Tag: trio
MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Gaming X Trio
A trio of Corsair peripherals are 50% off at their US store
A trio of Corsair peripherals has gone on flash sale at the company’s US web store, making it a nice time to pick up a matching all-Corsair setup for about 50% off. There are three items included; the HS65 headset, the Sabre RGB Pro Champion Series mouse and the K70 Mini Wireless 60% mechanical keyboard. I’ve tested all but the keyboard, and they’re fantastic pieces of kit – and now at surprisingly low prices.
How trio of Britain’s biggest power firms are ‘ripping off households by gaming National Grid’s systems’
THREE of the UK’s biggest power firms have ripped off households by over half a billion pounds by gaming National Grid’s systems, it is claimed.
Vitol VPI, Uniper and SSE have been manipulating the electricity market by saying they will power down their generators at peak times, only to then demand a much higher price from the Grid to keep running.
Energy supplies are most under pressure in the evenings, when people cook dinner, turn on lights, and use heating and hot water to bathe.
The Grid sends out requests to power firms for more electricity when its supplies are under pressure and offers a higher payment to generators to step in to the gap.
But some have been announcing they will switch off, often with just a few hours’ notice ahead of the peak times.
Then they earn four times as much by switching back on just hours later to meet the Grid’s anticipated shortfalls.
An investigation by Bloomberg of over 100million market records found these firms have racked up more than £525million in inflated revenues with these tactics.
The grid had to pay £42million on just one cold day last November to traders using their off-on technique.
Simon Francis, of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, said: “This is absolutely outrageous.
“These traders are part of the reason why Britain’s energy system is completely broken.
“These shadowy practices are causing sky-high energy prices for British consumers.
“It is not just ripping off customers, it is ripping off taxpayers as the Government is having to step in to help with energy bill support.
“Disabled people have been unable to afford to charge their wheelchairs because of rocketing electricity prices — and yet these companies are making bumper profits.”
The energy firms say they comply with the regulations, but energy regulator Ofgem has called the allegations “serious”.
An Ofgem spokesman said: “Our first job is to protect consumers, and all attempts by energy companies to exacerbate tight market conditions, whether intentional or not, are in not their interests.
“We are taking action to introduce a new obligation into electricity generation licences.
“This will prohibit generators from affecting the balancing mechanism in this way for excessive financial gain.”
CASH WOE SWIPES AT DATE APPS
RISING household bills have led to a “cost of loving” crisis as romantics cut back their spending on dating apps.
The volume of dating transactions — which includes spending on apps such as Tinder, Hinge and Bumble — fell by a third in February, a survey of more than 2,000 people by Nationwide found.
Overall spending rose by 10 per cent last month, as consumers had to fork out more on utility bills, mortgage payments and food.
To save cash, nearly a quarter of people have cancelled subscriptions, with outlays on TV streaming, music and meal boxes falling by 6 per cent in February.
Stretched finances mean 38 per cent of consumers had to use credit cards to afford essential items before pay day.
Mark Nalder at Nationwide said: “The number worried about their finances has fallen slightly, but there are people relying on credit.”
IT’S ADIOS MY AMIGO
AMIGO LOANS has said it’s winding down its business and will halt all lending after failing to raise capital from investors.
The sub-prime lender had been looking to raise £15million to pay compensation to over 200,000 customers who had been mis-sold products.
Those customers have now been left in the dark.
The financial regulator said it would have fined Amigo nearly £73million — only that might have affected the payouts customers would receive.
DIY GLOOM SIGN
WICKES is the latest retailer to hint that the DIY boom is starting to falter.
The firm posted a 38.4 per cent fall in pre-tax profits to £40.3million last year after it counted £35million of costs relating to its demerger from Travis Perkins.
However, sales grew by 1.8 per cent to a record £1.6billion.
Sales at the start of this year are “moderately behind” a year ago.
Wickes joins B&Q owner Kingfisher in warning profits would be lower again this year as the surge during lockdown begins to fade.
UK JOBS IN CULL
ONE of the world’s biggest consulting firms, Accenture, is cutting around 19,000 jobs.
The company confirmed UK employees will be affected in its human resources, IT, finance and marketing teams, but did not say how many.
It has around 11,000 workers in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Leeds.
Accenture is shutting offices globally to cut costs by £1.2billion.
Thousands of jobs have already been axed by big tech companies including Meta, Amazon and Google.
THE owner of 32Red, the Kindred Group, has been fined £7.1million and given a warning by the Gambling Commission for doing only “superficial” checks on vulnerable customers — and not doing enough to monitor for money laundering.
FALLS COST LLOYD’S £3BN
LLOYD’S of London, the world’s biggest insurance exchange, has booked £3.1billion of losses on falling government bond values and share prices in the past year.
