MSI unveils Geforce RTX 3000 lineup with Gaming X Trio in the front line

When graphics card makers compete to present news about Nvidia’s or AMD’s new graphics card series, the space to stand out in terms of specifications and performance is often quite limited. Companies may instead use their own engineering innovations to stand out in the myriad of product launches. This is exactly what MSI focuses on with the news around Nvidia’s Geforce RTX 3000 series, where the product series Ventus and Gaming X Trio represent good and better.

► Ampere is here – Geforce RTX 3080 doubles the performance of RTX 2080

The Gaming Trio series represents a number of products that differ in how many engineering features they offer. The flagship is the Geforce RTX 3090 Gaming X Trio, whose boasting features include the Torx Fan 4.0 fan solution. Here, two fan blades are linked together via an outer ring design that will focus the air flow to the improved cooling solution Tri Frozr 2.0. MSI also believes that the heating pipes have been optimized to better distribute the heat over the heat sink.

Wave-shaped fins on the cooling flange should also reduce the sound levels of the card. As the company’s top cards are probably used by enthusiasts, the cards’ printed circuit boards (PCBs) have been reinforced with extra fuses that will reduce the risk of the cards being damaged by electricity. The material design of the printed circuit boards also applies a thicker copper layer that conducts current and dissipates heat better. Trio X is also complemented by a standard Trio model.

MSI states that the flagships occupy 2.7 slots, which in practice will be 3 slots as space is needed for hot air outflow. MSI’s RTX 3090 models are also equipped with a rear cover plate with heat conduction tubes that will dissipate the extra heat that 24 GB of GDDR6X memory adds. These heat conduction pipes consist in part of graphene which has extra good heat-dissipating properties.

Although the product pages do not reflect this at the time of writing, Trio X tends to represent MSI’s factory overclocked cards while Trio follows Nvidia’s reference speeds. The Gaming Trio family also includes Trio X and Trio models for the Geforce RTX 3080 and Geforce RTX 3070. Those who do not want to completely drain their wallets can instead look at the Ventus product family, where both price and technical ambition jump down a notch.

Here, too, a cooling solution with three fans is applied, but these consist of the slightly simpler solution Torx Fan 3.0. Here, conventional fan blades are mixed with what MSI calls spreading blades, which work together to more efficiently direct the air flow towards the heat sink. According to the company’s data, this 50 percent better air pressure in the radiator solution compared to fans with conventional fan blades, and 15 percent better than the previous solution Torx Fan 2.0.

Furthermore, MSI’s system Zero Frozr is applied, where the speed of the fans is adapted to the load. If the heat level that has built up is low, the fans can stop completely, to dynamically rev up again when the temperatures rise under load. The components on the Ventus cards are also equipped with heat-dissipating bearings that transfer heat from the components to the heat sink.

As with the Gaming Trio, the Ventus family consists of several models of RTX 3090, RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 character. The models consist of both factory overclocked variants (OC) and reference-faithful ditons, and the Ventus RTX 3070 is available in two models where the radiator solution is cut down to two fans (2X).

MSI does not disclose price information for the upcoming graphics cards, which may be expected to be available in connection with the associated launch date. These are September 17 for the Geforce RTX 3080, September 24 for the flagship RTX 3090 and speculators on the RTX 3070 will have to wait until October 2020.

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