MSI RTX 2070 Gaming Z Review

Up Close

The RTX 2070 Gaming Z comes in fairly simple packaging, still dominated by the huge GEFORCE RTX logo that seems to be a requirement before nVidia will let you become a partner. Inside the box we have the card as expected but also a bracket to help keep the card locked in place in your motherboard.

  
  

Whereas the Armor went with a black and white cooler, the Gaming Z has the latest Frozr from MSI which is dark grey and black with a seriously classy looking back plate. As with all MSI coolers the fans stop spinning if the card is cool enough and with such a huge amount of heat sink going on beneath that angular shroud it will nearly always be off when on the desktop and often off on many Indie games we all have in our Steam libraries.

  
  

If you carefully peer between the TORX 3.0 fan blades you can see the alternating wave pattern built into the heat sink that MSI say improves the heat dissipation whilst also reducing the noise from all that air moving. If the Gaming Z system works as well as it did on the Gaming X Trio RTX 2080Ti, then it should be excellent.

  

As well as a good look at the fins on the cooler you can see that like the RTX 2070 Armor the Gaming Z uses a 8+6pin PCIe power input.

  

When you look at the Twin Frozr 7 from the side and up close you can get a really good idea of how thick the heat sink element is, how compact the heat pipes are, and how high the fin density. If you spend a long time browsing the internet and tooling around on your desktop rather than gaming then you’ll appreciate how this allows the fans to stop spinning because there is so much passive cooling.