MSI Radeon RX 6800 XT Gaming X Trio Review

W1zzard

on Dec 28th, 2020,

in Graphics Cards.

Manufacturer: MSI

(34 Comments) »

Introduction

MSI sent us the Radeon RX 6800 XT Gaming X Trio, its flagship custom-design graphics card based on the RX 6800 XT "Big Navi" that shook things up in the discrete graphics card market this November. This card sees MSI pull out its very latest generation Gaming X board design that debuted with its RTX 30-series products. Unlike the previous generation, the company used consistent cooler visuals between its NVIDIA and AMD products, including innovations such as its Tri Frozr 2 cooling solution, TorX 4 axial-flow fans, and a graphene-treated backplate.

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT introduces the new RDNA2 graphics architecture to the PC platform. This architecture powers both of the latest-generation game consoles and has been scaled up for the PC. This is important as game engine developers optimizing for the console end up optimizing for RDNA2. The architecture offers full DirectX 12 Ultimate support, including real-time raytracing.

Real-time raytracing is the hottest new feature in consumer graphics. While pure raytraced rendering is still some time off, it's possible to combine conventional raster 3D graphics with certain raytraced visual elements, such as lighting, shadows, and reflections, to improve realism. Even this requires enormous amounts of compute power. AMD approaches this by significantly increasing the SIMD power of its graphics architecture with a combination of a doubling in shaders over the previous-generation RDNA, a near-doubling in engine clocks, and using fixed-function hardware called Ray Accelerators to compute the ray intersections.

The Radeon RX 6800 XT also comes with a doubling in memory amount to 16 GB, using the fastest JEDEC-standard 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory. The memory bus width is still 256 bit. AMD shored up memory bandwidth by deploying a new component called Infinity Cache, an on-die 128 MB L3 cache that runs at extreme bandwidths. Based on the 7 nm "Navi 21" silicon, the Radeon RX 6800 XT features 72 RDNA2 compute units, working out to 4,608 stream processors, 72 Ray Accelerators, and 288 TMUs. The chip also features 128 ROPs and a 256-bit GDDR6 memory interface.

MSI has given the Radeon RX 6800 XT its highest state of tune, with the engine boost frequency stepped up to 2285 MHz. As mentioned earlier, the RX 6800 XT Gaming X Trio features the company's latest Gaming X Trio non-reference design. The Tri Frozr 2 cooling solution features a chunky triple-slot heatsink and lavish use of RGB LED lighting. MSI is pricing the RX 6800 XT Gaming X Trio at "at least $850," which is a $200 premium over the $650 AMD baseline price, or more. In this review, we take the card for a spin.

Radeon RX 6800 XT Review Market Segment Analysis
	Price	Shader Units	ROPs	Core Clock	Boost Clock	Memory Clock	GPU	Transistors	Memory
RX Vega 64	$400	4096	64	1247 MHz	1546 MHz	953 MHz	Vega 10	12500M	8 GB, HBM2, 2048-bit
GTX 1080 Ti	$650	3584	88	1481 MHz	1582 MHz	1376 MHz	GP102	12000M	11 GB, GDDR5X, 352-bit
RX 5700 XT	$370	2560	64	1605 MHz	1755 MHz	1750 MHz	Navi 10	10300M	8 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
RTX 2070	$340	2304	64	1410 MHz	1620 MHz	1750 MHz	TU106	10800M	8 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
RTX 2070 Super	$450	2560	64	1605 MHz	1770 MHz	1750 MHz	TU104	13600M	8 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
Radeon VII	$680	3840	64	1802 MHz	N/A	1000 MHz	Vega 20	13230M	16 GB, HBM2, 4096-bit
RTX 2080	$600	2944	64	1515 MHz	1710 MHz	1750 MHz	TU104	13600M	8 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
RTX 2080 Super	$690	3072	64	1650 MHz	1815 MHz	1940 MHz	TU104	13600M	8 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
RTX 2080 Ti	$1000	4352	88	1350 MHz	1545 MHz	1750 MHz	TU102	18600M	11 GB, GDDR6, 352-bit
RTX 3070	$500	5888	96	1500 MHz	1725 MHz	1750 MHz	GA104	17400M	8 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
RX 6800	$580	3840	96	1815 MHz	2105 MHz	2000 MHz	Navi 21	26800M	16 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
RX 6800 XT	$650	4608	128	2015 MHz	2250 MHz	2000 MHz	Navi 21	26800M	16 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
MSI RX 6800 XT Gaming X Trio	$850+	4608	128	2110 MHz	2285 MHz	2000 MHz	Navi 21	26800M	16 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
RTX 3080	$700	8704	96	1440 MHz	1710 MHz	1188 MHz	GA102	28000M	10 GB, GDDR6X, 320-bit
RX 6900 XT	$1000	5120	128	2015 MHz	2250 MHz	2000 MHz	Navi 21	26800M	16 GB, GDDR6, 256-bit
RTX 3090	$1500	10496	112	1395 MHz	1695 MHz	1219 MHz	GA102	28000M	24 GB, GDDR6X, 384-bit

Packaging

The Card

The MSI GeForce RX 6800 XT Gaming X Trio is a large piece of hardware. We've seen the massive cooler design on several other MSI cards before, both for AMD and NVIDIA. Unlike past generations, the bulk of the card's RGB bling has been moved towards the top-edge of the card, near the backplate, as those parts of the card are more readily visible to you in a typical windowed case than the front end with the fans. There are still some ARGB streaks near the fans.

Dimensions of the card are 32 x 14 cm, and it weighs 1549 g.

Installation requires three slots in your system.

Display connectivity includes three standard DisplayPort 1.4 and one HDMI 2.1.

The card two 8-pin power inputs. This configuration is rated for up to 375 W of power draw.

The AMD Radeon RX 6000 series doesn't support multi-GPU.

Teardown

MSI's heatsink is huge, the main component provides cooling for the GPU and memory chips. Six heatpipes quickly move any heat away from the GPU core and to a large array of fins, where it is dissipated in the airflow of the three fans.

Once the main heatsink is removed, three additional components become visible. A metal reinforcement bar is run along the top edge, which helps prevent sagging. Two additional heatsinks provide cooling for the VRM circuitry.

The backplate is made out of plastic and protects the card against damage during installation and handling. MSI claims it's a graphene composite, which basically means plastic mixed with carbon—this is not real graphene. Thermal properties are still fine, and the added thermal pads help more than whether the backplate is made out of plastic or metal.

High-resolution PCB Pictures

These pictures are for the convenience of volt modders and people who would like to see all the finer details on the PCB. Feel free to link back to us and use these in your articles or forum posts.