The MSI Gaming Trio NVIDIA Geforce RTX 5070 OC is the latest in the RTX 5070 series graphics card released this year. Equipped with impressive fifth-generation Tensor cores, fourth-generation Ray Tracing cores and 12GB GDDR7 RAM, the MSI RTX 5070 OC aims to push beyond the bar set by the standard RTX 5070 series graphics card. At an MSRP of $100 more than the standard RTX 5070, the RTX 5070 OC has a lot to prove.
Aesthetics and Build Quality
MSI’s design for the Gaming Trio RTX 5070 OC offers a unique aesthetic that accentuates its branding. While the RTX 5070 OC follows the standard three-fan design, it measures 338 x 140 x 50 mm, making it significantly longer and wider than the AMD Radeon RX 9070, which I reviewed last week. Like all modern GPUs, the MSI Gaming Trio RTX 5070 OC is a dual-slot card, so expect to lose two bays when installing it.
However, the extra length isn’t wasted. MSI has incorporated its signature Stormforce fans and a sleek RGB strip into the faceplate. A single, dragon-encrusted MSI logo illuminates the outer edge, giving the whole card a discreet glow. The backplate features a textured cover with the MSI dragon etched out of the venting plate on the right side, creating a sharp and professional look.
“The MSI Gaming Trio RTX 5070 OC is a well-performing mid-range GPU that unfortunately doesn’t quite fit within the rest of the RTX 5070 lineup.”
In terms of I/O, the MSI Gaming Trio RTX 5070 OC features three DisplayPort v2.1b ports and one HDMI 2.1b port. The HDMI port can output up to 8K at 120 Hz, making it capable of handling the best gaming monitors on the market. Additionally, the RTX 5070 OC can easily support up to four monitors in a multi-display setup.
Returning to the fan design, MSI has equipped the RTX 5070 OC with its Tri Frozr 4 thermal cooling system to ensure peak efficiency and temperature management. Alongside the three Stormforce fans, the GPU features square-designed cooling pipes—a departure from many modern cooling systems seen this season. This square design aims to increase the surface contact area between the cooling pipe and the GPU baseplate, enhancing cooling efficiency.
To further optimize cooling, the baseplate is made of copper with a nickel plating. This, combined with a unique antegrade fin system, contributes to overall cooling efficiency. One impressive byproduct of this design is the remarkably quiet operation, even under load. The smart, well-implemented design integrates seamlessly with the GPU’s overall aesthetic. The MSI Gaming Trio RTX 5070 OC successfully combines style and performance, making it a standout choice for gamers looking for an upgrade.
Technical Specifications
The MSI Gaming Trip RTX 5070 OC comes packed with some fairly impressive specs. Loaded with 12GB GDDR7 RAM, the RTX 5070 OC is a PCI Express gen 5-enabled card and, as such, produces some impressive core clock speeds. Spec’d for 2626MHz, the MSI RTX 5070 OC features fifth-generation tensor cores that leverage AI performance to push FP4 and DLSS 4.
FP4 (4-bit floating point precision format) is notable for its smaller bit floating point. Without delving too far into technical details, this lower FP value allows the GPU to deliver the same or better AI model processing as FP16, a more commonly used precision floating point format. This results in faster AI model processing while using less VRAM, achieving similar or even superior outcomes. Additionally, it reduces power consumption, leading to a more efficient system.
DLSS 4 also brings improvements to both frame generation and overall image quality, refining NVIDIA’s super-resolution and ray tracing features. Frame generation is enhanced through AI-driven production of up to three additional frames per rendered frame, resulting in smoother and more fluid real-time rendering that boosts performance.
“The MSI Gaming Trio RTX 5070 OC successfully combines style and performance, making it a standout choice for gamers looking for an upgrade.”
The image quality boost is achieved through DLSS Ray Reconstruction. Ray Reconstruction, in simple terms, uses AI to clean up blurry images caused during ray tracing by generating sharper pixels between samples. This enhancement improves both image clarity and frame rate, delivering a better visual experience.
The MSI RTX 5070 OC also features NVIDIA Reflex 2, a technology designed to streamline graphics processing response time. It maximizes the GPU’s processing power, providing faster response times to input and a more accurate on-screen representation of actions. This feature significantly enhances the user experience, particularly in competitive gaming scenarios.
All of this performance is made possible by the impressive 6,144 CUDA cores that constitute the central processing unit of the RTX 5070 OC. CUDA cores are specialized processors that execute multiple calculations and processes simultaneously, making them ideal for GPUs—especially those leveraging features like DLSS 4 and Reflex 2. The MSI RTX 5070 OC is built to deliver top-tier performance, combining innovative technologies and raw power to meet the demands of modern gaming and AI-driven applications.
Performance Benchmarks
Overall, there is a lot of AI-driven technology packed into the MSI RTX 5070 OC, all of which is designed to boost the GPU’s performance to new standards. As such, we spent some time running the MSI Gaming Trio RTX 5070 OC on our test bench to see how it performs. Thankfully, at this point in the release of this round of GPUs, we have a much wider sampling of data to work with.