The insurer revealed it would also have to set aside £1.1billion to cover Ukraine-related claims, lifting its likely war bill to £1.4billion.
The claims, which are related to disruption to supply chains, war damage and sanctions, are still well below the typical cost it would face from US hurricane payouts.
Lloyds suffered a £769million loss for 2022, dropping from a £2.3billion profit the year before.
The insurer is famous for its avant-garde “inside out” headquarters in the City, which has external lifts and stairs. Its roots date back to the 1600s.
CITY firms Cenkos and finnCap have agreed a £43million merger.
They will now have 230 UK staff.
The deal comes four months after a takeover attempt of finnCap by another rival, Panmure Gordon, broke down over price.
Arsenal predicted line-up vs Everton as Mikel Arteta set to stick with new attacking trio
Robert Pires names the current Arsenal trio who would get into Invincibles squad
Trugoy the Dove, of rap trio De La Soul, dead at 54
It is with heavy hearts that fans of the hip-hop trio De La Soul learned today of the death of one of its members, Trugoy the Dove, at the age of 54. The cause of death is unknown and has not been publicly disclosed at this time.
Trugoy, who has recently been going by the name Dave, was born David Jude Jolicoeur in Long Island, New York. He formed De La Soul with fellow MCs Posdnuos and Maseo in 1987, and the group went on to release its landmark debut album 3 Feet High and Rising in 1989. The album was a critical and commercial success and is considered by many to be one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time.
Over the course of their career, De La Soul released a total of nine studio albums, and are known for their innovative and socially conscious lyrics, as well as their eclectic musical style mashed with jazz, funk, and soul influences. Trugoy was an integral part of the group’s sound and style, and his deep, distinctive voice was a defining characteristic of De La Soul’s music. De La Soul recently announced that their catalog will finally be available on streaming services as of March 3, following the resolution of decades-long negotiations regarding contracts and sample clearances.
Trugoy’s death is a loss not only to the hip-hop community but to music lovers around the world. He leaves behind a legacy of groundbreaking and influential music that will continue to inspire and be celebrated for years to come. He will be greatly missed, but his impact on the world of music will endure.
Rest in peace, Trugoy the Dove.
MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X Trio
Here for review today I have MSI’s RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X Trio. It’s a card that brings Nvidia’s Ada Lovelace architecture down to a lower price point, though the three words ‘lower price point’ are very much relative. Still, it’s a card that essentially matches the RTX 3090 in performance while costing less. When viewed in those terms, the RTX 4070 Ti isn’t a bad proposition.
If you haven’t already read it, now would be a good time to check out our Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti review. The card formerly known as the RTX 4080 12GB is fundamentally a very good graphics card that’s still hurt by its price.
It seems like every GPU article over the last few years is framed by price talk. Given the middling spec of the RTX 4070 Ti, you get the feeling Nvidia has a lot of room to drop prices. We’re still early in the life cycle of the Ada generation of cards, I’d imagine that the entire GPU product stack from both AMD and Nvidia is due for a price correction. Though when that might occur is anyone’s guess.
But before drawing too many conclusions (in the introduction no less) let me introduce to you the MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X Trio. It’s the latest iteration of MSI’s popular model, which sits above its Ventus series and below the Suprim series. The Gaming X Trio carries the distinctive styling of its predecessors, with a stylized and somewhat angular aesthetic with a good dose of RGB lighting, a custom PCB and a factory overclock.
MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X Trio overview and specs
The MSI, like all RTX 4070 Ti cards released to date, is built around the third Ada Lovelace GPU to be released, the AD104. It follows the AD102 found in the GeForce RTX 4090, and the AD103 that sits at the heart of the GeForce RTX 4080. AD104 is a 4nm GPU with all of its features enabled, including 7,680 cores, 60 RT Cores and 240 Tensor Cores. For its part, MSI has set the clocks of the Gaming X Trio at a boost clock of 2745MHz, a healthy increase of 135MHz over the Nvidia reference speed.
The card comes with 12GB of 21Gbps GDDR6X memory connected to a 192-bit bus. The resulting 504.2GB/s of memory bandwidth isn’t bad, but it’s actually less than the 256-bit RTX 3070 Ti’s 608.3GB/s. I just can’t get used to the idea of a card costing this much coming with a memory bus like one you’d have gotten on a mid-range card from 10 years ago.
The MSI board has a 285W TDP while power is provided by a single 16-pin 12HPWR power connector. Display outputs are the three standard DP 1.4 ports plus one HDMI 2.1 port. DP 2.0 is missing from the Ada generation, unlike AMD’s latest GPUs.
The Gaming X Trio is a big triple slot card at 34cm long, and honestly, it’s overkill for this class of card. Not that that’s a bad thing! The shroud is mostly black with gray highlights. It’s got an RGB MSI logo on the side, with additional elements either side of the central fan. A full-length metal backplate resides on the rear of the card.
