To fully cater to the different graphics ranges for its fans, MSI has expanded the new Nvidia GTX series, announcing the Gaming Z lineup for the GTX 1080 and the Gaming X profile for the GTX 1070. How do these cards stack up against each other and compare with the rest of the GTX lineup?

MSI outed its Gaming X series last month, based on the new GTX 10XX family from Nvidia. However, instead of the stock models with the new GTX series, MSI featured new improvements and tweaks in the new Gaming series of GPUs.

Both the Gaming X and Gaming Z lineups use the signature Twin Frozr VI thermal design from MSI. This means that in terms of cooling mechanisms, the Gaming Z GTX 1080 and Gaming X GTX 1070 can both perform much better and faster without the overheating issue, since MSI installed the company's Torx Fan 2.0 tech inside the cards. Aside from the updated cooling system with large heat sinks and copper heat pipes, both GPUs also sport thermal compounds in the Nvidia Pascal chip, to add more cooling features even with overclocked speeds. All the cards in the Gaming series also comes with an MSI Gaming app, which automates some of the features for the GPU, particularly the VR support.

However, although both GPU systems share the same design technology, there is difference in terms of performance, since both Pascal chips have different architectures. Since the GTX 1070 is already a step-down version of the GTX 1080, the difference in performance also shows itself in the MSI Gaming series of cards. For example, although both cards can be overclocked, the Gaming Z profiles have better performance in its stock versions than the OC variants for the Gaming X series. In addition, while both can support 4K gaming, performance levels are still higher in the GTX 1080 series.