MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Gaming Z 8G Review - Review 2022

For the GeForce GTX x-series GPUs, MSI has adopted a new naming scheme for its Gaming-series video cards that correlates with the last few letters of the alphabet; the nearer the "Z," the better the card. Now, it would be funny if MSI actually had "A" through "Z" variants, simply it actually has just "X" and "Z" cards...and then far, at least. We've already sampled the 10 versions of its GTX 1080 (the GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming 10 8G) and GTX 1060 (the GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X 6G), so we were excited to bank check out the flagship carte in the GTX 1070 line, the MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Gaming Z 8G ($469), dubbed "Gaming Z." (There'south also an X variant in the GTX 1070 line.) Since nosotros already had a solid grasp on what the Gaming X package entailed, nosotros were curious to see how MSI raised the bar for the Gaming Z.

Comparing the GTX 1070 Gaming X to the GTX 1070 Gaming Z, we noted a few big differences. Showtime, the Gaming Z has higher overall maximum "boost" clock speeds, and so in the card'due south "OC fashion," the Z goes upwardly to 1,860MHz, while the X goes to, ahem, just 1,797MHz. In the carte's i-footstep-down "Gaming way," the Z card spins at up to ane,835MHz, while the X runs at 1,771MHz. These modes are switchable using a slice of software that MSI uses beyond all of these new cards, an easy utility called MSI Gaming App.

In either way in the MSI Gaming App, the Z manages a decent overclock, merely the software is aimed mainly at those who don't like to overclock manually, since in our feel with the GTX 1080 and GTX 1060, the Ten and Z cards tin can reach speeds well beyond the default overclocks granted by the MSI Gaming App. To do that, you have to tweak the values yourself using an overclocking utility with granular settings, such as MSI's stalwart Afterburner software.

Incidentally, also in the MSI Gaming App is a "Silent mode" setting, and under that, both the GTX 1070 Gaming Z and X cards dial to the aforementioned clock speeds as a reference-version or Founders Edition GTX 1070: a 1,506MHz base clock, and a 1,683MHz heave clock.

Then much for the clock details. Aside from higher clock speeds, the GTX 1070 Gaming Z model besides has iii RGB LEDs on the menu chassis, compared to the Gaming X cards' two LEDs. The principal deviation is that on the X menu, you lot tin can simply modify the colors of one of those LEDs, while the Z card has a third LED, an MSI badge on the backplate that has RGB lighting under it. Different on the Gaming X menu, the placement of this LED on the part of the card that faces up shines some lite up inside the chassis. In a windowed case, it looks seriously cool.

Apart from that, the visual differences between the X and Z versions of the 1070 are minimal. And the X and Z cards feature the aforementioned excellent software packet, and 8GB of GDDR5 memory.

So how much do the actress bling and clock cycles cost? According to our searches of Newegg and several other e-tailers, near $twenty separates the X and Z cards. That's a pretty sugariness bargain, if you ask u.s., though you might not be able to buy a GTX 1070 Gaming Z card for a while, as stock was spotty when we wrote this. (No big surprise, given what nosotros take seen with the GTX 1070 and 1080 and so far in general.)

This carte is also the same physical size as the GTX 1080 Gaming X card....

In contrast, compared to the Nvidia Founders Edition of the GTX 1070 ($399.00 at NVIDIA) , which is essentially the "base of operations model" of the GTX 1070 line, the MSI GTX 1070 Gaming Z has much college clock speeds out of the box if you install the MSI Gaming App and click a few buttons. It also has more than and cooler visual flair if PC lighting is your matter, runs literally cooler as it has two fans instead of just one (as long as yous don't heed them blowing inside the case, versus the Founders Edition'southward blow-through design), and good dedicated software. Overall, that's quite a different package than the one put together by Nvidia. The Founders Edition is mostly plug-it-and-forget-it, with overclocking possible, but up to you lot; the GTX 1070 Gaming Z is a tweakers' and modders' please, but also good for those that desire easy, one-click overclocking.

Of course the million-dollar, or at least hundred-dollar, question is, what kind of overall price difference are we talking about here versus other, non-MSI GTX 1070 cards? Is the Gaming Z exorbitantly priced compared to the Founders Edition? Because of Nvidia's unusual pricing construction for its 10-series cards, the proficient news is that the GTX 1070 Gaming Z is priced just about the same as the Founders Edition, which may not exist peachy news for Nvidia'due south direct sales of the FE menu but is skillful stuff for gamers. Nvidia has priced the GTX 1070 Founders Edition at $449, while the MSRP for basic GTX 1070 partner boards starts at $379 and goes up from there, depending on features. Of course, because many of the partner boards are souped-up cards, about cost more than $379, and therefore have concluded upwards in the aforementioned ballpark as the Founders Edition.