MSI’s Gaming X Trio cards have a long-standing reputation for delivering an excellent balance of low noise levels and cooling potential. As a cooler built to tackle higher TDPs, it has no problem keeping the 285W AD104 GPU running cool and quiet.
The main heatsink cools the GPU, memory and VRM. There are six heatpipes used to transfer heat away into what seems like acres of fins. There’s also a small frame separate from the main heatsink to cool some additional components. It adds some rigidity to the card too.
The PCB is a custom one. It includes a 10-phase design with another two for the memory. Compared to some of the extreme VRMs we’ve seen on some RTX 4090 or AMD RX 7900 XTX class cards, the MSI 4070 Ti Gaming X Trio PCB is quite worldly in comparison. The AD104 GPU simply doesn’t require a high-end VRM design.
The Gaming X trio comes with dual BIOS. The default setting is joined by a silent option, which runs a less aggressive fan curve. However, the card runs with so little noise anyway, I see no reason to engage the silent setting.
MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X Trio benchmarks and performance
The RTX 4070 Ti is priced around the level of the RX 7900 XT. How do they stack up against one another?
If you look at the cooling results, you might be surprised to see the MSI Gaming X Trio running hotter than some of the other cards.
CPU: Intel Core i9 12900K
Motherboard: Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Apex
RAM: 2x 16GB G.Skill Trident-Z DDR5-6000 C36
Storage: 2TB Seagate FireCuda 530
Cooling: Cooler Master PL360 Flux 360mm AIO
PSU: Corsair AX1000
This is a deliberate choice by MSI, and its one I largely agree with. At this temperature, the RTX 4070 Ti’s boost clocks are allowed to reach their maximum, yet the cooler is all but silent. There’s simply no point to running the fan speeds any higher as all it does is add noise for no performance benefit.
When looking at pure power consumption numbers, the RTX 4070 Ti really stands out. It beats out the RX 7900 XT but just as importantly, absolutely smashes the RTX 3080 Ti (and therefore the RTX 3080 all the way up to the RTX 3090 Ti) The RTX 4070 Ti isn’t a perfect card but in terms of power consumption, it’s excellent.
Synthetic gaming performance
1440p Gaming Performance
4K Gaming Performance
MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X Trio analysis
Let’s ignore the pricing for a minute and focus on relative performance. The RTX 4070 Ti is a very good 1440p card, hitting the base 60 fps in Cyberpunk 2077 even without enabling DLSS voodoo. It pulls ahead of both the RTX 3080 Ti and RX 7900 XT in benchmarks with ray tracing enabled.
The tables are turned when it comes to traditional rendering where the RX 7900 XT pulls out a healthy lead. It all comes back to the enduring question: Do you value ray tracing and DLSS? Both cards have their strengths and weaknesses.
At 4K the RTX 4070 Ti appears to lose a bit of performance. This is probably a result of a memory bandwidth bottleneck. It’s still capable of 4K gaming but the likes of the RTX 3080 and Ti remain potent competitors.
Interestingly, the MSI card was happy to consistently run at up to 2,850MHz. Nvidia (and MSI) deserve credit for extracting such a clock speed without losing the plot on power consumption.
MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X Trio verdict
So, the RTX 4070 Ti is a potent 1440p card and more than capable of 4K gaming with the ever-impressive DLSS enabled, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and that means pricing comes back into the equation. Compared to the RX 7900 XT it’s not bad, but that’s a much more complicated design. You get the feeling Nvidia is making serious money on each RTX 4070 Ti sold. All we can do is hope that it will eventually deliver some relief to gamers who have had little to cheer about in recent years with the pandemic, supply chain issues and mining demand to contend with.
Getting back to the MSI Gaming X Trio, and I’m pleased to say MSI has again done a stellar job. The cooler is tuned just right, allowing the GPU to reach its highest boost states without compromising on noise levels.
It looks good, it’s got a good quality PCB, dual BIOS and its Afterburner software always gets a favorable mention, though its future maybe isn’t entirely certain.
Whether the RTX 4070 Ti is the right card for you comes down to what you have in your rig right now. If you’re upgrading from a GTX card or RTX 20 series card, you’ll enjoy a stunning performance uplift, plus enjoy the benefits of much improved ray tracing performance and DLSS. But if you’ve got an RTX 30 or RX 6000-series card, the gains aren’t anywhere near as dramatic, especially given the cost involved.
If you do decide to grab an RTX 4070 Ti, the MSI flavor is a good one. It blends performance cooling capacity and build quality into a well-balanced package. It’s not overly expensive compared to the high-end Asus Strix or MSI Suprim, and that’s especially important when you consider those cards really are overkill for what is essentially a mid-range GPU.
Knock a hundred off the price Nvidia, and then the RTX 4070 Ti becomes something different, something incredibly potent.