Review : MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC Edition 16 GB

[nextpage title=”Introduction:”]

We continue our tour of the RTX 5060 Ti graphics cards, which are being officially launched today, with a copy of the MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC Edition 16 GB. We’d like to specify the amount of memory, because as was the case with the RTX 4060 Ti, there will be 8 GB and 16 GB versions. The model we’re testing today has a recommended retail price from MSI of €559, and will only be sold in a ‘custom’ version, meaning that there are no Founders Edition models, as was already the case for the RTX 5070 Ti. To give you an idea, NVIDIA’s MSRP for the 8 GB version, which seems to have been left out of today’s tests by NVIDIA, will be 399 euros and that of the 16 GB, 449 euros. This means that the MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC Edition 16 GB is €110 more expensive, but there’s no doubt that MSI will be offering a model in its range at the MSRP price of €449.

Today we’ll be testing two other cards, with a copy of the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 5060 Ti OC Edition 16GB and the PALIT RTX 5060 Ti Infinity 3 16 GB. Before starting our test, the question arose as to which definition to choose for our various benchmarks, since the RTX 4060 Ti is already one of the best choices for taking advantage of 1080p, and there’s no doubt that this new generation will deliver even greater performance. So we’ll be testing 1080p and 1440p for rasterisation, and only 1440p for ray tracing and upscaling , to see if the latter can go the distance.

Thanks to MSI France for making this sample of the MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC Edition 16 GB available.

[nextpage title=”MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio:”]

Architecture:

As a reminder, this MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC Edition 16 GB is a custom model , in other words, a card offered by an NVIDIA partner that benefits from a PCB and cooling system specific to the brand, in this case, MSI. NVIDIA ‘s partners offer their own models. As usual, NVIDIA will not be offering Founders Edition versions of ‘Ti’ models.

This NVIDIA RTX 5060 Ti benefits from the Blackwell architecture and retains a 4-nanometre engraving finesse, but switches to the TSMC N4P process, resulting in greater transistor density and improved energy efficiency. This architecture features new 5th generation Tensor Cores and 4th generation Ray Tracing Cores. The 5th generation Tensor Cores will provide support for the FP4 (Floating Point 4 bits) format, which will double the computational performance of neural models while halving the memory footprint. We’ll be coming back to this development during our tests, in particular with the UL Procyon software that we’ve been using for several weeks now.

Of course, DLSS 4 support cannot be overlooked. This new RTX 5060 Ti is equipped with 4608 CUDA Cores, compared with 6144 for the RTX 5070 version.

There’s also something new on the memory front, with 16GB of GDDR7 memory (448 GB/s). As for the TDP, it’s announced at 180 watts, and NVIDIA recommends a 600 watt power supply. But let’s move on to discovering the new packaging for thisMSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC Edition 16 GB series.

The bundle for this MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB :

As you can see from the photos below, the box for our copy of the MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB is very much in the spirit of the ASUS series. The packaging is fairly compact, so that’s good news for the size of the card.

La carte graphique MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC Edition 16 GB

On the rear, MSI highlights the PCB design, the cooling system and its Afterburner overclocking software. The opening is on the side where we find our graphics card perfectly protected in a block of foam. The bundle includes a number of items, such as quick installation instructions and a vertical support to place in your case to hold your graphics card horizontally. There’s also a 2 x PCIe 8-pin adapter for compatibility with your power supply, if you don’t have the 12V-2×6 connector

This is a ‘ custom ‘ card, i.e. with a PCB and cooling system specific to NVIDIA’s partner brand, in this case MSI.

The cooling system :

The MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC boasts a cooling system consisting of three 90mm fans. The design of this Gaming Trio model is visually very pleasing and features several RGB backlight buttons. The grey colour of the plastic casing will match any motherboard and any case. It’s simple and effective, just the way we like it.

The cooling system is labelled TRI Frozr 4 and the three fans, which have 9 blades, remain at rest when the card is not being used and vice versa. The central fan turns in the opposite direction to the other two to avoid turbulence. They become active again when the temperature requires it. As you can see, the hot air escapes through the top edge of the card, through the bracket and also through the aluminium backplate which is cut out at the end. In reality, it is the PCB that is much shorter than the heat sink. This ends at the two power connectors on the PCB.

As we said, the rear of the board is protected by an imposing black backplate. Its role is to prevent the PCB from twisting, but it also plays a role in heat dissipation, with the presence of pads between it and the PCB. We’ll be able to judge the temperature of the backplate during our tests. The cut-out at the end features the brand’s logo, with its dragon, to great effect.