For the Gaming Z, at this writing it was priced at $469, a $20 premium over MSI's Gaming X version of the GTX 1070 (and the Nvidia Founders Edition GTX 1070) and a $xxx premium over the company's vanilla "GTX 1070 Gaming" model, with no alphabetic character after it. Looking at pricing online, in early on August 2022, $469 was the upper range of the marketplace for air-cooled GTX 1070 cards; for example, we saw the GTX 1070 version of Zotac's Amp Farthermost card too at that cost. (The Amp Extremes are usually amid the biggest and blue-chip overclocked partner boards; see, for case, our review of the Zotac GeForce GTX 1080 Amp Farthermost ($470.00 at Amazon) .)

Therefore, for the toll this carte ought to be as good every bit it gets—or close to information technology—for GTX 1070 boards in terms of features, specifications, software, and pricing. Let's see how this beastie runs!

Software

Since we've already reviewed the MSI Gaming App on previous occasions, and nothing has inverse for the Z variant, we won't go into extreme detail on information technology over again. See our review of the MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming Ten 8G ($520.00 at Amazon) for all the dirt. For a quick overview, though, the packet includes a host of features of mixed utility, outlined below.

OSD. This is an onscreen display office that works equally an overlay and shows you GPU temperatures, GPU-utilization levels, voltages, clock speeds, and more. It'due south extremely handy and just appears when y'all're running 3D games. We love this.

Eye Rest. This changes the colour of the display to be more than suitable for gaming, moving-picture show watching, and other scenarios. We wouldn't use it much ourselves, but it'southward easier than niggling with the presets accessible through most monitor OSDs, for sure.

LEDs. Yous can alter the color of the LEDs on this card inside the app. One oddity is that you can't change the color of the "stripes" effectually the card's fans; you can only change the other lights to match the stripes.

Mode Screen. This lets you overclock (or downclock) the bill of fare with ane click, selecting OC, Gaming, or Silent way.

Ane oddity in the software is yous can "pin" five apps to the control center, but there are half dozen total.

Fan Boost. This only spins up the fans temporarily to high speed in a big burst for maximum cooling. Nosotros couldn't figure out a proper application for this, even when overclocking.

Nada Frozr. This lets yous toggle a "silent-fan" function, which ways the fans don't spin when the GPU is beneath threescore degrees C. When yous're not gaming, that's ideal. Information technology's a handy characteristic, and we'd suggest having it enabled all the fourth dimension.

Dragon Eye. This lets you watch videos on YouTube or Twitch while gaming, if you lot're able to multitask in that way. (Kids today...)

Dragon Heart lets yous watch YouTube or Twitch while gaming.

Overall, the MSI software packet is ane of the best nosotros've tested among AIB makers' cards. It'south useful, it'due south easy to use, and it increases the value of MSI'southward offering in tangible ways.

A Word About Performance Testing

Things are in some flux these days when it comes to testing video cards, as there are two emerging technologies that this and other new-generation cards were built for that are difficult to test.

The starting time is DirectX 12 (DX12), which is just at present gaining momentum. There are relatively few real-globe benchmarks for it. Notwithstanding, DX12 will likely be the standard graphics API in the future, and this card, given its price, was designed to final for at least a few years. Then it'southward important to know if a card can handle DX12 well earlier buying.

We tested the GTX 1070 with several recent DX12-capable games nosotros had on hand, including Hitman (the 2022 edition), Ascension of the Tomb Raider, and Ashes of the Singularity. Nosotros tested a load of games using DirectX 11, too, considering that API will notwithstanding be in wide use for at least another year, and probably much longer.

The second technology that's difficult to test at present is virtual reality, or VR for brusque. The GeForce GTX 1070 was built to run VR twice as fast as its predecessor, and in all the launch presentation documents, Nvidia specifically emphasized the card's VR performance. Even so, there are two major competing VR headsets for PC-based VR, in the form of the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive, with more than coming to market soon, and it'south been difficult—and then far—to establish a lone test that is applicable to all VR scenarios.

Steam has its ain VR benchmark, only at the fourth dimension of this writing, information technology didn't output annihilation beyond a "Fidelity Score" and a vague "Not Ready," "Capable," or "Prepare" indication. In that exam, the GTX 1070 Gaming Z reported back that it was "Ready," and a VR Fidelity Score of 11. That said, since the baseline recommendation for both the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift is a Core i5 processor and a GeForce GTX 970 graphics carte, the GTX 1070 and the Core i7 CPU in our test bed should easily pass muster for VR.

