Hi Eric,
While I agree that they should have also put thermal pads on the VRMs, this review is generally about NVIDIA’s RTX 4070.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get a Founders Edition, and this Ventus 3X is the closest to a reference model.
Our rating is for the RTX 4070 in general.

I did point out the specific “issue” with this card. I no longer disassemble graphics cards in my review due to time constraints, but I got curious when I saw TPU and Guru3D’s reviews later on.

Guru3D did report this to MSI: “Engineering got back to us saying that they produced similar results, but they pass internal validation, ergo they deem this to be normal/expected behaviour. .”

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen when there are no thermal pads on the VRM, or partially some are not actively cooled.
While I can’t say for certain about its longevity, it is running within specs.
Still, it would be nice if those (hot) components were passively cooled as well.

Yes, I can confirm that Hogwarts Legacy does need more VRAM, especially at 4K.
As for why NVIDIA doesn’t put more VRAM on their graphics cards, that I do not know.
NVIDIA uses a faster GDDR6X memory, but AMD only uses GDDR6 (with higher VRAM capacity, though).

As to “cgi quality”, Games based on Unreal Engine 5 are coming. They do take some time to develop.
But expect next-gen games will have better graphics quality and most probably require faster GPUs.

Yes, RTX 4090 is a halo product, not a value-oriented product.
I’m sure when the next-gen GPUs are released, like RTX 5080, they will be faster than the current RTX 4090s.
Just look at the RTX 3080 Ti/3090/3090 Ti. Those older GPUs are now on the same level as an RTX 4070 Ti or RTX 4080, and the new ones consume much less power.

If you are hesitant to upgrade today, better hold off and wait for the next generation.
If you can still game with your current setup, that’s okay. No need to rush.
Yes, getting a PS5 is also an option, especially if you want to play the exclusives.

Hi Paul,

I do have 4k TV. I currently have 1660S, a temporary solution, in majority of the titles I can play in 1440 with 120hz refresh. I recently watched video where someone was comparing 3070, rtx a4000 and AMD 6900.the comparison was about performance with RT enabled, in 1080, and what impact on performance with RT has amount of ram. Resident evil, the last of us, hogwarts and couple more games in 1080 were taking even 14gb of vram. I wonder why they won’t make a graphics card with more ram. I read ram for 4080 cost about 150$. With the current prices of the cards, it wouldn’t make a difference for people to pay a 100$ more just to get much more ram, say, 20,24gb, this way the cards could handle games much better. RT eats a lot of ram, 4k needs lots of ram for textures. 4070 with RT on could be perfect card to have 20gb or vram.

Now I am pc only gamer for many, many years, I started with voodoo card. Im observi g how cards prices jumpt suddenly, without delivering magnificent jump towards cgi quality. Majority of games are running on old engines, like call of duty… Other games didnt make huge leap in graphics in last 10-15 years, really. Sure, we have crysis 3, cyberpunk. Although i would expect games to look like the demos of cyberpunk before cyberpunk was released. They demoed proper new level of graphics, which wasn’t delivered in final game.
paying for 4080 or 4090, 1500$ is somewhat crazy at this moment to me. First time in my life Im considering switching to playstation, as for the price of the card I can get this and next gen playstation. On top of that add cost of new mb, cpu, psu… Dont know. I hold off 30xx gen in hope of big RT improvement in next gen, but, if only top range card can run current title in proper RT, cyberpunk, It may not be ae to Run game that will be released tomorrow.

Hi Dude,

Don’t get me wrong. True, I’m not “overly” excited. It’s just an okay product. Not very exciting but not bad as well.
The RTX 4070 is a good buy for 1440p. You actually have two options. Either the RTX 4070 or the RTX 4070 Ti, but you will have to spend $200+ more for the 4070 Ti. I recently published a comparison of the two GPUs here.

Then AMD also dropped the previous generation RX 6950 XT prices to match the RTX 4070. I don’t have a 6950 XT, but I do have a 6900 XT. My concern is that it’s older gen, and it consumes more power; ray tracing is not as good as NVIDIA’s GPU, DLSS quality is better, it doesn’t have DLSS 3, etc. So yes, unless you are locked into getting an AMD card, I am uncomfortable recommending AMD’s alternative.

“max details with resolutions of min 1080” -> You are using a 1080p monitor, correct? And you don’t plan on getting a 1440p or 4K monitor in a few years? If not, the RTX 4070 is fine. 1080p doesn’t require a lot of VRAM. If you plan to upgrade to 4K, consider an RTX 4080 or RTX 4090. 12GB of VRAM is getting inadequate for modern titles, especially at 4K resolution. But for lower resolutions, it’s still enough for today.

For example, I could not get Cyberpunk 2077’s RT Overdrive (path tracing) photo-realistic settings to work with the RTX 4070 at 4K because it requires more VRAM. But that option is available in 1080p and, I think in 1440p as well, with the RTX 4070.

I hope this helps.