At present, there isn’t a specific AMD Radeon competitor for the RTX 5070 OC. Instead, I wanted to focus the benchmarks on how the 5070 OC compares to the standard RTX 5070. With a $100 price difference, I had hoped to see some significant differences at the bench to warrant the higher price point.
It should be noted that the numbers presented here are accurate at the time of writing. However, it is also safe to say that these numbers may change as features such as DLSS 4 become more widely implemented and driver updates are released. The purpose of our benchmarks is not only to demonstrate raw performance but also to provide greater context regarding where a GPU fits within the current landscape.
All tests were performed on our bench, which features an Intel Core Ultra 9 285k processor, 32GB DDR5 RAM, Gigabyte Z890 AORUS Elite WIFI7 ICE motherboard, Gigabyte Ultra Gold 850 PSU and a 2TB Samsung SSD 980 Pro. Tests were performed at Ultra (or equivalent settings), with secondary tests for frame generation and ray tracing also performed when applicable (noted in the charts).
Looking first at the 1080p benchmarks, the 5070 OC performed well, surpassing the Radeon 9070 by more than 20 fps. However, when compared to the standard 5070, the results are a bit of a mixed bag. While there are some instances — such as Cyberpunk 2077 (Ultra), which serves as a raw performance benchmark — where the 5070 OC outperforms the standard 5070, this advantage seems to level out as soon as ray tracing and frame generation are applied.
| 1080P Benchmark | RTX 5070 TI | RTX 4080 | RTX 4070 TI | MSI NVIDIA RTX 5070 OC | RX 7900 XTX |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 234.00 | 218.00 | 188.00 | 182.00 | 200.00 |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider + Frame Generation | 304.00 | 266.00 | 243.00 | 222.00 | – |
| Returnal | 176.00 | 181.00 | 156.00 | 158.00 | 199.00 |
| Assassin’s Creed Valhalla | 207.00 | 224.00 | 197.00 | 187.00 | 209.00 |
| Watch Dogs Legion | 166.00 | 147.00 | 157.00 | 140.00 | 112.00 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 (Ultra) | 180.24 | 200.88 | 153.18 | 163.89 | 194.58 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 RT | 91.62 | 99.06 | 70.03 | 70.32 | 65.53 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 RT + Frame Generation | 467.73 | 172.50 | 246.30 | 327.69 | 100.78 |
| F1 24 (Ultra Preset) | 222.00 | 220.00 | 186.00 | 171.00 | 172.00 |
| F1 24 + Frame Generation | 298.00 | 308.00 | 263.00 | 248.00 | 318.00 |
| Metro Exodus (Extreme) | 114.26 | 90.77 | 99.33 | 89.45 | 136.04 |
| Black Myth: Wukong | 78.00 | 79.00 | 64.00 | 64.00 | 25.00 |
| Black Myth: Wukong + Frame Generation | 119.00 | 117.00 | 95.00 | 94.00 | 49.00 |
Likewise, in the 1440p benchmarks, the two 5070s were essentially neck and neck in every test. This is somewhat disappointing, given the aforementioned price disparity. While there are instances of minor FPS increases, the overall theme in our testing is that the improvement is negligible. On the plus side, the MSI RTX 5070 OC performed well across the board, even when pushing ray tracing. Frame generation also helped produce solid performance numbers from the RTX 5070 OC.
| 1440P Benchmark | RTX 5070 TI | RTX 4080 | RTX 4070 TI | MSI NVIDIA RTX 5070 OC | RX 7900 XTX |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 160.00 | 159.00 | 129.00 | 124.00 | 144.00 |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider + Frame Generation | 262.00 | 238.00 | 209.00 | 203.00 | – |
| Returnal | 138.00 | 141.00 | 119.00 | 125.00 | 155.00 |
| Assassin’s Creed Valhalla | 169.00 | 178.00 | 157.00 | 124.00 | 170.00 |
| Watch Dogs Legion | 132.00 | 128.00 | 120.00 | – | 79.00 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 (Ultra) | 123.98 | 123.88 | 95.24 | 105.23 | 133.44 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 RT | 59.53 | 61.23 | 48.77 | 44.49 | 55.00 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 RT + Frame Generation | 310.92 | 135.72 | 177.39 | 244.65 | 83.45 |
| F1 24 (Ultra Preset) | 182.00 | 183.00 | 149.00 | 138.00 | 124.00 |
| F1 24 + Frame Generation | 241.00 | 241.00 | 202.00 | 185.00 | 219.00 |
| Metro Exodus (Extreme) | 80.95 | 141.84 | 69.32 | 66.71 | 104.41 |
| Black Myth: Wukong | 80.00 | 57.00 | 46.00 | 43.00 | 25.00 |
| Black Myth: Wukong + Frame Generation | 90.00 | 89.00 | 70.00 | 70.00 | 50.00 |
Our 4K benchmarks tell a similar story. While not specifically marketed as a 4K GPU, the RTX 5070 OC can nonetheless perform decently at this resolution. The only notable exception was Cyberpunk 2077 with ray tracing enabled, which did struggle. However, once frame generation is enabled, DLSS 4 compensates for its raw performance shortcomings. Much like the results seen in both the 1080p and 1440p tests, the RTX 5070 OC doesn’t perform significantly better than the standard RTX 5070.
