A Closer Look
The front of the card has a familiar feel if you know MSI cards but is distinctly new. It fits in alongside the other RTX 30 series cards in the same family whilst being the most unique amongst those other cards due to its smaller size. Unlike the last generation there is no RGB on the front of the card, but I don’t think it matters too much since you won’t see it in your PC without vertically mounting it anyway.
The fan features a 10 blade design. The blades are grouped in pairs and are connected at the tips of the blades, which is a design that’s meant to direct air more towards the heatsink for a more effective and efficient cooling solution. On the hub of the fan is a thin metal badge with the MSI Dragon logo on it which fits into the design well and doesn’t look out of place or distracting.
In typical MSI fashion, the backplate is fairly understated. It features a white printed MSI shield logo in the middle and a matching white GEFORCE RTX logo in the top corner, that breaks the design up a bit. On one of the corners, MSI have used a slightly different finish to give a subtle and more full design to the backplate. On the other side of the backplate, we find small cutouts for air to pass through which are styled to fit in with the overall design and “gamer” look.
At the back of the card we can see 3 heat pipes that go through the main part of the heatsink, which is split into 2 sections, the front and the back.
On the other side, the front heat sink is only taking advantage of 2 heat pipes that are curved round to cover a wider area within the cooler.
At the back, we find 3 Display port connectors and only a single HDMI 2.1 port. Personally, I would have liked to of seen one of the Display port connections be removed in favour of another HDMI, but that’s just my personal preference.
The 8-pin power connector is tucked away just enough that a power cable coming from it looks neat and tidy, however, they have placed it right above the GEFORCE RTX logo, so unless you run the cable above the GPU, the cable will cover the logo.
Here is the one that many of you will care about, which is “how will it look in my PC?”. Well the good news is that it will look great in any build with a very dark theme. The MSI logo on the side lights up in configurable RGB glory, the only thing I wish to see is a little more of it elsewhere on the card like the previous generation that added a little extra if you so desired.
Overall, the card looks subtle and yet confident, the only thing that lets it down a bit for me is the white printed logos. The card could have looked just that little bit nicer if they were black or dark grey with a shiny finish as apposed to the matted white that distracts from the cards dark theme. But with that being said, as it stands, the card has a fantastic design that I think many gamers would be happy to see in their own PC.
