality)
Resident Evil Village
Resident Evil Village is the latest in the horror franchise that was wonderfully rekindled with RE7 and onto the RE2 Remake. But now the RE Engine is back and better than ever with Ray Traced Reflections and Lighting that makes the world just come to life, unironically. The game was tested in the center of the village itself with all graphical settings maxed out and with raytracing enabled.
Resident Evil Village Raytracing (Maxed / RT High / FSR 2 Quality)
Resident Evil IV Remake
The remake of the beloved and highly acclaimed Resident Evi IV is here, boasting the latest RE engine which adds stunning visuals and even better ray tracing effects, the game looks just as incredible as it plays.
Resident Evil Village Remake (Maxed / RT High / FSR 2 Quality)
Stray (That Cat Game)
Stray is a 2022 adventure game developed by BlueTwelve Studio and published by Annapurna Interactive. The story follows a stray cat who falls into a walled city populated by robots, machines, and mutant bacteria, and sets out to return to the surface with the help of a drone companion, B-12. The game uses Unreal Engine 4, but DX12 Ray tracing can be enabled by adding the "-dx12" extension to the game.
Stray (Maxed With DXR)
No graphics card review is complete without evaluating its temperatures and thermal load. All RTX 4070 SUPER graphics cards were tested with their default 'Performance' BIOS and the results are below:
Temperatures
I compiled the power consumption results by testing each card under idle and full stress when the card was running games. Each graphics card manufacturer sets a default TDP for the card which can vary from vendor to vendor depending on the extra clocks or board features they plugin on their custom cards. The default TDP for the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is rated at 220W while the MSI variant had a TDP of 250W.
Power Consumption
There are a lot of unique graphics cards being offered by each manufacturer and more recently, we have seen companies start to adopt anime themes due to the increasing popularity of the genre. This has led manufacturers to adopt fancy new designs and MSI is also joining the bandwagon with its offerings. The company already offers its EVANGELION-inspired lineup which comes with a huge range of components to select from but that has been missing a graphics card. The company did have its Hololive series but kicked up its anime-inspired VGA designs with the MLG series.
As far as looks go, the MSI MLG series GPUs feature the same iconic Gaming X cooling design in its newer SLIM variation which has a slimmer 2-slot footprint with the same cooling capabilities that offered us temps under 60C with exceptional noise levels. The red and black theme is also a throwback to the iconic MSI Gaming lineup from a few years back which gives the MLG series its very own identity.
In terms of performance, the MSI GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER Gaming X SLIM MLG has the highest boost clock of the variants that we tested and that offered a 5% bump in performance which was mostly notable at lower resolutions of 1080p and 1440p. This is what the majority of users will be playing games at when running the 4070 SUPER. You can get the graphics card running at up to 3 GHz on the same cooling solution with ease and that can yield extra performance. The 250W power limit also allows for some overclocking room but the card is already hitting its peak potential that you'd hardly have to push it further.
MSI's GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER Gaming X SLIM MLG is a solid and high-end gaming solution that is perfect for 1080p gaming. While AMD has made this space more competitive with its new pricing for the RX 7900 GRE and RX 7800 XT, the RTX 4070 SUPER still holds the edge in all regards, making it a great choice for RTX gamers. And if you're a fan of all things anime, then you have a card that also matches your taste.
Contents
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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