| 4K Benchmark | RTX 5070 TI | RTX 4080 | RTX 5070 TI | MSI NVIDIA RTX 5070 OC | RX 7900 XTX |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 85.00 | 85.00 | 67.00 | 63.00 | 80.00 |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider + Frame Generation | 172.00 | 168.00 | 136.00 | 135.00 | – |
| Returnal | 86.00 | 85.00 | 68.00 | 77.00 | 95.00 |
| Assassin’s Creed Valhalla | 112.00 | 108.00 | 91.00 | 92.00 | 108.00 |
| Watch Dogs Legion | 85.00 | 81.00 | 70.00 | 65.00 | 43.00 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 (Ultra) | 58.93 | 56.00 | 40.96 | 48.94 | 63.56 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 RT | 29.49 | 29.90 | 20.60 | 22.44 | 20.08 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 RT + Frame Generation | 214.39 | 79.25 | 103.23 | 163.09 | 59.12 |
| F1 24 (Ultra Preset) | 117.00 | 120.00 | 94.00 | 86.00 | 67.00 |
| F1 24 + Frame Generation | 144.00 | 147.00 | 113.00 | 109.00 | 112.00 |
| Metro Exodus (Extreme) | 47.49 | 52.18 | 39.78 | 38.15 | 61.62 |
| Black Myth: Wukong | 31.00 | 31.00 | 30.00 | 23.00 | 8.00 |
| Black Myth: Wukong + Frame Generation | 53.00 | 52.00 | 40.00 | 40.00 | 16.00 |
Synthetic GPU benchmarks simply affirm what we’ve seen throughout the testing. One notable point in these benchmarks is that, while it was comparable to the standard RTX 5070, the RTX 5070 OC does pull ahead in almost every benchmark when compared to the AMD Radeon 5070 XT. While certain tests may favour NVIDIA or AMD, there is a consistent theme in these specific tests of the RTX 5070 OC outperforming both the AMD Radeon 9070 and 9070 XT.
| Synthetic Benchmarks | RTX 5090 | RTX 5080 | RTX 5070 TI | RTX 4080 | RTX 4070 TI | MSI NVIDIA RTX 5070 OC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3D Mark Time Spy | 47148 | 31770 | 27897 | 28418 | 22732 | 22175 |
| 3D Mark DLSS | 81.36 | 48.17 | 42.17 | 39.26 | 30.31 | 30.29 |
| 3D Mark DLSS + FG | 434.79 | 316.58 | 256.47 | 149.24 | 117.95 | 116.77 |
| 3D Mark Port Royal | 35780 | 21889 | 19190 | 17885 | 14184 | 14020 |
| V-Ray (RTX) | 15076 | 9236 | 7961 | 7519 | 5596 | 6533 |
| Procyon Video GPU Editing | 65694 | 61896 | 59810 | 52868 | 45828 | 58269 |
| Procyon PHI 3.5 | 6050 | 4643 | 4366 | 4285 | 2879 | 4022 |
| Procyon MISTRAL 7B | 6674 | 4798 | 4542 | 3957 | 2859 | 3940 |
| Procyon LLAMA 3.1 | 6492 | 4588 | 4330 | 3693 | 2783 | 3474 |
| Procyon LLAMA 2 | 7002 | 4698 | 2079 | 3912 | 1487 | 2228 |
These benchmarks reveal some interesting information about the RTX 5070 OC. First and foremost, it provides excellent performance for 1440p gaming. Ray tracing and frame generation both function incredibly well, and the quiet operation and efficient power consumption are strengths of the MSI Gaming Trio RTX 5070 OC. If you’re in the market for a 1440p GPU that can handle the latest titles on high settings, this card has you covered.
However, when comparing it to the standard RTX 5070, it’s difficult to justify the OC’s price point. In all of our tests, the standard RTX 5070 performed on par with or just slightly below the OC. It’s simply hard to justify a $100 difference for such a small return on investment. While I was hoping to see a performance jump similar to the difference between the Radeon 9070 and 9070 XT, the MSI Gaming Trio RTX 5070 OC simply doesn’t deliver. Does this mean it’s a terrible card? Absolutely not. It’s a great performance card that simply feels out of place between the standard RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti.
The MSI Gaming Trio NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 OC is a well-performing mid-range GPU that unfortunately doesn’t quite fit within the rest of the RTX 5070 lineup. While it provides solid performance, it doesn’t distinguish itself enough from the standard RTX 5070 to justify its $100 price difference. If you’re in the market for a new 1440p GPU, while it performs well, the MSI Gaming Trio NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 OC, priced at an MSRP of $650, only offers a diminishing return over its counterpart.
