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A Closer Look At MSI's GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Titanium 8G
All of hardware in MSI's Titanium line-up follow the same general design principles. Most obviously, they're dominated by matte silver surfaces. Aesthetically similar motherboards are already available, and now we have a matching graphics card to go with them.
We have to wonder: does the GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming X's cooler work just as well for the lower-end 1070 Ti, or is its thermal performance overkill for a 180W TDP?
Specifications
Exterior
As you can see, the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Titanium 8G's exterior is smattered with silver metallic accents instead of MSI's signature red splashes. Otherwise, the TwinFrozr VI cooler’s cover might as well be part of the Gaming X family. Two 10cm fans with 14 blades dominate the card’s front shroud.
The backplate’s only function is to look good. That printed dragon logo is sure to catch eyes inside a windowed chassis.
MSI arms its Titanium 8G board with eight- and six-pin auxiliary power connectors. They're rotated 180° to avoid interfering with the cooler. Also visible from the top, MSI's logo is back-lit and configurable through bundled software.
Fortunately, the cooling fins are oriented horizontally, which helps direct some exhaust out the back of your case instead of blowing it down across your motherboard.
Axial fan-based coolers typically achieve better thermal performance and make less noise than radial designs. But they recirculate hot air inside of your case, and that's a problem in small form factor PCs.
MSI exposes five display outputs through its I/O bracket, four of which can be used simultaneously in multi-monitor configurations. There's a dual-link DVI-D port, an HDMI 2.0 interface, and three DisplayPort 1.4-capable connectors. Although the remaining space back there is cut up into openings for exhausting hot air, this card doesn't rely on them to the same extent as Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Founders Edition.
Cooling Solution & Backplate
The backplate sure looks nice. It also plays a part in securing the two cooling elements up front. However, the backplate doesn't help with passive cooling.
What makes this thermal solution special is its use of a shortened sandwich-like design. A cooling and retention frame sits between the PCB and heat sink's body. In addition, GPU and memory VRMs have their own separate sink.
The power circuitry's cooler is made more potent through the use of fins across the frame, adding quite a bit of surface area. These fins definitely benefit from the horizontal airflow moving through the main heat sink right above them.
A large number of pads between the chokes/caps and main cooler's fins helps draw heat away from those components. Speaking of the main sink, it delivers the same great performance we've seen from other MSI cards. A nickel-plated heat sink covers the GP104 processor, while five 6mm heat pipes and one 8mm one spread heat through the cooler's body.
| Thermal Solution | |
|---|---|
| Type of Cooler | Air Cooling |
| Heat Sink | Nickel-plated GPU Heat Sink |
| Cooling Fins | Aluminum, Horizontally-Oriented, Tight Grouping |
| Heat Pipes | 1x 8mm, 5x 6mm, Nickel-plated |
| VRM Cooling | Separate VRM Cooler with Cooling FinsOnly MOSFETs are Cooled |
| RAM Cooling | Via Retention Frame |
| Fan | 2x 10cm Fan (9.7cm Fan Diameter)14 BladesSemi-Passive Control |
| Backplate | Aluminum, Painted Silver-MetallicNo Cooling Function, Foil on the Inside |
Power Supply & Components
MSI places its two memory voltage converters above eight for the GPU (giving the processor four real power phases, doubled). Because the VRMs are all lined up, the memory's VRMs end up fairly far away from the modules themselves. As a result, the hot-spot we complained about in our MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X 11G Review is no longer an issue.
Like Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE, this 4+2-phase design leans on uPI Semiconductor's up9511 eight-phase buck controller. It cannot address the voltage converter phases directly, so F6A4 gate drivers are used to control the UBIQ M3816Ns. These are durable dual N-channel MOSFETs with sufficient reserves in the DC/DC voltage converter category.
| GPU Power Supply | ||
|---|---|---|
| PWM Controller | uP9511uPI SemiconductorEight-Phase PWM Controller |
Gate DriverF6A4Phase Doubler& Gate Driver
VRMM3816NUBIQ (uPI Semiconductor)Power MOSFETDual N-ChannelHigh- and Low-Side
CoilsSFCSuper Ferrite ChokeLianzhen Electronics
Memory & Memory Power SupplyModulesMT51J256M32HF-80MicronGDDR5, 8 Gb/s8 Gigabit (32x 256Mb)Eight Modules
PWM ControlleruP1641uPI SemiconductorTwo-Phase Buck Converter
VRMBSC0923NDIInfineon CloneDual N-Channel MOSFETHigh- and Low-Side
CoilsSFCSuper Ferrite ChokeLianzhen Electronics
Other ComponentsMonitoringINA3221Monitoring ChipCurrents, Voltages
BIOSWinbond 25Q40Kynix SemiconductorEEPROMBIOS
Shunts & Filter1x Coil (Smoothing) & Shunt per PCIe Connector (12V Input Voltage)
Other FeaturesSpecial Features- 1x Eight-Pin + 1x Six-Pin Auxiliary Power Connector- Filter Chokes at Entry
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