Benchmarking specialist Futuremark is also working on a VRMark test, only information technology was only in beta when nosotros wrote this. Nosotros'll have to wait for time to come, finalized VR benchmarks. Just if you're considering buying a GTX 1070 primarily for VR, you can residual assured that current VR-set games and those launching in the near future will run on this card just fine. It well exceeds the minimum recommendations.

Finally, since we've already reviewed the Founders Edition of the GTX 1070, the nearly interesting attribute of its operation is whether or not this MSI bill of fare is any faster. Notation that we tested this bill of fare in OC mode, the superlative preset as indicated in the MSI Gaming App. MSI shipped this review menu preset to OC mode, merely it's important to realize that MSI's retail cards come preset to Gaming mode, with slightly lower clock speeds, every bit we detailed in the introduction to this review. Retail buyers have to install the Gaming App and click the OC fashion push button to activate information technology.

Nosotros opted to test in OC way and not downclock the carte, as engaging this overclocked mode is equally simple every bit clicking ane button, and information technology ran stable in our tests. We also suspect information technology'due south the large reason a buyer hunts out a premium menu similar this from an AIB maker like MSI in the outset place, rather than opting for a reference/Founders Edition carte du jour. We should annotation that the Founders Edition can be manually overclocked, too, merely similar the Gaming Z, but you have to know what y'all're doing and use a 3rd-political party utility to practice information technology. With the Gaming Z, anyone can just install the MSI Gaming App software and click one time to overclock.

Functioning

We started off our testing with Futuremark'due south 2022 version of 3DMark, specifically the suite'due south Fire Strike subtest. Fire Strike is a synthetic test designed to measure overall gaming performance, and Futuremark has expanded Burn Strike nowadays into 3 subtests. In the past, we used the basic examination (known just every bit "Burn Strike"), as well as the more demanding Fire Strike Farthermost test. But GPUs like the GTX 1070 are and so powerful that we had to move up to the most punishing test, Fire Strike Ultra, which is geared toward simulating the stresses of gaming at 4K.

Correct out of the gate, the Gaming Z board soared to the top of the benchmark chart, hit an impressive 4,480 in 3DMark compared to 4,055 for the Founders Edition. That'southward quite a boost (around 10 percentage), thanks to the overclocked nature of the GTX 1070 Gaming Z card. Proceed that 10 percent number in heed.

Sleeping Dogs

Next, nosotros rolled out the very enervating real-world gaming benchmark test built into the title Sleeping Dogs.

This test is difficult on video cards, that'due south for sure, but we yet see the Gaming Z pull out a roughly x percent pb over the Founders Edition, which in this case allows it to be playable at 4K. The Founders Edition at stock settings was just borderline at 29fps. (Of course, dialing back the game'south detail settings would aid the Fe menu rise above 30fps.)

Tomb Raider (2013)

Here, we fired up the 2022 reboot of the classic title Tomb Raider, testing at Ultimate detail and 3 resolutions.

Again, we see the Gaming Z menu throwing down a healthy margin over the Founders Edition carte—information technology'due south trying hard to earn that extra $20 cost premium. Non surprisingly, the only carte that was able to all-time the GTX 1070 Gaming Z was the much more strong GTX 1080. Otherwise, the MSI GTX 1070 Gaming Z rules the roost.

Bioshock Infinite

The popular championship Bioshock Infinite isn't overly demanding, as recent games become, but information technology's a popular one with stellar good looks. In its built-in benchmark program, nosotros set the graphics level to the highest preset (Ultra+DDOF).

On this item championship the Founders Edition ran closer to the Gaming Z at all resolutions. The Z'south reward was whittled down to effectually v percent, so it's possible the test was limited by the CPU, here, rather than the graphics.

Hitman: Absolution

Next up was Hitman: Absolution, which is an aging game but withal pretty hard on a video bill of fare. (Coming up, we as well have testing in the 2022 reboot of Hitman.)

Finally, some interesting results. In this exam, the Founders Edition and the Gaming Z actually tied at both 4K and 1440p (requite or accept a frame per 2nd), which is a showtime in this circular of testing. The Founders Edition was actually faster than the Gaming Z card at 1080p, though merely by nigh 5 percentage. That was surprising, since the Gaming Z is generally clocked higher than the FE carte du jour. But in this test it had no touch on, possibly (again) due to CPU limitations. Then once more, playing older games at 1080p is a waste matter of this carte'southward potential!

Far Weep Primal

Ubisoft'south latest open-world first-person hunting game, new for 2022, is ane of the near demanding titles we use, thanks to its lush foliage, detailed shadows, and otherwise incredible environments.

