MSI RTX 3060 Ti Gaming X Trio Graphics Card Review

A Closer Look

If you’ve seen our previous MSI RTX 3000 series reviews, you’ll know this card looks pretty familiar now. The Gaming X Trio uses the same cooler across the whole range, so even the RTX 3070 Gaming X TRIO and the much more expensive RTX 3090 Gaming X TRIO look pretty much the same as this.

Of course, that’s no bad thing, as if this cooler can tame the flagship models, then it should have no trouble beating the RTX 3060 Ti chipset! Especially since it features three enormous TORX 4.0 fans with axial blades. It’s designed to cool the card passively below 55c, and which a 2.5 slot thick design, there’s plenty of radiator to allow for that.

The fans have a hybrid axial design, so if you look, they only have that outer rim on every other blade, turning them into pairs. It’s a strange looking design, but if it helps keep the card cooler and quieter, that’s fine with me!

Around the back, there’s a full-size black plate offering even more cooling for the PCB. However, it also keeps the card rigid to prevent sag, and it looks cool too. There’s some slight variation in the ventilation pattern here too, so perhaps the card isn’t completely identical to the other models.

There’s a larger cut-out for the mounting bracket too, so it should be easy enough to do a tear-down on this design. Plus, you can inspect all those capacitors, as seems to be the trend these days.

The card draws power from a pair of 8-pin headsets, which seems like a lot for the RTX 2060 series, but keep in mind, this is an all-out factory OC model too.

Around the back ,we can see that the card does sit quite wide, going a fair bit pass the rear bracket. It’s also 2.5 slots tall, so remember to measure up your case before you order one of these beasts. Around the back, you get 3 x DP and 1 x HDMI ports.