Card Layout and Photos

Well here she is, the MSI RTX 3060 Gaming X Trio, and if I didn’t put the box in the first picture showing that this is an RTX 3060 you might even mix it up with another card like the RTX 3090 Gaming x Trio. From what I can tell this is the same cooler which is a little crazy. The card looks amazing though and this is my first look at one of MSI's Gaming X cards this generation and I like the new look. They have mixed grey and black on the angular plastic shroud to exaggerate the angles. The trio as the name implies is a triple-fan card. The center fan has almost claw-like cuts in it with addressable lighting behind them for just a touch of fan side RGB lighting on the otherwise color-neutral shroud.

image 13
image 14
image 15

I honestly didn’t exact there to be an RTX 3060 this large, but the Gaming X Trio comes in at 323mm long, 140mm tall, and 56mm thick. The extra 30mm up on top doesn’t count the extra wires coming off the top for your power cables, so keep in mind you will need room. The 56mm thickness is a triple-slot card as well. Those are the same dimensions as MSIs Gaming Trio for the RTX 3080 and the RTX 3090 and that is because from what I can see this is the same cooler. Yeah, they really did pack an overclocked RTX 3090’s cooler on to an RTX 3060!

image 26
image 27

All three of the Trio’s fans are the same size and have the same orientation. They are 95mm and have a unique impeller blade that has more twist than you see on most other fans. If you look close you can also see that every other blade is held together with a small panel at the end that gives them more strength. Normally designs like this will connect all of the blades together on the outside, so the every other design is unique to the Torx 4.0 fans. When you look down through the fans you can also see the heatsink itself has a wavy design facing the fans.

image 16
image 17
image 18

Looking around at the top and bottom edges as well as the end of the card you get a better idea of its thickness. Even after the fan shroud which overhands, you can still see another 21mm of full heatsink thickness with it even thicker in areas like at the end where there is room. It is split into three sections with the middle having a full-contact surface for the GPU and memory around the GPU. Then at the splits, it gives room for the heatpipes to arch up to be higher in the outside heatsinks. Speaking of heatpipes there are five in total for the right heatsink and four for the smaller left heatsink, with all running into the center section and a few of those having 180 bends to come back in for a second layer on the center section up higher. The heatsink itself has a vertical layout that directs the triple fan layouts air up and down and for the far right fan it also blows through as well.

image 22
image 23
image 24

The top edge of the Gaming X Trio has the MSI logo on it as well as GeForce RTX branding. The MSI logo has their addressable RGB lighting built-in behind it. This goes with the accents on the fan side. Then there is also a full 145mm long light diffuser that sits on the top edge of the backplate. For power, the 3060 Gaming X Trio is also fitted with dual 8-pin power connections which is twice what the XC Black had. MSI did drop the power connections down slightly from the total height of the card and notched both plugs to allow room for the clips on the PCB side.

image 20
image 21

On the PCI bracket end the RTX 3060 Gaming X Trio has what is now considered a normal display connection layout which gets you three DisplayPorts and then one HDMI down at the bottom. The PCI bracket does have ventilation holes that cover most of the rest of the space, but the cooler layout isn’t designed to blow air in this direction. I do wish that this was a full blacked-out bracket which in my opinion looks better. But the tinted chromed finish isn’t too bad as well.

image 25

The backplate for the Gaming X Trio is full length, even going down past the end of the PCB at the end where you can see MSI has added blow-through ventilation. It has the MSI Gaming logo as well as the GeForce RTX branding on it which is upside down to be oriented correctly when installed in a normal case. It is cut around the GPU bracket leaving just the one section of exposed PCB in the middle. The backplate is made of a composite and doesn’t feel like some of the cheap plastic backplates that I have seen used. They describe it as composite graphene. They say it is four times stronger than a plastic backplate and has 20 times the heat dissipation in my paperwork, but that doesn’t help compare it with a metal model which would also be stronger and have better heat dissipation than a plastic backplate.

image 19

Before jumping into testing, I did get a few shots of the card's lighting in action. I am digging the fan side lighting which isn’t too overkill and even lights up the rippled heatsink in behind the fans as well. The MSI logo being backlit, well I’ve talked a lot in the past about not being a big fan of lit up branding all over PCs so there is no point in saying much more on that. Then you have that long lightbar at the top of the backplate and it's bright. If you want big in your face lighting in your build this is going to work perfectly. If you want something more subtle you may need to turn this one down or off in the software.

image 28
image 29
image 30

 

Log in to comment

We have 2124 guests and no members online

supportus