Overview of the MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Duke Video Graphics Card

MSI Company always offers a wide selection of quality non-reference video cards. However, the range of MSI products is even higher than it is presented in our domestic retail chains. Some models are produced for the Asian market, including the GeForce GTX 1070 Duke. Recently, these cards have appeared on sale and with us, so it is quite interesting to look at their capabilities.

MSI GeForce GTX 1070 8G Duke Outward and Equipment

The video adapter in question is supplied in a medium-sized box. Hieroglyphs are actively used in design, which is not surprising given the initial regional orientation. The equipment is the simplest, there is a CD with software and a small booklet-instruction among the accessories.

MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Duke looks original on the background of the same manufacturer’s video cards. A large cooler with three fans is used here, while all other MSI video adapters use a system with two fans.

Cooling system is covered by a black curved case. In terms of design everything is not as pathetic as in the MSI Gaming series with more artful contours and striking design. But the dimensions inspire respect, as it is felt that this is a high-level product with powerful high-quality cooling.

The reverse side of the board is protected by a metal plate, which gives rigidity to the whole structure and prevents the deflection of the textolite under the cooler mass.

There are two additional power connectors with 6 and 8 pins in the corner. They are deployed with latches upwards and it simplifies the connection and does not require additional space at the bottom.

Cooling System

Let's take a closer look at the cooling system. It seriously differs from the cooler Twin Frozr VI in the line of topical MSI Gaming video adapters. The system is equipped with a two-section radiator with three heat pipes that extend along the plane of the board. It partially resembles the cooler of the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1070. The heat pipes are only three, but two of them are very large in diameter. Contact with the surface of the graphic crystal is carried out through a large area instead of direct partial contact from ASUS.

One of the sections is slightly elevated relatively to the base, which is due to the arrangement of high capacitors in this part of the board. On the front side, two straps are screwed onto the radiator for mounting an external casing with fans.

Three fans of size 90 mm from Power Logic with PLD09210S12HH marking are used for blasting. In the curved shape of the blades, the Propeller Blade fans, which were universally used in top-of-the-line MSI products several years ago, are well recognized.

The board is covered by a large plate, which removes heat from the power components of the power node and memory chips. On the side of the case there is an inscription DUKE with variable backlighting.

This radiator acts as an additional stiffening element, forming a «sandwich» with a board and an amplifying plate covering the back side.

MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Duke Features

The printed circuit board uses a unified with the Gaming series design, so we see a full copy of the MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X 8G and MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G.

The GPU power system has eight phases, the memory is powered by a two-phase stabilizer.

The graphics chip GP104-200-A1 operates 1,920 stream processors with 120 texture units.

Eight gigabytes of memory is composed of eight Samsung K4G80325FB-HC25 chips.

MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Duke works at hightened frequencies. The base frequency is 1,607 MHz instead of the recommended 1,506 MHz, Boost Clock is upgraded from 1,683 MHz to 1,797 MHz, and the effective memory frequency is 8,100 MHz.

When used on an open stand and a room temperature of 24 °C, the graphics chip is heated to 64-68 °C. The fans are then spinning up to 1,100-1,300 rpm, while the noise still stays minimal. The real Boost frequency is at 1,936-1,949 MHz and rises up to 1987-2000 MHz at short-term peak bursts.

The temperature-noise characteristics do not differ much from other top versions of the GeForce GTX 1070. But it should be noted that the similarly constructed ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card works at higher rpm.

In the overclocking it is possible to achieve stability with an increase in the base frequency up to 1,742 MHz.

Boost is at 2,088 MHz with a rare drawdown to 2,076 MHz and peak values above 2,126 MHz. The memory works at frequencies up to 4,548 MHz. This combination of frequencies is maintained when increasing the power limit and without voltage increase. The fans speed is set manually at 1,600 rpm which provids heating at the initial level and even slightly lower.

The video card has the ability to programmatically increase the voltage, but the real gain from this is hard to be obtained – the overclocking increases slightly, but there appear stability problems. And there have been repeatedly noted that for the actual NVIDIA solutions based on 16-nm Pascal chips, the maximum possible frequency is about 2.1 GHz. Moreover, the final configuration of MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Duke frequencies is the highest among all the previously manufactured GeForce GTX 1070.

It is possible to pass individual 3D-tests at even greater frequencies, but the video card will not master the long-term operation in this mode. So, the video card passes a heavy 3DMark Time Spy test with the Boost under 1,239 MHz (base value 1,747 MHz, peak – 1,759 MHz) and memory frequency of 9,622 MHz.

MSI GeForce GTX 1070 8G Duke Characteristics

• • Core: GP104
• • Transistors number, mln pieces: 7,200
• • Process technology, nm: 16
• • Core area, sq. mm: 314
• • Stream processors number: 1,920
• • Texture blocks number: 120
• • Rendering blocks number: 64
• • Core frequency, MHz: 1,607-1,797
• • Memory bus, bit: 256
• • Memory type: GDDR5
• • Memory frequency, MHz: 8100
• • Memory size, MB: 8,192
• • DirectX supported version: 12.1
• • Interface: PCI-E 3.0

Conclusions

GeForce GTX 1070 adequately copes with modern games in high 2,560x1,400 resolution with the maximum graphics settings. In the worst cases, the video adapter produces less than 40 fps, but overclocking allows achieving more comfortable performance.

The MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Duke graphics card is the one that allows to get the most out of this series of graphics accelerators. A powerful cooling system with three fans maintains low operating temperatures with extremely low noise levels. At the same time, MSI Duke can boast of factory overclocking, which provides a performance gain of 5-6% for relatively simple versions of Founders Edition.

The video adapter uses a unified with the MSI Gaming series PCB design. Therefore, the closest possible overclocking results can be expected for these MSI devices. In practice, it turned out that the Duke showed better overclocking opportunities, overtaking all the non-reference GeForce GTX 1070 video cards. This advantage is not so considerable, but it makes the Duke even closer to the GeForce GTX 1080, which is nice for the user. So, all the impressions from MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Duke are exceptionally positive. It is a powerful silent video graphics card, one of the best versions of GeForce GTX 1070.