MSI GeForce RTX 3060 GAMING X TRIO 12G graphics card
▲ MSI GeForce RTX 3060 GAMING X TRIO 12G
This time I’m going to introduce you to MSI’s new GeForce RTX 3060 GAMING X TRIO 12G graphics card, equipped with TRI FROZR 2.0 cooling system, TORX FAN 4.0 cooling fan, direct contact square heat pipe, The wave-shaped heat sink fins and graphene backplane are all retained. The implementation of “slasher for killing chickens and pearl for popping birds”, plus 7 + 2 phase power supply modules, provides extremely stable, quiet and low temperature 1080p ray tracing gaming experience.
MSI GeForce RTX 3060 GAMING X TRIO 12G looks the same as other models in the “GAMING X TRIO” series, measuring 323mm x 140mm x 56mm. It also uses a triple fan heat sink and a 2.7 Slot thick card body design. The main tone is metallic gray and heavy black, and the irregular geometric design is adopted. Three RGB luminous lines are added on the front to symbolize the shape of being grasped by the dragon claws, plus the luminous MSI lettering on the top of the card and the light guide on the back panel The overall texture and appearance are top level.
7 + 2 phase power supply module design
▲ PCB design with non-public board
After removing the heat sink, you can see that this MSI RTX 3060 graphics card adopts its own non-public PCB design, which optimizes power transmission and line distribution. The components and the entire layout used are quite similar to NVIDIA’s official Reference Design. The difference. In particular, more fuses are soldered on the PCB to provide additional protection to prevent damage to the graphics card components due to problems with the power supply.
▲ Designed with 7 + 2 phase power supply
In terms of power supply design, it has a 7 + 2 phase power supply module design. Like GA104, the current generation of GA106 is not divided into nvvdd power supply + msvdd power supply. GPU and GDDR6 use 7-phase and 2-phase power supply respectively. Part of the GPU power supply uses the ON semiconductor NCP302045 MOSFET chip. The integrated driver and upper and lower bridge MOSFETs are added in a single package. Single-phase can provide 45A continuous current and 75A peak current output; GDDR6 power supply uses NIKO Semicon PK616BA and NIKO Semicon PK698SA respectively As the upper and lower bridge MOSFETs, single-phase provides 50A continuous current output, with fully enclosed alloy inductors and 5K hours solid capacitors to provide reliable, stable and accurate power supply.
▲ Two PCIe 8-pin power supplies are required
Unlike the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti FE public board, the GeForce RTX 3060 GAMING X TRIO 12G graphics card does not use the NVIDIA 12-Pin power supply interface. Instead, it uses the traditional 2 PCIe 8 Pin interfaces. The maximum TDP is 170W. The official recommendation is 550W. The power supply is used.
NVIDIA “GA106-300-A1” graphics core
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 uses a deleted “GA106-300” graphics core, a new Ampere architecture, 8nm NVIDIA Custom process, Samsung foundry, 13.25 billion transistors, Die Size is about 276mm², and some units are shielded , With 3 GPC units, reduced to 15 TPC texture processing clusters and 28 SM streaming multi-processors, with 3,584 CUDA Cores, 28 2nd generation RT Cores and 112 3rd generation Tensor Cores, supporting PCIe 4.0 x16 interface.
▲ NVIDIA GA106-300-A1 graphics core
In terms of core clock, MSI GeForce RTX 3060 GAMING X TRIO 12G has a Base Clock of 1,320MHz and a Boost Clock of 1,852MHz. It supports GPU Boost 4.0 technology and can automatically overclock to a higher clock according to load and temperature.
▲ Support AV1 hardware decoding capability
In addition, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 also has the 5th generation NVDEC image decoder and the 7th generation NVENC image encoder, providing MPEG-2, VP8, VP9, VC-1, H.264 (AVCHD) and H.265 (HEVC) ) And other rich decoding capabilities, and more importantly, the new AV1 decoding function has been added, allowing users to smoothly watch video content in different encoding formats. At present, many 4K and 8K video content on Youtube have changed to AV1, an open source encoding format. It would be very inefficient to use CPU for software decoding, even the 10-core, 20-thread Intel Core i9-10900K is softer. It is still very reluctant to deal with AV1 videos at 8K@60FPS.
