MSI RX 6900 XT Gaming X Trio Review

1. Introduction2. MSI RX 6900 XT Gaming X Trio3. Testing Methodology4. 3DMark Fire Strike & Time Spy5. 3DMark DirectX Raytracing6. Borderlands 37. Control8. Death Stranding9. The Division 210. F1 202011. Far Cry New Dawn12. Gears 513. Ghost Recon: Breakpoint14. Metro Exodus15. Middle Earth: Shadow of War16. Red Dead Redemption 217. Shadow of the Tomb Raider18. Total War Saga: Troy19. Watch Dogs: Legion20. Clock Speed21. Temperatures22. Acoustics23. Noise-Normalised Temperatures24. Power Consumption25. Overclocking26. Closing Thoughts27. View All Pages

Following on from our stock thermal and acoustic testing, here we re-test the operating temperature of the GPU, but with noise levels normalised to 40dBa. This allows us to measure the efficiency of the overall cooling solution as varying noise levels as a result of more aggressive fan curves are no longer a factor.

Such a conservative default fan curve leaves a lot of room for thermal improvement when we noise-normalise to 40dBa. For the Gaming X Trio, this meant raising fan speed from 1410rpm up to 2020rpm, or 58%. That helps significantly with edge temperature, dropping from 75C down to 64C. We are, however, still seeing high junction temperatures, and the numbers being reported look even more drastic when noise-normalised, with the junction temperature 33C hotter than the edge. For the other cards we have tested, that delta between the edge and junction temperature is just 10-17C.

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