On Tuesday afternoon, the information embargo on RTX 4070 Ti Super test results at the price recommended by Nvidia, i.e. for non-overclocked models, ended. I was originally going to do a review, we’re going to look at something else instead – there are already three different BIOSes for this model with which to test it, so we’ll discuss how the results in the published reviews differ depending on which BIOS the reviewer is using he measured the card and we will release the test later with only the last one.
Final summary
Let’s start with the positive – the problem was caught and solved relatively early. Only the reviewers took it away, customers can already be informed and should be able to get updated BIOSes with the purchase of the card. You just need to update them after they bring home the cards from the first batches (and eventually you don’t even have to).
You can also get information that the card is performing lower than expected before the card can be purchased, in which case you will already know in advance what you are getting into.
On the positive side, at least the changes that MSI has made do not deviate significantly from the usual differences you’ll find between various non-reference models. If the card comes to reviews straight away with this BIOS, someone may notice that it has slightly higher consumption and slightly lower performance at similar clocks, but they will not dwell on it as much as in the case when they manage to measure a performance lower than that of the RTX 4070 Ti .
I don’t want to make definitive conclusions, because I can only compare with one (factory overclocked) model, but the difference, at least for the piece we have, is not so dramatic that you can tell at first glance that the Ventus behaves differently with the new BIOS. And it’s no bigger than what is usually attributed to a smaller cooler, to the fact that the card is not overclocked at the factory (or more precisely, it is now), or to the fact that it’s a difference due to parts.
If it weren’t for the fact that in this case the card was already reaching the level of the weaker RTX 4070 Ti in some cases, probably no one would have noticed. But if you don’t put a second RTX 4070 Ti Super next to the Ventus in the same computer and start directly comparing performance, clocks and consumption, you won’t know the difference.
From the measured results, it seems to me that there was a problem in the original BIOS, which MSI partially removed. With the latter, it already gives me the impression that MSI is trying to bypass some feature of the card’s construction or settings, and is trying to squeeze a little more performance out of the card by trying to get it to higher clocks, without significantly affecting its other features.
The lower performance against a similarly clocked Gigabyte card (and probably others) may be due to some of the hidden parameters or settings that cannot be accessed through normal monitoring – for example, worse memory timing or some insertion of empty cycles that you cannot recognize from the clocks displayed in the monitoring. But I emphasize that this is just my impression, I have no idea if we will learn anything more about it.
Performance is higher, but…
The manufacturer managed to increase the performance of the card by units of frames per second, but from a comparison with another RTX 4070 Ti Super, the results of which cannot yet be published, I know that Ventus still has slightly lower performance than a similar or now even lower-clocked model from Gigabyte. which we will look at during the day. And with Tuesday’s BIOS, it’s even at the price of slightly higher consumption. In other words, MSI is trying to make up for the loss of performance by overclocking without significantly increasing consumption or temperatures.
The annoying thing is that you can’t even see what was holding back the performance. According to the monitoring, this should be the power limit, but it is set to 285 W according to the BIOS, but in GPU-Z the card seems to draw around 269 W, so it remains far enough below the limit to slow it down. And what’s even more strange is that in the monitoring, the card looks like its power consumption dropped by a few watts between the BIOS from January 21st and 23rd, but when measuring the consumption of the entire PC, the opposite can be seen – the computer’s power consumption is about 12 W higher.
Also, I can’t completely rule out that some other component has not contributed to the difference in PC consumption, but usually repeated measurements are consistent with a difference of 2-3 W. For more accurate results, it would be useful to compare the power consumption of the card itself by measuring it on PCAT (and theoretically I can do if the Sunday BIOS can be flashed back to the card).
The fact is that the clock rates of the chip and its voltage have increased, and in that case it makes sense that the consumption of the card will also increase, and on the contrary, it does not make sense that in the monitoring the card looks like its power consumption has dropped by several watts.
And I have a hunch that even the power limit setting no longer behaves quite standardly, but to experiment with it and the card’s consumption, it would be really best to put the card on the PCAT and measure its consumption separately.
The difference is not dramatic
As in most similar cases, I must point out that the difference between BIOSes is not dramatic, I’ve already experienced more fun with BIOSes on some cards, where the performance did not jump by tenths of frames per second, but rather by ones to tens, because the card hit the power limit hard . This is something that you will not be familiar with unless you enjoy fiddling with overclocking and tuning the card.
On the other hand – for cards with the same chip, a similar difference is often the reason why you prefer one model over another. It would certainly be misguided to discourage the purchase of the Ventus 3X because of such a “prick”. Despite the fact that it has a cheaper cooler, in terms of noise, some of the competing models from the basic series come out better. Of course, there are also cards that come out at the same price that are even more advantageous – at the moment, for example, the unclocked TUF RTX 4070 Ti Super from Asus appears to be the case, but I am seriously afraid that it will either become more expensive in a few days compared to the basic models, or it will quickly disappear from the stores and mine will be only a few thousand more expensive O16G.
Personally, I would probably stick with the BIOS from Sunday, which slightly increased performance only with a minimal increase in power consumption, but so far it gives me the impression that the public BIOS update will be the one that arrived to reviewers on January 23, two hours before the end of the information embargo. What I would like to see most is if MSI were exceptionally funny and, instead of blocking the upper limit of the power limit at the reference 285 W (or secretly at 295 W?), as they often do on basic models, at least on this occasion they made an exception and enabled power increase the limit manually for those who will pay for higher performance in exchange for higher consumption. There is at least the possibility of reducing the power limit and thereby reducing the consumption.
It also seems that the lower performance may have something to do with temperatures and the cooler – you’ll see further performance gains if you crank up the fan speed and lower the chip temps. It is possible that the higher consumption (and therefore lower performance) is due to the higher temperatures of some of the components. The cards against which Ventus is compared in the reviews published so far and show lower performance against them usually have a larger cooler. Personally, I’m glad that MSI didn’t try to squeeze more performance out of the card by setting up the cooler more aggressively. It’s really not worth it to make the cooler three times noisier due to the fact that the fans will spin above two thousand revolutions, so that the card scores half an extra frame per second in the performance graphs.
I also sent an e-mail to MSI asking if there is any more information about the BIOSes and how it will go for customers who buy cards with the old BIOS, I will add more information if I learn more.
I can’t even tell you if some other model, either from MSI or from competitors, is not similar and if it is not just a consequence of the fact that this card does not have a three-slot cooler with nine-centimeter fans. We will only see that from the tests of other models.
2024-01-24 08:56:08
#hours #MSI #GeForce #RTX #Super #Ventus #tests #bad #firmware #boosts #performance