12GB GDDR6 display memory
▲ Samsung K4ZAF325BM-HC16 GDDR6 memory particles
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 and RTX 3060 Ti also use GDDR6 memory, but instead they are equipped with 6 Samsung K4ZAF325BM-HC16 GDDR6 memory particles, using a 17nm manufacturing process and a 180FBGA package, and the memory transfer speed has increased to 16 Gbps at 192-bit The memory bandwidth under the memory interface is 360GB/s. The single capacity is 16Gbit, and the total VRAM capacity is 12GB, which is more than RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3070 or even RTX 3080.
▲ Exhausted 12GB memory capacity when rendering 3D animation
For NVIDIA, the GeForce RTX 3060 12GB is not only aimed at the 1080p game player market, but also provides professional creators with a cost-effective rendering computing solution. With more graphics memory and NVIDIA Studio drivers, it can execute larger batches. , Higher resolution rendering, more complex AI calculations.
TRI FROZR 2 cooling system
▲ 2.7 SLOT three-fan giant radiator
▲ 6 heat pipes run through all cooling fins
The new MSI GeForce RTX 3060 GAMING X TRIO 12G graphics card continues to use the TRI FROZR 2.0 cooling system, using a 2.7 Slot three-fan giant radiator, equipped with 6 square direct-contact heat pipes, which can strengthen the gap between the heat pipes more than general heat pipes. The heat conduction performance of the heat sink can greatly reduce the gap between the surface of the radiator and the core chip, and the use of Wave-curved 2.0 wave-shaped heat dissipation fins and deflector design allows the airflow to pass through more smoothly, reducing the noise of the airflow At the same time, it provides higher heat dissipation performance.
▲ Direct-touch square heat pipe design (left) /
Design of deflector on fin (right)
The radiator is equipped with three TORX 4.0 90mm cooling fans, using more durable double ball bearings, and adding a fan frame combination design. Every two blades are connected in the middle to form a sealing ring-like effect, which effectively enhances the air intake. And the wind pressure level, the airflow is more concentratedly directed to the radiator, so as to more effectively take away the heat of the computing element. It also supports ZERO FROZR technology. When the GPU temperature is lower than 56°C, the fan will be completely stationary, providing a zero-noise gaming experience.
▲ Brand new TORX 4.0 cooling fan
Metal bending tape, graphene backplane
MSI GeForce RTX 3060 GAMING X TRIO 12G The weight of the entire giant radiator cannot be ignored. In order to strengthen the load-bearing capacity of the graphics card and prevent the PCB from being bent, the product has added a metal anti-bending tape and a graphene backplane, and the two and the PCB Thermal pastes are always attached to them, which can also slightly help some components to reduce the transportation, so as to improve the stability of the graphics card under long-term use.
▲ Add graphene backplane design
Upgrade HDMI 2.1, support 8K @ 60Hz HDR
▲ Equipped with 3 DisplayPort 1.4a, 1 HDMI 2.1
In order to welcome the 8K output era, the new “GA102” graphics core has updated the display output engine. In addition to supporting DisplayPort 1.4a output, it also upgraded HDMI to version 2.1. Both DisplayPort and HDMI interfaces can provide 8K 12bit HDR @ 60Hz resolution. High-speed output is 4 times the bandwidth requirement of 4K pixels. It also supports VEGA DSC 1.2 technology to provide higher compression and lossless display. A single card can provide up to 2 8K displays at the same time, or use 2 sets of DisplayPort connectors to provide 1 8K 12bit HDR @ 120Hz output.
| DisplayPort 1.4a | 8.1Gbps | 32.4Gbps | 4K 12bit HDR @240Hz 8K 12bit HDR @ 60Hz |
| HDMI 2.1 | 8.1Gbps | 48Gbps | 4K 12bit HDR @ 240Hz 8K 12bit HDR @ 60Hz |
Support Mystic Light lighting effect
MSI GeForce RTX 3060 GAMING X TRIO 12G has not reduced the lighting effect because it is the more entry-level “RTX 3060”. It continues to add ARGB lighting control to the card back, card body and MSI logo, and supports Mystic Light RGB. The lighting effect synchronization technology can synchronize the lighting effects with its own motherboard and other supported peripheral hardware to create an RGB faith lighting effect without any sense of violation.