With dimensions of 300 x 125 x 44 mm and a thickness of 2 slots, this MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC highlights its ‘SFF-Ready’ compatibility. This means it can be inserted into a case compatible with the Small Form Factor for anyone who decides to design a compact configuration.

Connectors :

Finally, to power the card, there is a single 12V-2×6 connector, but you can use the 2 x PCIe 8-pin adapter supplied in the bundle by NVIDIA.

As far as video is concerned, you’ll get three DisplayPort 2.1b and one HDMI 2.1b.

[nextpage title=”Packed with new technologies:”]

DLSS4: what’s new?

Deep Learning Super Sampling combined with Multi Frame Generation (MFG). As a reminder, the Blackwell architecture features new 5th generation Tensor Cores and 4th generation Ray Tracing Cores. It is these hardware innovations from Blackwell and DLSS that will enable MFG, which would have been technically impossible on the previous generation ADA Lovelace.

According to NVIDIA, Multi Frame Generation will deliver up to 8 times better performance in games such as Cyberpunk 2077 compared with raw image rendering. Up to 15 of the 16 pixels per frame are generated by the AI. It will also be possible to achieve 240 FPS in 4K ray tracing, and to use path tracing in compatible games.

So what will this new generation bring compared with the previous one? The main difference lies in Frame Generation. Whereas with the RTX 4000, DLSS 3 was able to insert an additional frame between two native frames, DLSS 4 will be able to insert up to three, hence the addition of the term Multi FG. This means you can choose to generate a single image (x2) for the RTX 40 and RTX 50 series, two images (x3) for the RTX 50 series or three images (x4) for the RTX 50 series.

NVIDIA introduit le DLSS 4 avec les RTX 5000

The AI will generate up to three images, which will increase the number of FPS, resulting in smoother gameplay and lower memory consumption thanks to the RTX Neural Shaders , which can be used to compress textures. This new AI model is 40% faster, uses 30% less VRAM and only needs to run once per rendered image to generate multiple images. The only downside is that these AI-generated images will add latency due to the creation process, but NVIDIA will be introducing Reflex 2, which we’ll come back to later in this article.

One thing is certain, NVIDIA is reaping the benefits of having jumped on the AI bandwagon very quickly and is now benefiting from its many years of research in the face of the competition. It’s important to realise that it’s no longer possible to increase raw performance by 25-30% with each generation of graphics cards – it’s the same problem faced by processors, for example. So it was NVIDIA ‘s choice to integrate AI into its cards in order to offer upscaling.

DLSS 4 is only compatible with this new generation of RTX 5000, but the other accompanying technologies will have a positive impact on previous generations. The RTX 5000 and 4000 will also benefit from the improved Frame Generation, with a gain of between 5 and 10% according to NVIDIA, and with lower memory consumption.

As soon as the RTX 5000s arrived, i.e. at the end of January, on the 30th to be precise, 75 games and applications were compatible with DLSS 4 at launch, including Alan Wake 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and Star Wars Outlaws.

The new ‘Transformer’:

DLSS 4 features an updated architecture for DLSS Ray Reconstruction, DLSS Super Resolution and DLAA. Previously, DLSS used convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to generate new pixels, and this has now been replaced by the new Transformer. This should offer greater stability, fewer ghost images, more detail on moving objects and smoother edges.

This could translate into the possibility of using a Performance mode for the DLSS, which would no longer be visually average, but could approach the Balanced/Quality mode on the previous-generation CNN model. Of course, this will have to be tested and compared in terms of image quality between the RTX 4000 and RTX 5000. It will also be relevant to compare the different DLSS modes in terms of image quality.

The new Transformer will offer improved image quality in Ray Reconstruction, such as the image on the left in Alan Wake 2 with the chain-link fence. The image on the right shows the improvement in detail between the CNN model and this new generation model.

Reflex 2 technology:

As we said earlier, Multi Frame Generation will allow you to increase the number of FPS, but will add latency because of the creation process. NVIDIA will therefore be offering its version 2 for Reflex. It’s especially in competitive games that these few milliseconds will really make a difference.

NVIDIA Reflex 2 will combine Reflex Low Latency mode with Frame Warp technology and will be compatible with all RTXs. The idea, of course, is to reduce latency, i.e. the time that elapses between the moment you click your mouse button and its appearance on the screen, by displaying a predictive image that is as close as possible to reality. Reflex 2 will be available in the coming weeks.

Override DLSS or the replacement for DLSS :

NVIDIA’s latest application, NVIDIA App, will allow games that have not yet been updated to the latest DLSS models and features to enable support via a DLSS override. The version of the app we will be testing is a press version, and the DLSS replacement options are available in the Graphics > Program Settings screen under Driver Settings.

