MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super 16G Ventus 3X
Iterative change and 4K dominance
IT GENUINELY FEELS like we’re turning a corner in the world of PC gaming. Finally, we’re leaving the shackles of 1080p behind, and heading to the clear, glossycoated clarity of 1440p and beyond. The likes of the RTX 4070 Super and 4070 Ti Super really do cement that notion. In fact, the entire Super range with either identical pricing and increased hardware, or similar hardware and significantly reduced pricing, is definitely a good thing.
So then, what card do we have on the chopping block this time? Well, this, as you’ve probably already spotted, is the MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super 16G Ventus 3X (seriously MSI, we need shorter names, come on now). Unfortunately, the 4070 Ti Super doesn’t quite have the same glamor as the other GPUs in Nvidia’s lineup, as it lacks a stock Founders Edition variant, so if you’re on the hunt for a clean-looking black fan solution, you’re going to be looking at other models, which is a shame. That said, there are a number of cards out there that look the part, and the MSI variant here certainly does that.
Before we get there, though, let’s talk about the past, namely how the 4070 Ti came to be. At the initial launch of the RTX 40 series cards, Nvidia pitched not one, but two RTX 4080s. One, the full-fat 16GB VRAM, 9728 CUDA core monster we all know and love, and the other a 12GB variant, complete with fewer CUDA cores (and hardware, for that matter). Frankly, it was a bit ridiculous, and was inevitably going to lead to confusion down the line. The community and media revolted, and Nvidia pulled the launch and rebadged all those 12GB variants with the 4070 Ti moniker instead a few months later.
The problem was that the 4070 Ti was a bit of a mediocre jack of all trades— slightly overkill for 1440p, and a bit ‘meh’ for 4K, as it lacked the necessary VRAM to give it any length of future-proofing, leading many analysts to be disappointed with it (ourselves included).
Fast-forward a year, and the Super cards are announced, along with the Ti Super. Interestingly, each card represents a significantly different strategy to one another. The standard 4070 Super features the same VRAM, and the same price, but 20 percent more hardware. The 4080 Super features five percent more hardware, and a $200 price drop, yet more interestingly, the Ti Super bridges the gap with 10 percent more hardware, the same price, and, you guessed it, a bump up to 16GB of VRAM— arguably what it should have launched with initially.
Although it’s given the original 4070 Ti an incredibly short life cycle of just over a year, it does mean that we finally have a mid-range(ish) card that performs well at 4K, particularly if you’re looking to go above that all-important 60 fps threshold.
As far as performance is concerned, the 4070 Ti Super performs admirably at 4K, nailing 102 fps in FarCry6, 86 in Assassin’sCreed:Valhalla, and 61 in Cyberpunk with ray tracing and DLSS turned on with our test-bed. Overall, it nets an average frame rate of around 90 at 4K, and 174 at 1080p. The 4070 Super also does fairly well here, with 161 fps at 1080p on average, and 75 at 4K. That’s mildly problematic, particularly given the $200 price difference between the two.
The RTX 4070 Ti Super is an interesting card. In isolation, it’s an impressive unit with a comfortable hardware bump and a ton of extra VRAM to provide some solid 4K futureproofing. On the flipside, compared even to Nvidia’s own cards, the difference between it and the new 4070 Super is far more blurred than it was before, which makes it challenging to recommend, at least in the short term. If you pick one up today, you’ll be happy, although a bit poorer, but in the future? Well, you might be onto a winner.