Introduction

NVIDIA released their GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 earlier this year, featuring the company's new Pascal architecture, a brand-new 16 nanometer production process, and GDDR5X memory. In our launch-day review, we were truly impressed by how well NVIDIA claimed the performance throne with the 1080, but also the GTX 1070 managed to impress with its high-end performance at an attractive sub-$400 price-point. The reference-design card, however, is sold at a $70 premium over the GTX 1070 Founders Edition sitting at $449.

The GeForce GTX 1070 uses the same Pascal GP104 graphics processor as the GTX 1080, with just 1920 enabled shaders instead of 2560, which also affects the number of texture units that are down to 120 from 160. With 64, the number of ROPs is the same, and so is the memory capacity of 8 GB. However, today's review subject, like all GTX 1070 variants, uses GDDR5 memory, unlike the GTX 1080 that comes with GDDR5X. GDDR5X offers twice the bandwidth at the same operating frequency, so NVIDIA is running the GeForce GTX 1070's memory at a frequency of 2 GHz in order to make up for that.



In this review, we are testing the MSI GTX 1070 Quick Silver OC, which was released as part of the company's 30-year celebrations. The card is based on the GTX 1070 Gaming Z, but comes with a non-red color theme and different operating frequencies. just like on the Gaming Z, RGB support is included, at a retail price of $425.

Packaging

You will receive:

• Graphics card
• Driver CD
• Documentation
• Stickers

The Card

The front of the card looks just like a typical TwinFrozr GTX 1070, except for the red plastic that has been replaced by a silver piece. You will find a shiny metal backplate with a new design on the back. In the middle of the backplate, MSI has added an RGB-illuminated MSI logo. Dimensions of the card are 28.0 cm x 14.5 cm.


Installation requires two slots in your system.


Display connectivity options include a DVI port, one HDMI port, and three DisplayPorts. Unlike previous NVIDIA cards, the DVI port no longer includes an analog signal, so you'll have to use an active adapter. NVIDIA also updated DisplayPort to be 1.2 certified and 1.3/1.4 ready, which enables support for 4K @ 120 Hz and 5K @ 60 Hz or 8K @ 60 Hz with two cables.

The GPU also comes with an HDMI sound device. It is HDMI 2.0b compatible, which supports HD audio and Blu-ray 3D movies. The GPU video encoding unit has been updated to support HEVC at 10-bit and 12-bit.


NVIDIA made some changes to SLI. Two-way SLI is now the only officially supported configuration for gaming. Three-way or Quad SLI can no longer be enabled in games; however, they do work in a few benchmarks. Also, for 4K at 60 Hz and above, NVIDIA recommends a new high-bandwidth SLI bridge called "SLI HB," which occupies both SLI fingers. The old bridges will work fine at lower resolutions.


Pictured above are the front and back, showing the disassembled board. High-res versions are also available (front, back).

A Closer Look

MSI's thermal solution uses five heatpipes to keep the GPU cool. This is the same cooler as on the MSI GTX 1070 Gaming Z.


The backplate is made out of metal and has the RGB-illuminated MSI logo.


Once the main heatsink is removed, you will see two silver heatsinks that cover the memory chips and voltage regulation circuitry, just like on the Gaming Z.


MSI upgraded the power input of their GTX 1070 to an 8-pin and a 6-pin. This input configuration is specified for up to 300 watts of power draw.


The uP 9511 voltage controller is a new model for NVIDIA's recent cards. It does not support voltage control via I2C.


The GDDR5 memory chips are made by Micron and carry the model number D9TCB, which decodes to MT51J256M32HF-80. They are specified to run at 2000 MHz (8000 MHz GDDR5 effective).


NVIDIA's GP104 graphics processor is the first consumer chip to use the Pascal architecture. It is produced on a 16 nm process at TSMC, Taiwan, with a transistor count of 7.1 billion and a die size of 314 mm².