Published: February 20, 2025 | Source: MSI | Author: Tom Logan

MSI RTX 5070 Ti Vanguard SOC Review

Up Close

Like the 5080 Vanguard, the MSI RTX 5070 Ti Vanguard we have is a launch edition. It means we get a free collectable of the MSI Dragon. Given there are 12 or so it feels an expensive way of building a collection. Maybe treat one as a cool extra, rather than seek out the full suite.

If you read our review of the Vanguard in the 5080 format then the appearance of it here will be very familiar. It makes perfect sense to manufacture one design, and we get the added benefit that a cooler designed for a huge amount of heat, applied to a less powerful card, also means lower temperatures.

The backplate of the RTX 5070 Ti Vanguard nicely matches a lot of MSIs motherboards. If you’ve the Carbon or Ace then the Vanguard will blend right in. We still find it slightly odd that they’ve got such a huge cut-out and then covered it up with the backplate. It can’t be structural. Luckily the Vanguard is cool enough it doesn’t matter, but it’s a strange choice.

Beneath the triple fan shroud it a massive heatsink. Look at the number of fins. You can also see how thick the heatpipes are. If you like your hot pipe to be girthy, then the MSI RTX 5070 Ti Vanguard has you covered.

As well as a bit of lighting on the side, the MSI Dragon also lights up on the end. A testament to the move in case design to having front windows.

A regular feature of MSI graphics cards is the ability to move between a full on clockspeed and a slightly reduced one. The idea being that slower is cooler is quieter. The Vanguard cooler is quiet enough, and even in full-fat mode cool enough, that you can just leave it on Gaming.

Lastly around the business end we have three 2.1b DisplayPorts alongside a 2.1b HDMI. That’s 8K120 if you weren’t sure. Otherwise known as plenty of bandwidth.