Review: MSI GeForce RTX 2070 Armor 8G

Conclusion

In the market for a GeForce RTX 2070 and have your heart set on a custom-cooled partner card? Our advice is to forego the premium models and focus exclusively at the £460 price point, where multiple players are battling it out.

MSI's entry into this arena is the RTX 2070 Armor 8G, a large, dual-fan card that's attractive, well-built and outfitted with a full-size backplate. There's no factory overclock and the second power cable seems unnecessary, yet if you have room in your chassis for a board that's wider, taller and longer than reference, we come away feeling as though MSI's offering is about as good as it gets for a £460 RTX 2070.

The catch is that Nvidia's Turing GPUs aren't yet showcasing the full potential of the Turing architecture. As it stands, the performance comparison to certain 10-series GPUs is such that gamers on recent hardware won't feel any burning desire to upgrade. Nvidia needs actual games to highlight the real-world benefits of dedicated Tensor and RT cores, yet while we play the waiting game, users on ageing hardware can view RTX as the future-proof upgrade path.

Bottom line: upgrading from a 9-Series GeForce or older? RTX 2070 is a good bet at £460, and MSI's Armor 8G is a prime candidate.

MSI GeForce RTX 2070 Armor 8G

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The MSI GeForce RTX 2070 Armor 8G graphics card is available to purchase from Scan Computers.

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