We will of course be testing Override DLSS during this test to see how easy it is to use. We’ve made an initial assessment of these new technologies, even if we haven’t gone into detail about everything this new RTX 5060 Ti has to offer. It has a 9th generation encoder and a new 6th generation decoder.

[nextpage title=”Technical specifications:”]

A quick trip to GPU-Z to check that the information read is correct. As you can see, this is not yet entirely the case. A new version of GPU-Z will almost certainly be posted after the launch of the RTX 5060 Ti. In the meantime, we can still learn a few things from our copy of the MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB.

In terms of frequency, GPU-Z has announced that the MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB has a base frequency of 2407 MHz and a boost frequency of 2647 MHz. The card has 16 GB of GDDR7 memory (448 GB/s) on a 128-bit bus at 1750 MHz. This model has factory overclocked frequencies and is therefore higher, for example, than those of the PALIT tested today.

Don’t forget that the GPU frequency could be higher in benchmarks, depending on the quality of your chip and the cooling system used.

In fact, we carried out a test using 3DMark Time Spy to observe the GPU boost frequency. We can see that it reaches the maximum frequency of 2850 MHz at certain times. The memory frequency remains unchanged, which is perfectly normal. GPU-Z recorded a power consumption of 178.5 watts, which means that there should still be plenty of room for overclocking on this model, bearing in mind that the power limit allows you to opt for a 22% margin.

As far as temperatures are concerned, it climbs to 62.2°C and the memory to 58°C. At the time of this first test, it was 21°C in the lab. We’ll have to check the temperatures during our more in-depth tests. The fans are far from running at maximum speed and the card is fairly silent. As a reminder, we’re on a bench and not inside a case. Let’s get on with the first tests!

[nextpage title=”The test configuration: “]

As we said in the introduction, we’ve updated all our graphics using the latest drivers from NVIDIA, AMD and, of course, INTEL. We also took the opportunity to slightly modify our test configuration and add some new games to our protocol. So here we go again, with a new series of tests and graphics on this slightly modified configuration:

Motherboard: ROG Maximus Z790 APEX Encore
Processor : Intel Alder Lake i9-14900K delid
Cooling system: EK-Nucleus AIO CR360 Direct Die D-RGB – 1700
Memory: 48 GB Corsair Dominator Titanium 8000 MT/s CL38

Graphics card: MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB, NVIDIA RTX 5070 FE, MSI RTX 5070 Ti Ventus 3X OC, NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti Super FE, NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti FE, NVIDIA RTX 4070 Super FE, NVIDIA RTX 4070 FE, AMD RX 7900 GRE and AMD RX 7800 XT
SSD: Western Digital Black SN750 2 TB EKWB radiator
Power supply: Corsair AX1600i
Operating system: Windows 11 64-bit 24H2 (26100.2894)

For this test, we used a fairly high-end configuration based on an i9-14900K delid processor and DDR5 memory. Depending on the definition tested, we used either an MSI Oculux NXG253R or a ROG Strix XG27UCS on loan from ASUS France.

Our test protocol:

All the cards are tested at stock frequencies and without any optimisation. For the various benchmarks, whether for synthetics or games, we will opt for 1080p, 1440p and 2160p resolutions depending on the card’s performance.

Here, with this MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB model, there’s no doubt about the definition: it will be 1080p and 1440p in rasterisation. We’ll be using DLSS Super Resolution in Performance mode, with Frame Generation or Multi Frame Gernration and ray tracing where available.

As you can see, we’re now running Windows 11 and we’ve activated the ‘ ReSize BAR ‘ in the BIOS, which can be seen in GPU-Z. Now that you know everything about our test configuration, it’s time to get started!

[nextpage title=”3DMark benchmarks: “]

Our first series of tests will be dedicated to synthetic benchmarks. These are very often used for overclocking competitions , but are also very interesting for comparing different GPUs. So we’ll be focusing on benchmarks from the 3DMark series. For this new version of our graphics, and for the 3DMark tests, we have also isolated the GPU score. So you’ll find, where stipulated in the benchmark, the overall score and the GPU score.

3DMark Fire Strike and Fire Strike Ultra :

Let’s start with 3DMark Fire Strike, which is one of the most widely used benchmarks today. It consists of two graphics tests, a CPU test and a fourth test that combines GPU and CPU. Don’t forget to disable the demo, which makes no difference to the final score and (unnecessarily) prolongs the benchmark. The version used for these tests is, of course, the latest.