Support MSI Afterburner overclocking tool
▲ MSI Afterburner overclocking tool
It supports its own MSI Afterburner overclocking tool. Users can adjust the graphics card clock, core voltage, fan speed and Power Limit by themselves. It also supports the Profile recording function. Users can preset multiple profiles to apply in different situations. The software also supports real-time monitoring of graphics card data, including real-time information such as core clock, memory clock, core temperature, fan speed, and occupied graphics memory, which is very practical.
Thermal test:
In terms of heat dissipation, the MSI GeForce RTX 3060 GAMING X TRIO 12G graphics card is idle for about 30 minutes at a room temperature of about 26°C, the GPU temperature is about 31°C, and the fan remains in the ZERO FROZR stall mode. Then Furmark was used for 3D load test. After the GPU was fully loaded for 30 minutes, thanks to the multiple air flow control design of the powerful TRI FROZR 2 radiator, the fan speed was only increased to 36%, 1180RPM, while maintaining the system is very quiet, The maximum temperature does not exceed 60°C, and the GPU core clock is maintained at about 1,620MHz. It is more than enough to suppress the “RTX 3060” with a maximum TGP of only 170W with such a huge heat sink.
The author also conducted a special heat dissipation test, using this giant MSI GeForce RTX 3060 GAMING X TRIO 12G to play “League Of Legend League of Legends”, the game with 3840 x 2160 resolution, maximum 120Hz refresh rate and highest quality settings Running, after 36 minutes of playing, the temperature of the display core is only 46℃, and the fan still maintains the ZERO FROZR stopped state, which can indeed provide a completely silent gaming experience.
Performance test:
testing platform:
Intel Core i9-10900K processor
ASUS ROG Ryujin 360 AIO Water Cooler
MSI MEG Z490 GODLIKE motherboard
DDR4-3600 CL16 32GB x 2 memory
MSI GeForce RTX 3060 GAMING X TRIO 12G graphics card
Windows 10 2004 (Build 10.0.19041) OS
NVIDIA 461.72 (Build Branch r461_66) Display Driver
In terms of clocks, the core clocks of MSI GeForce RTX 3060 GAMING X TRIO 12G are 1,320MHz Base Clock and 1,852MHz Boost Clock, which are 75MHz higher than the Boost Clock announced by the official specifications, and support the new GPU Boost 4.0 technology according to temperature and load level. Automatic overclocking to the highest 1,950MHz, the amplitude is slightly conservative.
“Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege” game test:
First use “Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege” to test the game performance, set the default image quality to “Very High”, and run the built-in performance benchmark test tools at 1080p, 2K, and 4K resolutions. , The average FPS is 361, 259, and 136, respectively, which can provide extremely smooth game screens in general FPS games with low load.
“Bright Memory: Infinite-Bright Memory: Infinite” game test:
In addition, “Bright Memory: Infinite-Bright Memory: Infinite” is used for RTX and DLSS performance testing. This game should be one of the games that temporarily uses the most RTX elements, not only including global lighting, reflection, shadow and ambient light occlusion, but also adding Caustics, that is, after the light is reflected or refracted on the surface of a smooth metal or transparent object, it converges and diverges to form a new light source and illuminate other objects around it; and the addition of multiple layers of transparency is also temporary One of the games with the highest demand for graphics card computing performance. Support the new DLSS level setting, providing four levels of “Quality”, “Balanced”, “Performance” and “Ultra Performance”.
