NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1070 Ti is probably the final graphics card released on the 18-month old "Pascal" architecture. Just like the GTX 1080, it is based on the GP104 silicon, with a negligibly reduced shader count, but paired with slower GDDR5 memory instead of GDDR5X. The memory change makes sense as GDDR5X seems to be available in limited quantities only and NVIDIA surely wants to sell more cards. GTX 1070 performance is beat by AMD's Vega offerings, though, which is why they came up with the GTX 1070 Ti.

MSI's GTX 1070 Ti Gaming is a custom-design, but is reference-clocked - just like all other GTX 1070 Tis out there, NVIDIA doesn't allow board partners to overclock their cards out of the box, probably to protect the GTX 1080. Small performance differences are still to be expected, due to slightly different boost ranges, power limits, and thermals. When looking at averages, we see nothing of that. The MSI GTX 1070 Ti Gaming is exactly as fast as the GTX 1070 Ti Founders Edition. Compared to the GTX 1080, the GTX 1070 Ti is 5% slower, which makes it 13% faster than the GTX 1070. AMD's Vega 56 is 6% behind, and Vega 64 is 4% faster. The mighty GTX 1080 Ti takes the lead with 36% faster performance. These results make the GTX 1070 Ti an excellent choice for maximum-detail 1440p gaming, or 1080p when using a high-refresh-rate monitor.

We've seen MSI's TwinFrozr IV cooler on many cards before and love it. It always delivered low noise levels and good temperatures, and the GTX 1070 Ti Gaming is no different. In our testing, the MSI Gaming is the quietest GTX 1070 Ti, but the differences are small between premium models, most have results in the 30 dBA range during gaming. The Founders Edition ran into its 83°C thermal limit and started throttling (apparently with no loss in performance); MSI's GTX 1070 Ti Gaming has good temperatures and no throttling. I'm also happy to report that MSI included the crucial idle-fan-off feature, which turns the fans off completely during idle, Internet browsing, and light gaming.

Power efficiency of Pascal is amazing, and the GTX 1070 Ti is no exception here. Performance per watt is similar to the GTX 1080 Ti, a bit lower than the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070, by roughly 10%. It's still heaps more efficient than AMD Vega. MSI made some changes to the VRM circuitry and added an additional 6-pin power input, which leads to slightly reduced power efficiency overall, by small amounts, barely worth mentioning. What's worth mentioning, though, is that MSI's BIOS comes with an increased power-adjustment limit, which barely justifies the extra 6-pin as you can set the power limit up to 240 W. This means that at that setting, the 6-pin is justified; for all other cases, it makes no difference.

Early reports claimed that overclocking is locked on the GTX 1070 Ti. This is absolutely not true. All our samples overclock very well and reach clocks above 2 GHz after boost, easily beating GTX 1080 performance. As mentioned before, board partners are not allowed to include out of the box overclocks with their cards, which makes things difficult for less experienced people, or people who just don't want to waste time overclocking. Overclocking has become quite easy these days, so don't worry and give it a try.

MSI's GTX 1070 Ti Gaming is currently listed online for $490, which is a $40 increase over the Founders Edition for basically a fantastic cooler, as no out of the box overclock is allowed. This brings its price dangerously close to the RX Vega 64 and GTX 1080. The cheapest GTX 1080 won't be that quiet, and probably won't include the fan-stop feature, but neither will be a problem if you are willing to do additional tweaking. Vega 64 does offer a few percent more performance, but has high power draw and noise and limited overclocking potential. This only leaves a small window to justify GTX 1070 Ti cards for around $500, which is too high in my opinion. A more realistic price point would be in the $450-$480 range, depending on the bells and whistles of the card. Currently, NVIDIA game promos are only for the GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti, so shelling out some extra money for a GTX 1080 could get you a $60 game, or some money back if you sell the game.