We begin our tests with the two Fire Strike and Fire Strike Ultra benchmarks. One thing we’re unfortunately going to miss in today’s graphics is the presence of a 16GB version of the RTX 4060 Ti. We’ll have to make do with the ‘8 GB’ version. The least we can say is that things are off to a good start, with a clear difference in performance compared to the previous generation and results close to those of the RTX 4070 FE.

3DMark Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme:

The second test is 3DMark Time Spy. Although this one is run in 1440p, its main feature is that it uses DirectX 12. It consists of two graphics tests and a CPU test. As with Fire Strike, don’t forget to disable the demo. These first two benchmarks are provided by UL Benchmark.

We continue with Time Spy, where the results are slightly behind the RTX 4070 FE, but still well ahead of the previous generation. Time Spy gives an initial idea of gaming performance, so we should have our MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB in a good position against the competition. However, and we’ll come back to this in our article, the difference with the RTX 5070 FE is very significant!

3DMark Speed Way :

This is the latest benchmark from Ulbenchmark, and it’s great to be able to say that we’re going to have a good go at this Speed Way. It uses DirectX 12 and is set to 1440p by default. We haven’t changed anything, so we’re using the original benchmark.

In Speed Way, our MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB obtained a score of 4144 points, which represents a 26% gain over the RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB and a 9% loss over the RTX 4070 FE.

3DMark Port Royal :

This is a benchmark that we left out last year, but which you were keen to see again in our tests. It’s still widely used, particularly in the overclocking community . So we’ve decided to add it to our tests.

In Port Royal, our MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB passes the 10K mark with a score of 10248 points.

3DMark Steel Nomad :

The latest benchmark in the 3DMark suite, Steel Nomad will replace Time Spy as the most recent benchmark in the 3DMark suite. However, the good news is that it will be free for users who already have a key. The programme includes a test bench based on Microsoft’s DirectX12 API. However, there will be no ray tracing, but the scene will use an ‘extreme’ level of geometry and rasterised light.

Finally, the last benchmark in the 3DMark series, Steel Nomad, which has just arrived, gave our MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB an excellent performance, with a score of 3,588 points, i.e. 23% more performance than the RTX 4070 Ti 8 GB.

[nextpage title=”UL Procyon AI Image / Text Generation:”]

UL Procyon AI Image Generation:

UL Benchmark not only offers its 3DMark benchmark suite but also, UL Procyon, to meet the demand for Artificial Intelligence evaluation. This benchmark was chosen for its ease of implementation. The benchmark will generate 4 x 4 images and provide us with a score as well as a result in the form of the time, in seconds, required to generate an image. The software supports several AI inference engines depending on the GPU used.

We will therefore use the benchmark in Stable Diffusion 1.5 (FP16) mode. It is intended for mid-range GPUs. The test will create 16 images at a resolution of 512 x 512 in batches of 4. There is a test called Stable Diffusion XL (FP16), where 16 images will be created, at 1024 x 1024, in batches of 1.

As the program has just undergone a major update, we had to run all our cards again, including the RTX 5000 series. The timing was too tight to have time to retest them all, so it will be updated asap.

UL Procyon AI Text Generation :

The latest benchmark added to this test suite, AI Text Generation. The Procyon AI Text Generation Benchmark provides a more compact and easier way to repeatedly and consistently test AI performance with multiple LLM AI models. UL says it has worked closely with many AI software and hardware leaders to ensure that the benchmark tests take full advantage of the local AI accelerator of the systems used.

Performance has improved on the previous generation, since in this series of tests our MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB did better than the RTX 4070 FE and also the RTX 4070 Ti version!

V-Ray 6:

A new benchmark to add to those we use to test our graphics cards. The V-Ray 6 benchmark is produced by the Chaos company to enable users to quickly assess the rendering speeds of both your processor and your graphics card, which is why we’re adding it today. The great thing is that it’s free and can be downloaded directly by following this link. You can then compare your score directly with those below, or directly online on the Chaos page.

This benchmark has just been integrated into our tests, and we still have to run all our 1080p definition cards again. The difference here with the RTX 4070 FE is 36 points.

[nextpage title=”Gaming rasterisation performance 1080p – 1440p: “]

Let’s get on with the gaming tests. We’ve used all the graphics cards we thought would be interesting to compare with this MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB in 1080p and 1440p definition. In the coming weeks, we’ll be bringing you a new type of article, retesting graphics cards from previous generations to find out what they’re still worth in 2025. Our games panel currently consists of 13 titles, and will be growing over the coming weeks.

We have chosen to use the benchmarks built into these games.
Why have we done this? Quite simply to allow you to do the same if you also have a copy of one of these games. It’s a thought-provoking idea that will allow you to compare your results with ours. The number and titles selected have changed slightly, and will increase again over the coming weeks as we get our hands on new games.