RTX 3060 is positioned for 1080p and 2K Gaming, so I set the benchmark to run in RTX High and DLSS Performance Mode with FHD and QHD resolution. The results achieved an average of 86 and 56 FPS in the two tests respectively, which can provide a sufficiently smooth high-end RTX gaming experience.
“Watch Dogs: Free Legion Watch Dogs Legion” game test:
Ubisoft’s new third sequel to Watch Dogs stand-alone masterpiece — Watch Dogs: Legion, supports the new NVIDIA RTX ray tracing and DLSS 2.1 technology, which can improve the realism of the game screen and game performance, RTX ray tracing reflection The effect provides three image quality settings of “appropriate”, “high”, and “highest”; DLSS provides four image quality settings of “performance mode”, “balance mode”, “quality mode”, and “super high mode”. I will use the two built-in Benchmarks in Watch Dogs: Legion to test the game performance of the graphics card.
NVIDIA has previously released the recommended hardware configuration for Watch Dogs: Legion. The recommended image quality for RTX 2060 is set to 1080p + “Very High” + RTX High + DLSS Quality. It is believed that the performance of RTX 3060 is also at a similar level. Due to the high-definition texture pack used in the Ultra image quality setting, the VRAM capacity of the graphics card is required to be higher. If the Ultra image quality is adjusted to 4K + Ultra image quality under the same resolution setting, there is a chance that it will exceed 8GB vRAM. Capacity, but because the RTX 3060 has up to 12GB of display memory, there was no RTX 3070 “cracking RAM” during the test.
I refer to the recommended image quality settings of RTX 2060 Super and RTX 3070 to test the game performance of this MSI GeForce RTX 3060 GAMING X TRIO. Under the default “very high” image quality setting, turn off ray tracing and DLSS settings, RTX 3060 It can maintain the basic smooth requirement of 60FPS at both 1080p and 2K resolution. And when the RTX “High” setting is turned on, even with the “Quality Mode” of DLSS black technology, the RTX 3060 still has 70FPS at 1080p resolution, but it falls below 60 when the 2K resolution is executed. This defines the mentality of whether the screen is smooth or not. However, as long as you set DLSS to “Performance Mode” at the expense of multiple screen details, you can increase it to above 60FPS. In general, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 will be the main graphics card for 1080P RTX Gaming.
▲ 2K resolution, image quality “very high”, RTX image quality “high”, DLSS performance mode-average FPS 72
3DMark test:
3DMark ray tracing performance test:
3DMark Port Royal is the first test tool designed for real-time ray tracing. It supports Microsoft DirectX Raytracing technology, allowing players to test the performance of different graphics cards for ray tracing.
3DMark NVIDIA DLSS feature test
The 3DMark NVIDIA DLSS feature test test adds the option of a new DLSS 2.0 version. By using Tensor Core to perform deep learning operations on the lower rendering resolution screen, re-output a higher resolution screen, making the game smooth Promoted. Supports up to 8K resolution and adds three DLSS modes, including Quality, Performance and Ultra Performance Mode. I tested with 2K resolution, DLSS 2.0 and Performance Mode. In the case of DLSS OFF, the average FPS value was only 23.76, and in the case of DLSS On, the average FPS value was increased to 58.48, and the FPS increased by 146%. The effect is quite obvious. .
MSI GeForce RTX 3060 GAMING X TRIO graphics card
Price: HK$ to be confirmed
Enquiry: Hornington (3626-9898)
Editor’s comment:
In recent years, hardware manufacturers love to decentralize some high-end graphics card series to lower-end models. This MSI GeForce RTX 3060 GAMING X TRIO is no exception. Although it has only 170W TGP “GA106” graphics core, it continues to use it. It has a 2.7 SLOT thick giant TRI FROZR 2 three-fan radiator, equipped with 6 square heat pipes, wave-shaped + deflector design cooling fins, and a TORX 4.0 fan with a similar air deflector design. The actual measurement is for a long time. It remains quiet and cool under 100% load. Players who want to enjoy the 1080p RTX Gaming experience should not miss it. It’s just that it’s hard to find a card at the moment. It depends on luck if you can buy a card.
