MSI RTX 2070 Armor 8G Review

1. Introduction2. Unboxing and First Look3. Testing Methodology4. 3DMark (1080p, 1440p, 4K)5. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (1080p, 1440p, 4K)6. Far Cry 5 (1080p, 1440p, 4K)7. Ghost Recon: Wildlands (1080p, 1440p, 4K)8. Middle Earth: Shadow of War (1080p, 1440p, 4K)9. Shadow of the Tomb Raider (1080p, 1440p, 4K)10. Clock Speed11. Temperatures12. Acoustics13. Power Consumption14. Overclocking: 3DMark and Games15. Overclocking: Thermals, Acoustics, Power16. Closing Thoughts17. View All Pages

For our temperature testing, we measure the peak GPU core temperature under load, as well as the GPU temperature with the card idling on the desktop. A reading under load comes from running the 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra stress test 20 times. An idle reading comes after leaving the system on the Windows desktop for 30 minutes.

I must confess that I was pleasantly surprised when I saw how cool the Armor 8G runs – it peaked at just 65C which is one of the best results we have seen from an RTX 20-series card. It obviously helps that the GPU is not running as fast as a factory overclocked model, but this is still a top result.

The thermal gun results are even better. The side of the card didn't get any hotter than 54.9C, which is fantastic and actually one of the best results I have seen from our thermal imaging camera. The rear of the card, too, peaked at just 53C in the area behind the GPU core. It may be a fairly basic cooler, but it can certainly do the job just fine for this reference clocked RTX 2070.

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