Conclusion
In this review, we took the MSI GeForce RTX 3070 GAMING X TRIO for a ride on our test bench to see how this decked out RTX 3070 GPU would compare to a decked out 2080 Ti and the Radeon RX 6800. It commands a $100 premium over the RTX 3070 Founders Edition card, but also brings a significantly larger cooler, RGB bling and an impressive factory overclock to the game. Of course, it’s about as rare as hens’ teeth in the market, but we’ll complain about that elsewhere.
Gaming Performance
1440p
The MSI GeForce RTX 3070 GAMING X TRIO pulled out a pair of performance victories with Metro Exodus and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. However, the AMD Radeon RX 6800 pulled ahead of it in Watch Dogs: Legion, Dirt 5, Horizon Zero Dawn and Red Dead Redemption 2. When you take step back and look at the results with perspective, they show that all three cards tested are solid “Maxed out 1440p” cards.
4K
Moving up to 4K gave us a bit more indigestion than 1440p did. Dirt 5, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider turned in playable results while Watch Dogs: Legion, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Metro Exodus gave us a lump of coal in our stocking. The MSI GeForce RTX 3070 GAMING X TRIO continued to get flogged by the AMD Radeon RX 6800 across the board at 4K.
Ray Tracing and DLSS
From our testing, it is very clear that NVIDIA dominates Ray Tracing performance in games. When Ray Tracing was finally added, the MSI GeForce RTX 3070 GAMING X TRIO picked up the pace and vanquished the Radeon RX 6800. For 1440p, the MSI GeForce RTX 3070 GAMING X TRIO can handle Ray Tracing at the highest quality in most situations. If you need higher performance, enabling DLSS in those supported games will provide a noticeable performance boost that allows maximum quality Ray Tracing to be used very smoothly at 1440p.
At 4K though, Ray Tracing starts to become a burden for performance. The only way to get any semblance of playability at 4K on the RTX 3070 is to also enable DLSS, you need DLSS at 4K to make it near playable. However, there are still situations where it isn’t. Our baseline recommendation is that the MSI GeForce RTX 3070 GAMING X TRIO Ray Tracing is best suited for 1440p, and turning in DLSS helps. Otherwise, at 4K you can play at maximum game settings in some games but you’ll for sure want to avoid Ray Tracing at 4K on the MSI RTX 3070 GAMING X TRIO, save that for the RTX 3080.
Power and Temperature
The MSI GeForce RTX 3070 GAMING X TRIO maintained its cool at 64 degrees Celsius with its default configuration and dropped to 53 degrees Celsius when overclocked and its fans set to full blast.
The MSI GeForce RTX 3070 GAMING X TRIO was also a power sipper, using a total of 412W of total system power while gaming, landing 12W below the AMD Radeon RX 6800 and 97W below the ASUS ROG STRIX 2080 Ti. Overclocking only increased power draw by 11W due t its low power limit increase available to it.
Overclocking
The MSI GeForce RTX 3070 GAMING X TRIO entered the match with a factory overclock that gave it a running start compared to the GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition. We were able to take it to the next level and stabilized at an average 2085MHz and 17GHz memory. That makes the core clock 37MHz and the memory 1.2GHz faster than the maximum overclock on the Founders Edition. Of course, with the beefy TRI FROZR 2 cooling system, we believe the GPU would have more headroom if we had more power available to play with it.
Final Points
To wrap things up, the MSI GeForce RTX 3070 GAMING X TRIO video card is an absolute beast and provides a bump in performance over the RTX 3070 Founders Edition cards while looking good while it does it. It’s well made, keeps things cool, looks good, and performs quite well. Compared to an RTX 3090 that I have sitting on my desk right now, this card certainly earns more looks per second and would make the casual observer think that it will run circles around the RTX 3090.
When comparing its performance to the AMD Radeon RX 6800, it tends to fall a couple of steps behind in non-Ray Tracing scenarios. If you’re focused only on rasterization performance or have concerns about the amount of VRAM, then the RX 6800 might be the better option for you at this price point. You could also argue it’s not fair to compare the RX 6800 with its $579 MSRP to the RTX 3070 which has a base MSRP with the Founders Edition at $499. However, the MSI GeForce RTX 3070 GAMING X TRIO has a large advantage when using Ray Tracing in conjunction with DLSS.
In a way, we could argue that the GAMING X TRIO has a build quality that’s a bit too good for the 3070 class of GPUs as that starts moving the overall price point of the card close to the RTX 3080. For an extra $100, you could move up to an RTX 3080 Founders Edition and see a significant bump in performance across the board (though, you’d also downgrade the cooler and RGB factor at the same time). If both cards were available, the closeness in price point may end up being a challenge for this card.
That being said, if you’re looking for the best RTX 3070 GPU you can get (or, aspire to get) for under $600, then you shouldn’t look any further than the MSI GeForce RTX 3070 GAMING X TRIO.
Discussion
