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.