In today’s “not shocking but welcome” news, the MSI gaming PC line is now available with Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs. This includes the economical RTX 3060 Ti, the powerful RTX 3070, the impressive RTX 3080 and arguably the best RTX 3090 in its class.
These graphics cards will be available on MSI’s Trident, Infinite, Aeis and Codex gaming desktop lines, so in theory there is a 30 series system to suit any price range. (As long as your price range is “at least $ 1,400”, anyway.)
This information comes from an MSI press release: As of today, GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs are available on MSI gaming desktops. These GPUs support high-resolution gaming, as well as sophisticated lighting effects such as ray tracing. By incorporating these graphics cards into all four of its desktop lines, MSI hopes to offer something for both advanced “money is not a problem” type and more restricted and budget-conscious fans.
“There were some challenges with the addition of the Ampere 30 series video cards to our pre-built PCs,” said Cliff Chun, MSI product manager, to Tom’s Guide. Embedding the GPU in the company’s smaller chassis was one of them. “As our Trident series is comprised of small form factor gaming desktops, with the increased size of the RTX 30 series cards, we had to modify the chassis a bit to accommodate them.”
Chun also cited thermal dissipation and increased power consumption as challenges related to installing RTX 30 series cards on four separate desktop lines. But the process apparently worked, since some of the machines equipped with the 30 series are available now, while others are available for pre-order.
Although it takes a long time to document each MSI desktop variant available, you can take a look by browsing to the MSI website and clicking on “Products”, “Desktops” and your favorite line.
Which RTX 30 series PCs can you buy
The cheapest model I found was an MSI Codex R gaming desktop at Best Buy for $ 1,399. It includes a GeForce RTX 3070 GPU, as well as an Intel i5-10400F CPU, 16 GB of RAM, a 512 GB SSD and a 1 TB HDD, as well as a mouse and keyboard. It is difficult to say whether the machine itself is worth the price, as we have not tested it. But at the very least, it seems like a reasonable amount, considering the pieces you receive.
Unfortunately, this PC is out of stock, but it is worth checking if the stock returns.
More expensive models were actually a little more difficult to track, since the MSI website had links to older or less powerful cards, even when you selected the “3090” option in your desktop search. The Aegis R at Best Buy costs $ 3,999 and features an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090, with an Intel Core i9-10900K CPU, 32 GB of Ram, a 2 TB SSD and, again, a mouse and keyboard. This model is currently out of stock, however.
In any case, if you are desperately trying to track down an Nvidia RTX 30 series card and don’t mind buying a pre-built machine, MSI’s offerings look as good as any. Of course, building a similar system would be cheaper, but you will also have to wait for stocks to stabilize.