We benchmarked NVIDIA's latest RTX 4070 Super - here's what we found

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The MSI GeForce RTX™ 4070 SUPER 12G VENTUS 2X OC is one of NVIDIA's latest graphics cards to hit the market, providing a noticeable upgrade to the standard version that was released in the middle of 2023. 

As a powerful GPU purpose-built for gaming which incorporates all the latest NVIDIA technologies, we've been asked to test the limits of the MSI version of the card and see how well it holds up running the latest games.

Read on to find out the results of our benchmarking on Horizon: Forbidden West along with all the key details you need to know about the GPU before buying.

MSI GeForce RTX™ 4070 SUPER 12G VENTUS 2X OC explained

The MSI GeForce RTX™ 4070 SUPER 12G VENTUS 2X OC belongs to the 40 Series family of NVIDIA graphics cards and was released in January 2024 as part of a new suite of SUPER versions. It's considered a mid-range GPU compared to its counterparts, meaning it comes at a slightly more affordable price point of £550/$599.

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Here's a brief rundown of its main specs before we dive into all the geeky details:

• Architecture - Ada Lovelace
• Base Clock - 1.98 GHz
• Memory - 12 GB GDDR6X VRAM
• Ray Tracing - Yes
• DLSS - Yes
• Reflex - Yes
• Max Temp - 90 Celsius
• Length - 244 mm
• Width - 112 mm
• Display Connectors - 1x HDMI 2, 3x Display Port 3

Like its sibling GPUs, the card uses NVIDIA's latest Ada Lovelace architecture, which is the cornerstone that allows for the extra features like DLSS 3.

For those who don't know, DLSS 3 is a groundbreaking graphics technology that uses AI to generate entirely new frames in game, meaning for every frame you see rendered normally, there is another one produced through AI generation. The 4070 SUPER, as well as all 40-series cards, supports this latest iteration of DLSS, which ends up meaning you can multiply your framerates by up to 4x in certain games. Alongside the 20 and 30-series, 40-series GPUs also offer DLSS 2 and DLSS 3.5, using a technology called Super Resolution to upscale your gameplay and Ray Reconstruction to make sure that ray-traced effects look nice and sharp.

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From a size standpoint, the 4070 SUPER is essentially the same as its standard version. It's a beefy card that requires two slots when fitting it into a PC, with a total length of 244mm and width of 112mm, so it's worth making sure you have a mid-sized tower at least if you want one of these cards.

Surprisingly, despite the increased overall power, it also features nearly identical power consumption to its counterpart. This comes at an average gaming power of 200 Watts and an idle power of 11 Watts, which is only marginally more power-hungry and still within the realms of reasonable usage for a GPU.

The memory and display specs are also the same, offering 12GB of VRAM, one HDMI 2.0 port, and three Display Ports that support up to 4K at 240 Hz or 8K at 60 Hz, giving you a variety of options for output depending on your monitor of choice.

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The biggest and most noticeable changes come with the actual engine running the MSI GeForce RTX™ 4070 SUPER 12G VENTUS 2X OC. As expected, it features far more CUDA, Shader, Ray Tracing, and Tensor cores, and has a higher base clock rate of 1.98 GHz. This means it's generally faster and more powerful, especially when it comes to ray tracing performance.

You can purchase the MSI GeForce RTX™ 4070 SUPER 12G VENTUS 2X OC at ebuyer.com for £597.99, including free next-day delivery. The rest of the MSI family of NVIDIA GPUs are also available there, allowing you to get the RTX card that suits your budget and needs.

Why we chose Horizon: Forbidden West

To test out the 4070 SUPER, we needed a game that would push it to its limits and showcase the high-quality graphics it's able to produce. 

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We landed on Horizon: Forbidden West as a first choice, as it's a fantastic-looking game that was just released on PC at the end of March, representing a high bar for contemporary open-world games on the platform.

Test setup details

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Here are the main components we paired with the MSI RTX 4070 SUPER to test Horizon: Forbidden West:

• CPU: Intel Core i9-12900K
• RAM: 64 GB DDR4-3200
• Motherboard: MSI MAG Z690
• Power Supply: Corsair RM850
• Monitor: 1920 x 1080

Our particular card is the MSI GeForce RTX™ 4070 SUPER 12G VENTUS 2X OC, which operates at a slightly higher boost clock speed to stretch performance further. In addition to being a nice piece of eye candy with its slick steel look and ventilated backplate, the on-board TORX Fan 4.0 tech focuses air pressure into the dual-fan system for even better cooling performance. These same fans stop entirely when temperatures are low, increasing the card’s longevity and keeping noise at a minimum, thanks to the MSI’s Zero Frozr tech. Many of these features can be adjusted in MSI Afterburner, which allows users to take full control of their GPU.

This setup is more than enough to meet the recommended system requirements for both, so while running the game is a given, how does it fare with all the graphic settings turned up?

Benchmark results

To benchmark, we played Horizon: Forbidden West on high settings in 1080p, with DLSS set to quality and frame generation enabled, and the results were incredible.

The main results we're highlighting in our benchmarks relate to the game's frames per second data. Average FPS is the simplest way to see how a game is running for the end user, with a higher FPS generally meaning the game is running better.

In addition, we've also covered the 1% Low FPS data here, which refers to the lowest frame rates you'll encounter 1% of the time when playing. This is useful, as a 1% Low score that's further from the average FPS indicates frequent drops, which can manifest in micro-stutters or noticeable lag despite an otherwise high framerate.

As you can see from the test results, Horizon: Forbidden West was barely a challenge for the RTX 4070 SUPER, with average FPS consistently well above 60, and the 1% Lows never dropping below that. With DLSS 3 on, we saw a massive increase in framerate - almost double - as our averages shot up from 99fps to 185fps in city gameplay, and 91fps increased to 164fps in combat.

Combat will be a slightly more taxing affair, and considering we only played at the start of the game, there may be parts of the game that are harder on the overall performance, particularly with more going on.

On the whole, the MSI RTX 4070 SUPER is well-positioned to run the latest games on the highest graphics settings. With the addition of NVIDIA technologies like DLSS, you can take your performance to the next level without sacrificing graphical quality.

Final Thoughts

On the whole, the MSI RTX 4070 SUPER is well-positioned to run the latest games on some of the highest graphics settings. With the addition of NVIDIA technologies like DLSS, you can take your performance to the next level without sacrificing graphical quality.

It's a solid mid-level card for PC gamers that still allows you to get performance levels that punch well above its weight. You can get your own MSI GeForce RTX™ 4070 SUPER 12G VENTUS 2X OC over on ebuyer.com if you're in the market for an upgrade or a completely new PC.