While we all wish we could afford an Nvidia RTX 3090 or AMD RX 6900 XT, we average PC gamers are interested in more affordable and secular options like the RTX 3060 Ti. PCG has already checked out the Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition cards and have been impressed with their generational performance gains and general features. [But there is always room for improvement, and we have come to expect that from premium-tier partner cards like the MSI RTX 3060 Ti Gaming X Trio card presented here. It is an absolute monster card. Is it worth paying a higher premium than an entry-level card?

The RTX 3060 Ti has a lot in common with the Nvidia RTX 3070: it uses a cut-down version of the GA104 GPU with 4,864 active cores, compared to the RTX 3070's 5,888 active cores. Both share 8GB of 14Gbps memory and, of course, have access to all of Ampere's features, including improved 2nd generation ray tracing support, DLSS, etc. For more information on the RTX 30 Series architecture features and technology, see the launch article.

Moving on to the MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Gaming X Trio itself (at 10x speed), the first thing that becomes apparent is its size. This would make a pretty good murder weapon (your mind goes there first.)

The Tri Frozr cooler is more than capable of cooling this less demanding GA104 GPU, as it is the same one used to cool the much higher TDP RTX 3080 Gaming X version. 323mm x 140mm x 56mm triple slot card, so you need to make sure it will fit in your case. There is a neat RGB light bar along the edge of the card, along with a lighted MSI logo and another strip across the fan shroud. It's a great looking card. At $489, it is considerably more expensive than the less expensive Founders Edition and reference cards, but it is on par with top-class cards like Asus and Gigabyte's Strix and Aorus. [The MSI RTX 3060 Ti, however, features a very large and surprisingly sparse PCB with an 8-phase VRM. This 4th tier Ampere GPU does not need a VRM like Lightning. The boost clock is 1,830 MHz, but unless you are mining or using a case with poor airflow, the official clock is almost irrelevant. The card has a much higher TDP of 240W compared to the RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition's 200W; the proprietary 12-pin power connector found on Nvidia cards is omitted in favor of a pair of standard 8-pin PCIe connectors.

This may be a good thing for picky cable managers who dislike the central placement of 12-pin connectors. The card includes the now-common display outputs, including three DisplayPort 1.4a and one HDMI 2.1 port; Type-C USB was omitted in the Ampere generation because it does not require VirtualLink. [But in the end, what matters most is performance, and the RTX 3060 Ti not only significantly outperforms the RTX 2060, but also the RTX 2070 and RTX 2080, as well as the Super models. In fact, among the Turing generation GeForce cards, only the RTX 2080 Ti is faster; the MSI Gaming X makes fun of the advertised 1,830 MHz boost clock. After running at full load for more than 10 minutes, the card settled into a stable boost clock of 1,930-1,970 MHz, albeit on an open test bench.

MSI's Gaming X Trio option is often the quietest graphics card you can buy, and the RTX 3060 Ti flavor continues that trend. It manages this low noise level without being audible over the other fans and AIO pumps in our test system, without compromising performance in the slightest. We have found that this cooler can easily control much hotter RTX 3080 GPUs, so being tasked with cooling a GA104 GPU that requires 100W less power is truly a walk in the park. If quietness is a priority, look no further.

A quick overclocking test showed that the boost clock was stable between 2,020 and 2,050 MHz. This is not bad, but given the way modern GPUs boost effectively within their power budgets, a performance increase of about 5% does not seem worth much. Even memory could easily achieve 2,000 MHz (up from the default 14 Gbps to 16 Gbps). With time, more than that may be possible, but how meaningful is it in terms of additional performance?

If you're looking for a card that can game at 1440p and play at high settings, the RTX 3060 Ti is a great choice; playing something like Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K resolution at max settings will exceed the RTX 3060 Ti. But at least you can play it with ray tracing and DLSS enabled. These are currently not available to AMD users.

When you see a stunning game like Cyberpunk 2077, you would think that ray tracing is the "killer app" that really pushes the threshold to becoming a core PC graphics technology. Raytracing is no longer a cool bonus technology. Raytracing will become even more popular from here. That said, let's see how AMD and the new consoles look when ray tracing becomes available.

Now that we have the commentary out of the way, let's get back to the MSI Gaming X Trio. The larger cooler means a significant improvement in heat and noise levels over the entry-level RTX 3060 Ti card, but it costs an extra $70 or more. The 40W increase in power consumption must also be considered. Whether it is worth the extra cost is up to you. At this position in the market, this kind of price premium is not as dramatic as the hundreds of dollars extra for a premium RTX 3080, but if your budget is limited, it could make a big difference.

There is also the vexing issue of availability; Nvidia's RTX 30 series, and AMD's RX 6000 series cards, suffer from low or non-existent stock levels; waiting months for a GPU to come in is unacceptable, and the price of the RTX 3080 is not as high as that of the RX 6000 series. So your decision on which card to buy may depend on whether it happens to be in stock at the moment you happen to see this page. [The MSI RTX 3060 Ti Gaming X is a nice, chunky card targeted at users who value quiet operation and premium mid-range performance. If you want a nice RGB splash on a card that leans more toward low noise than a few degrees of temperature, the MSI Gaming X Trio is one to consider. When you can afford the choice, that is.