MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ventus 3X Unboxing & Closeup
The MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ventus 3X graphics card comes inside a standard cardboard box. The front of the package has a large "GeForce RTX" brand logo along with the "MSI" logo in the top left corner. A large picture of the graphics card itself is depicted on the front which gives a nice preview of the Ventus 3X design.
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. The three key aspects of MSI's top-tier custom cards are its blazing performance which is achieved by a fully custom design, the new triple-fan cooling system, a new Torx Fan 4.0 fan, & the Core Pipe design which will offer better cooling performance.
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) 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 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. After the package is taken care of, I can finally start talking about the card itself. The Ventus 3X sticks to a more futuristic card design.
The MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ventus 3X graphics card comes with a black and silver color scheme. The card measures 308 x 123 x 52 mm and weighs close to 1 KG. The card features a standard 2-slot height which is expected of today's high-end and mainstream cards.
The cooling shroud extends all the way beyond 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.
The MSI Ventus series has been around for many generations now. First introduced with the Turing GPUs, the lineup was mostly aimed at the entry-level segment but recently, the design has come to more high-end solutions. The addition of Torx Fan 4.0 and more has led MSI to deliver balanced cooling and cost.
The shroud on the MSI Ventus 3X is an all silver design which looks very nice and clean compared to the gaming options.
Coming to the fans, the card actually features the Torx 4.0 system. All three fans feature a ring-based design to allow for higher airflow to be channeled within the main heatsink. All fans deploy a double ball bearing design and can last a long time while operating silently. Each fan has five sets that include a pair of blades that make up a total of 10 fan blades.
MSI also features its Zero Frozr technology on the Tri Frozr heatsink. This feature won’t spin the fans on the card unless they reach a certain threshold. If you notice closely, you can see that the card features beveled edges that are polished several times with a diamond-tipped cutter to achieve a mirror finish, and that can give a slight gold effect which looks great.
In the case of the Ventus 3X heatsink, that limit is set to 60C. If the card is operating under 60C, the fans won’t spin which means no extra noise would be generated.
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. The matte-black 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 easily reach the points on the graphics card. MSI is also using heat pads beneath the backplate which offer more cooling to the electrical circuitry on the PCB. The most interesting thing to spot on the back aside from the backplate is the large retention metal bracket which adds more mounting pressure to effectively disperse heat from the GPU to the heatsink. With the outside of the card done, I will now start taking a glance at what's beneath the hood.
The large fin stack runs all the way from the front and to the back of the PCB and is so thick that you can barely see through it. It also comes with the airflow control stack design which I want to shed some light on as it is a turn away from traditional fin design and one that actually offers better cooling on high-end graphics cards.
Airflow Control Technology guides the airflow directly onto the heat pipes, while simultaneously creating more surface area for the air to absorb more heat before leaving the heatsink. The heat pipes have also been arranged in a way that allows MSI to stack even more fin room.
Talking about the heatsink, the massive block is comprised of 6 copper squared-shaped heat pipes with a more concentrated design to transfer heat from the copper base to the heatsink more effectively. The base itself is a solid nickel-plated base plate, transferring heat to the heat pipes in a very effective manner.
I/O on the graphics card sticks with the reference scheme which includes three Display Port 1.4a & a single HDMI 2.1 port. Power is provided through a single 8-pin connector.
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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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