MSI RX 6800 XT GAMING X TRIO 16G Graphics Card Review

How Much Does It Cost?

This card is going to be a little more than a stock Radeon RX 6800 XT (review), however, what that truly means in early 2021 is up for interpretation. We know the cards are out of stock, you might see one, and lucky you if you do. However, until stock returns, which it absolutely will, I’m not nailing down a number here, which I’m sure you can appreciate.

Overview

MSI has a reputation for being one of the best gaming brands on the market, and that’s especially true when it comes to their graphics cards. Their Gaming X Trio may not be their most extreme flagship series, but it’s pretty darn close. It’s no surprise then that this card performed close to the Sapphire Nitro+ 6800 XT and even exceeded its performance a little in some tests.

Overclocked

The factory overclock is obviously part of why this card is so far. However, a lot more of the performances comes from the cooler. Being able to maintain the clock speeds for longer, rather than just in bursts gives you much better performance overall, especially at much more demanding resolutions such as 4K. The card hit above 60 FPS in all tests at 4K, and even over a 100 in some games! So clearly, it’s no slouch.

Even the Ray Tracing performance was decent, not quite as dialled in as Nvidia, but I’m sure a few driver updates will help that too over the coming months.

Build Quality

The card is robust inside and out, and the upgraded hardware helps MSI’s card keep performance maxed out. The PCB is thicker, and even has more fuses and power conditioning hardware, ensuring it can deal with more voltage and heat with prolonged gaming sessions. We already know the Frozr 2 cooler is epic, and it’s proved its worth on other MSI cards that we’ve tested, so it’s little surprise it did well.

It did run a little warmer at idle than expected, but again, higher clock speeds and zero RPM fans will do that. However, once things got going, it was clear that cooling performance overall was not an issue. The TORX 4 fans move a lot of air and run nice and quiet, which is impressive on a card this size.

Should I Buy One?

While stock and prices are up in the air at the moment, we know this will be one of the more expensive models compared to the AMD version of the 6800 XT. That being said, you’re paying for a bigger cooler, bigger fans, bigger clock speeds and most importantly, better performance than rival 6800 XT cards.