MSI GeForce RTX 3060 GAMING X TRIO Review

MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Models Come To Market

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card launched yesterday and today we wanted to show you the MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Gaming X TRIO. This custom card arrived shortly before launch and is what we would consider a premium part for the 3060 series. MSI currently offers four GeForce RTX 3060 models and this is the flagship model.

RTX 3060 Gaming X Trio 12G: $519.99
RTX 3060 Gaming X 12G: $499.99
RTX 3060 Ventus 3X 12G OC: $479.99
RTX 3060 Ventus 2X 12G OC: $469.99

We learned about the pricing for this series less than 24 hours before they launched and we were a bit shocked. None of the MSI models come close to NVIDIA’s starting price of $329. MSI starts at $469 on their base model and goes all the way up to $519. Our contacts at MSI USA said these prices are due to the 25% tariffs placed on certain imports on the Trump administration. Not all brands are doing this, so this is rather unfortunate and something we wanted to discuss right away.

The model that we received to test and review is the MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Gaming X TRIO graphics card. It has a beefy triple-fan design with prominent RGB lighting thanks to a diffuser strip across the top of the card, a backlit logo and three stripes across the front. Under the massive GPU cooler is a fully custom PCB design that features a 13+3 phase power design.

Those design choices have allowed MSI to ship this model out the door with a boost clock of 1852 MHz. The stock boost clock for the GeForce RTX 3060 is 1777 MHz, so MSI was able to ship this model with a 75 MHz factory overclock. The 12GB of GDDR6 memory on this model is not overclocked and runs at 15 Gbps. Pretty much everything is over-the-top on this model and it should be for a flagship model.

Inside the retail packaging you’ll find the video card as well as a bundled support bracket. This is an optional metal bracket that can be attached to your PC case for additional graphics card reinforcement.

MSI doesn’t appear to be a fan of trees as they included not one, not two, but five five pamphlets for you to read.

The MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Gaming X TRIO is 2.5-slot graphics card that measures 12.72-inches in length (323mm) and 5.51-inches (140mm) in height. GPU cooling is taken care of with the MSI TRI FROZR 2 Thermal Design. This design has been used on the other GeForce RTX 30-series cards. It consists of TORX Fan 4.0, Core Pipe and Airflow Control (an optimized heatsink design that guides air to where it is needed most).

TORX Fan 4.0 has fan blades that have been paired together to increase airflow towards the internal heatsink assembly. The fans themselves are a double ball bearing design that ensures silent performance in the most demanding workloads. All three fans utilize MSI Zero Frozr Technology and this means they stay at 0 RPM at temperatures under 60C. Once the temperature exceeds 60C the fans will spin up to keep things nice and cool. MSI Dragon Center allows advanced users to control settings in real-time for those that want manual control.

On the end of the card you can see five heatpipes sticking out of the GPU cooler. The plastic fan shroud overhangs slightly off the end of the card.

When you flip the MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Gaming X TRIO card over you’ll discover it features a lightweight composite graphene backplate that reinforced the card while helping dissipate heat. There are thermal pads on the back of the card between the board components and the backplate.

When it comes to display connections you’ll find three DisplayPort 1.4a connectors and a single HDMI 2.1 connector. The DisplayPort 1.4a outputs support Display Stream Compression (DSC) 1.2a. The RTX 3060 uses the 7th Gen NVENC encoding engine and the 5th Gen NVDEC engine. This means that AV1 decode support is offered on this card along with support for MPEG-2, VC-1, H.264, H.265 (HEVC), VP8, and VP9.

Here is a closer look at the top of the MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Gaming X TRIO graphics cards. The 3060 card has a Total Graphics Power (TGP) rating of 170 Watts and MSI recommends a 550W or greater power supply for this model. There ate two 8-pin PCIe power connectors located along the top edge of the card.

Lastly, here is a look at the bottom of the graphics card that you’ll never see once it is installed.

Let’s take a quick look at the test system and then see how the 3060 Gaming X TRIO performs!