At this bespeak in the testing, things are slowly beginning to equalize between the Nvidia GTX 1070 FE card and MSI'south golden child. In this examination, we saw the Z board outperform the Atomic number 26 menu by small-scale margins, less than 5 percent at 4K and 1440p resolutions. Also, again, the FE card was faster at 1080p resolution.

Ashes of the Singularity

Oxide's Ashes of the Singularity is a bit of a departure equally a benchmark, every bit information technology's a real-time strategy championship, rather than a first-person shooter or a third-person action title. Due to the planet-calibration nature of its battle scenes, with hundreds of onscreen tanks, ships, and other implements of time to come warfare, information technology tin can be extremely demanding at high settings. And because of the plethora of rendered units, this game is besides more CPU-bound—especially at high settings and resolutions—than near other contempo games.

This test saw our results render to the condition quo, with the Gaming Z card returning to grade with a roughly ten percent lead over the Fe card. What'south interesting is the gap betwixt the 2 cards is very consistent at all three resolutions nosotros use for testing.

Grand Theft Automobile V

Equally i of the most popular game franchises on the planet, Yard Theft Car really needs no introduction. The fifth "5" installment took a lot longer than many expected to land on the PC. But when it finally did, in early 2022, it brought with information technology a number of graphical improvements and tweakable visual settings that pushed the game far across its panel roots.

This examination's results were, frankly, a bit disruptive. The Fe card was the articulate winner at 1080p resolution, where it held well-nigh a half-dozen percent advantage over the Gaming Z. At 1440p, however, the two cards were essentially tied, so at 4K the Gaming Z pulled into the atomic number 82. It's hard to say what was the determining cistron in one bill of fare versus the other being dominant, just it's interesting that they swapped leads at different resolutions.

Ascent of the Tomb Raider

Lara Croft rises in one case again in the early-2016 iteration of Square Enix'due south long-running activeness franchise. As our hero works to unfold an ancient mystery (and reveal the hole-and-corner to immortality) ahead of the aboriginal and deadly Order of Trinity, she traipses through a slew of circuitous atmospheric environments, from barren tombs to the frigid Siberian wilderness. A dynamic conditions system, and the complexities of Lara's wind-tousled hair, add to the game's visual complexity.

In this grueling game, the Gaming Z is the blastoff dog to the Iron one time again. It's notable that in certain games the Gaming Z has a very predictable 10 per centum advantage over the Founders Edition, and that advantage is locked down and repeated at every resolution, while in others, the Gaming Z only outperforms the Atomic number 26 at the high resolutions. We are certain both behaviors are due to the Gaming Z'southward clock-speed advantage, every bit all other aspects of the 2 cards are much alike, besides as the vagaries of the different games. The simply X-factor is the very unlike cooling hardware on the two cards, which might allow ane or the other to run at a higher or lower boost clock depending on the situation.

DirectX 12 Tests

It's tough to get whatever real sense of DirectX 12 performance at this point. When we wrote this in early August 2022, just a few titles were bachelor with DX12 back up. And running these games, anecdotally, we saw no graphical differences betwixt the titles running at DX11 versus DX12 settings. In some instances, titles running under DX12 offered operation gains, merely elsewhere nosotros saw lesser functioning.

In other words, any general conclusions you might describe about DX12 from the below results should be taken with a hunk of salt. DirectX 12 is still in its early on stages, and those developers who have implemented it have nevertheless to throw on the spackle and polish over the cracks. We'll have to await at to the lowest degree a few more months to say for sure how much of an advantage DX12 offers, and whether it sways things in favor of AMD or Nvidia in any substantive mode. Still, because this is a cut-border card and DX12 is cutting-border tech, it's worth taking a await at what it and its competition can do with Microsoft'south latest gaming API today. On to the DX12 tests.

Rise of the Tomb Raider (Nether DX12)

This sequel to 2022's Tomb Raider is one of the kickoff AAA titles to offer DirectX 12 back up. We used the preset labeled Very High for testing.

The Gaming Z started out stiff, hit 75fps at 1440p, which is great for a demanding game at high resolution with everything ready so high. We again saw the same roughly 10 pct functioning gap betwixt the Fe carte and the Gaming Z, at least at higher resolutions. At the lower resolution of 1080p, the margin was smaller. The Gaming Z is even nipping at the heels of the much more than expensive GTX 1080 on this test, which is prissy.

