The MSI Radeon RX 6900 XT Gaming X Trio is our first custom-design RX 6900 XT review. Originally, it was unknown whether AMD would allow custom RX 6900 XT variants at all or if the SKU would be like NVIDIA's TITAN, for which the only available design is the reference version. It's good to see that AMD opened up their design, though there are some limitations. Various manufacturers told me that AMD doesn't allow them to go as high as they want on the RX 6900 XT; rather, there are strict limits to what you can do, similar to NVIDIA's Green Light program back in the day.

Clocked at 2340 MHz rated Boost, the MSI Gaming X Trio comes in second in terms of clock frequencies; the watercooled ASUS LC RX 6900 XT STRIX and XFX Merc 319 are clocked at 2365 MHz. The difference is small, and we've seen in the past that AMD's boost clock ratings often don't reflect reality. For our whole gaming test suite, we measured an average clock frequency of 2367 MHz, which is 134 MHz higher than the 2233 MHz average we saw on the reference card. This 6% increase in clock frequency translated into a 3% performance gain at 4K resolution. 3% doesn't sound like a lot but is more than what we've seen on other RDNA2 cards. 3% is also a third the distance to the RTX 3090, which is now only 5% faster than the MSI RX 6900 XT. Compared to the Radeon RX 6800 XT, MSI's card is 10% ahead, dishing out almost 30% more FPS than the RX 6800 non-XT. The performance uplift over NVIDIA's RTX 3080 is 5%, and RTX 3070 and RTX 2080 Ti are almost 30% slower. Just to put this into perspective, the MSI RTX 6900 XT Gaming X Trio is more than three times (!) as fast as the Radeon RX 590.

The Radeon RX 6900 XT is a great choice for 4K gaming, or lower resolutions at high refresh rates. Just be aware that AMD's DirectX 11 overhead is bigger than on NVIDIA, so you'll tend to get CPU limited a bit sooner than on the green team. On the other hand, AMD has support for the PCIe resizable BAR register feature, which they call Smart Access Memory (SAM). This technology will net a small performance boost because memory transfers between the CPU and GPU are now streamlined. SAM is supported on the AMD Ryzen 5000 Series for now, but it'll come to Intel, too, and NVIDIA is working on their version of it as well.

With this generation, AMD is introducing support for DirectX raytracing—as it stands now, the rendering technology of the future. Currently, game support is fairly limited, and the performance costs are high, so it might not be the most important feature to have. On the other hand, considering that the 6900 XT is an expensive card in the ultra-high-end segment, you probably want to be prepared for the next years. We only tested two RT games so far, but it seems the loss in performance is bigger than on NVIDIA, who improved in that area with Ampere. Remember, this is AMD's first-generation raytracing implementation. Performance is still very respectable, reaching roughly RTX 2080 levels. Now that RT hardware is available for both AMD and NVIDIA and game developers are making console games on AMD's new RDNA2 architecture, it'll be interesting to see how raytracing performance evolves in the coming months.

MSI went all out on their card's cooling solution. The large triple-slot, triple-fan design is much better than the AMD reference cooler, which is already very good. We measured a significant temperature improvement in our new apples-to-apples heatsink test at normalized noise levels. Even when fully loaded with 4K gaming, GPU temperature reached only 69°C, which is better than any other RX 6900 XT we've tested so far. It's even cooler than most RX 6800 XT custom designs we've reviewed. At the same time, noise levels are whisper-quiet—only 30 dBA, which matches the AMD reference card, but at lower temperatures, of course. While other vendors go the dual-BIOS route to give you a choice between maximum performance and reduced noise levels, MSI just picked fan settings that perfectly balance noise output vs. temperatures. These low noise levels could also be a selling point against the GeForce RTX 3090, which runs slightly louder than the RX 6900 XT Gaming X Trio. I've also reviewed six RTX 3090 custom designs—none of them as quiet as the RX 6900 XT Gaming X Trio. Just like on the AMD reference design, idle fan stop is included, which provides the perfect noise-free experience during desktop work, internet browsing, media playback, and light gaming.

Non-gaming power consumption of the MSI Gaming X Trio is comparable to the AMD reference card, maybe a tiny bit better, but still high. The problem is that AMD's energy saving mechanisms only work when running the card with one monitor at Full HD and 60 Hz or below. Everything above that will have the card run at full memory speed, which sips a lot of power. Gaming power draw is 50 W higher than the AMD reference—MSI increased their voltages a bit to achieve higher OC potential. While it's always suboptimal to lose energy efficiency, that's the price you have to pay for the higher clocks. Still, NVIDIA's RTX 3090 is significantly less efficient.

Overclocking the Radeon RX 6900 XT Gaming X Trio worked well. We gained over 6% in real-life performance, which basically has the card match the RTX 3090 now. Just be aware that you must increase the card's power limit to see any meaningful gains. This is yet another AMD limitation—board partners aren't allowed to increase their card's power limit setting beyond a certain point even though the rest of the card has been engineered to handle the additional current. This is on top of the memory clock-speed limitation set by AMD, which limits the maximum memory overclock to 2150 MHz. Compared to the AMD reference RX 6900 XT, OC potential was much better, 10% higher, which on its own could justify spending more for the MSI Gaming X Trio.

AMD's Radeon RX 6900 XT launched in December last year, and there has since been very little supply coming in, which, paired with the high demand, led to an extreme shortage of cards. With few cards available and everybody wanting one, scalpers are listing these cards with a markup to cash in on people willing to pay top dollar to have a card now. The same is happening with all the other AMD RDNA2 and NVIDIA Ampere products. Officially, AMD claims an MSRP of $1000 for the Radeon RX 6900 XT, which was a fantasy even at launch—board partners wouldn't be able to achieve those prices even if there were enough GPU supply.

Current market conditions have the AMD RX 6900 XT at $1550, more premium custom designs sit at around $1800. Since we can be certain that MSI will be limited by the few GPU chips they receive from AMD, there's no reason to assume that the supply situation will be any different for the MSI RX 6900 XT Gaming X Trio. That's why I'm using a price of $1800 throughout this review. At that price point, the card is $200 cheaper than NVIDIA's RTX 3090—quite a reasonable delta considering the RTX 3090 is only 5% faster. The cooler on the Gaming X Trio is awesome, and the card will run quieter than any RTX 3090 card, but if your focus is on raytracing, it also takes a bigger performance hit.

If you want to save some money and can live with slightly lower performance, the GeForce RTX 3080 could be a solid option. It's currently priced at $1100, a lot less, and not that much slower. I still feel like it's reasonable to give our Recommended Award to the MSI RX 6900 XT Gaming X Trio—it's one of the cards I would be looking for if I wanted an RX 6900 XT now. The card is very capable, very well engineered, and has good OC potential—an excellent option in the fight against the RTX 3090.