What is rasterisation?

Before we start, a quick word about ‘rasterisation’, which is currently the subject of much discussion. Rasterisation is the evaluation of the performance of our graphics cards without using upscaling technologies . We choose a graphics quality, often the highest, and test it. The advantage of these tests is that we can quantify the gain in architecture between different generations.

Borderlands 3 :

Let’s get on with the gaming part, starting with Borderlands 3. As we suggested in the introduction, 1080p definition should be a formality for our MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB. Nevertheless, we decided to test it in 1080p so as to be able to judge the gains over the previous generation.

In 1440p, and this is logical, our MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB will often occupy last place, but the idea will be to see if it can hold on to an average of 60 FPS in our various games. And it’s off to a pretty good start with Borderlands 3, as we get an average of 97.2 FPS at 1440p.

Cyberpunk 2077:

The same applies to Cyberpunk 2077, where our MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB crushes the competition in 1080p and achieves an average of 79.8 FPS in 1440p, beating out the RTX 4070 FE. We didn’t choose to switch the RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB to 1440p at the time, because when you see the difference in 1080p with the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB, it would have suffered, especially with our graphics settings pushed to maximum.

COD Modern Warfare III:

We’re not really changing the shape of our graphics, but we know that COD MWIII is more to the advantage of AMD cards. Here, our MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB maintains a very interesting average FPS at 1440p.

Forspoken:

Forspoken is a fairly demanding game and this MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB achieves an average of 56 FPS in 1440p, the first time the 60 FPS mark has not been reached.

Horizon Zeron Dawn Remastered:

One of the new games we’ve added to our comparison, and once again our MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB achieves a very comfortable FPS average.

Shadow Of The Tomb Raider:

Shadow Of The Tomb Raider easily passes the 150 FPS mark at 1440p.

Black Myth: Wukong Benchmark Tool :

This new game also seems very greedy, as our average drops to 43 FPS in 1440p and struggles to reach 60 FPS in 1080p. Graphics adjustments will be necessary for this game. Note that we made a mistake in our graphics and that the graphic definition is not ‘ultra’, but ‘cinema’ in 1440p.

Far Cry 6:

Performance remains excellent for our MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage:

Well, you’re beginning to read between the lines for our two definitions: the MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB. crushes everything in 1080p and maintains a very satisfactory FPS average in 1440p.

Red Dead Redemption II:

With Red Dead Redemption II, there are no changes, and the performance is just as good.

F1 2024 :

Our sample of the day averages 79 FPS in 1440p. We haven’t yet had a chance to test our next three games in 1080p, but this will be done in the coming weeks with the cards we still have available.

Monster Hunter Wilds:

A new benchmark also makes its debut, with an average of 55.5 FPS at 1440p.

Alan Wake 2:

The latest game, Alan Wake 2 won’t upset our feelings, here with our MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB just managing to hit 60 FPS.

Average for games in 1080p and 1440p rasterisation:

Let’s start with 1080p performance, which we won’t go into in detail here, as our MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB is totally dominant. We noted a gain of almost 30% over the RTX 4060 Ti, albeit in the 8 GB version. The differences would have been slightly smaller with the 16 GB version.

In 1440p, compared with the new benchmark for this definition, the RTX 5070 FE, our MSI RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC 16 GB. is almost 24% behind. It’s easy to imagine that this space is ready for a future RTX 5060 Ti SUPER? One thing’s for sure, this RTX 5060 Ti model will be able to take full advantage of 1440p definition. We’ll see how we can reduce this gap even further with models that have an interesting overclocking margin.

[nextpage title=”1440p gaming upscaling performance:”]

In this section, we’re going to test our graphics cards by activating ray tracing, if available, and upscaling depending on the graphics card used. As a reminder, there are currently three upscaling technologies . NVIDIA has DLSS, which can only be activated with NVIDIA cards. Depending on the generation of your GPU, you may or may not be able to take advantage of all the technologies offered by the Greens. At AMD, it’s FSR, which is also evolving and also benefits from Frame Generation for certain games.

Finally, Intel’s in-house upscaling is called XeSS, and with the arrival of this new generation of graphics cards, Intel has taken the opportunity to announce the arrival of XeSS 2, which will introduce two new functions to compete with NVIDIA and AMD, who are already ahead of the game in this area. Intel will be offering Xe Frame Generation (XeSS-FG) and XeSS Low Latency (XeLL).

Finally, it is important to point out that some games do not have ray tracing, but only an upscaling solution. We’ll make this clear in the games below. For 1440p definition, upscaling, whether in DLSS or FSR, will always be in Performance mode.