It's also interesting that MSI's GeForce GTX 960 Maxwell card was only able to achieve four.9fps at 4K in this title—that card debuted at around $250—whereas hither we are a twelvemonth later and a $470 GPU is capable of nearly 10 times that level of functioning. The GTX 960's 2GB of video retentiveness is nigh certainly its primary limiter at those loftier resolutions.

Hitman (2016, Under DX12)

The newest Hitman title also offers up a DX12 graphics selection in its benchmark utility that, like Rise of the Tomb Raider, looked identical to our optics to the DX11 version.

At lower resolutions, the two GTX 1070 cards were weren't drastically disparate. At higher resolutions, all the same, that $xx premium pays for itself in street cred as we once more see a goodly boost from the Z card.

Ashes of the Singularity (Under DX12)

The strategy title Ashes of the Singularity was among the first to offer DirectX 12 back up, even when information technology was even so in beta. (Notation: We ran into a glitch with this game in DX12 when testing the GTX 1060 Founders Edition, thus the blank field in that location.)

This exam scaled perfectly, and nosotros saw the Gaming Z outpace its Fe brother/rival past the usual increase. It was faster at every resolution, and the scores mimicked what nosotros saw in other tests.

Overclocking

As we mentioned before, with a Founders Edition card, out of the box it runs at the stock speeds dictated by Nvidia, which in the case of the GTX 1070 is one,506MHz base and one,683MHz heave. With that in heed, information technology's worth pointing out that any Nvidia GPU will go above these speeds via GPU Boost, an auto-regulating technology that allows the carte du jour to boost every bit high as it can go according to how much voltage it has to play with, as well every bit how hot or cool the carte is running.

However, GPU Heave is notwithstanding pretty bourgeois and will never striking the accented maximum level the card can theoretically handle. To go beyond what GPU Heave is capable of, you need to manually overclock a Founders Edition card, which isn't hard once y'all know how. But not everyone wants to do that, nor see a new card crash a few dozen times in the procedure of figuring out optimum OC settings. MSI requires actress money for its GPU because information technology takes much of the guesswork out of this process, and gives you lot 2 like shooting fish in a barrel-out buttons for OC and Gaming modes. Clicking either one will overclock the card past nigh 200MHz automatically.

We plant the card running at 2GHz right out of the box in OC manner without touching anything, so GPU Heave was truly going above and beyond on this carte du jour. As mentioned, that is how MSI ships review cards; retail cards come in Gaming mode. Either fashion, though, that is a big jump over what the Founders Edition is capable of out of the box.

Even so, in pursuit of the ultimate overclock on air cooling, we used MSI's splendid Afterburning utility to juice it a bit farther. In the finish, we achieved a decent 2,062MHz. That's a tiny bit higher than nosotros saw with the company's Gaming X derivative of the GTX 1080, which merely fabricated it to two,025MHz. Anything approaching 2.1GHz is super, though; if you lot recall, the "stock" heave clock on this card is 1,683MHz. So our concluding number is 379MHz across that.

An Almost Perfect Variant for High-stop Gaming

Overall, the MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Gaming Z is ane of those "What's not to love?" graphics cards. The GTX 1070 is already a very powerful GPU in stock trim, and MSI has been able to improve upon it in nearly every way possible. First, it cranked upwardly the clocks to levels high enough for the carte to be deserving of flagship status. And then, it added plenty of cooling, with a design that'south aggressive without existence cheesy. And served it up with a helping of splendid software.

We notwithstanding take issue with MSI putting three LEDs on this bill of fare, labeling the product itself every bit featuring "RGB lighting," and and then allowing tweaks only to ii of the three LED sets. That somewhat ruins the aesthetic point for lighting/modding aficionados. Disregarding that detail, though, this card is worth the small price premium over the Founders Edition. In fact, the main reason we tin see to purchase the Founders Edition over this GPU is if yous're running your arrangement in a pocket-sized form gene chassis, and you need the FE card'south blower cooler to push button oestrus out of the chassis through the back. Also, if yous don't care most LEDs, you tin can consider the GTX 1070 Gaming 10 card, which is the same cost equally the Founders Edition and should deliver much the same operation as the Z model.

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Further Reading

• Nvidia Unveils GeForce RTX 2070 and 2080 Super GPUs for Laptops, Touts Boosts in Mobile Efficiency
• Testing Nvidia's DLSS ii.0: Higher Frame Rates for Free?
• AMD'southward Navi, Arden Graphics Engineering May Have Been Stolen in Hack
• Nvidia Introduces DLSS ii.0 for Spiffier, Speedier Games With GeForce RTX Cards
• Nvidia Faces $100 Million Coronavirus Hit

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/graphics-cards/16403/msi-geforce-gtx-1070-gaming-z-8g-review

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