Purchased MSI RTX 3060 ti yesterday...and sent it back today

[dr3ams]

I purchased a MSI RTX 3060 ti Ventus 2X as an upgrade to my Sapphire RX 570 8GB Nitro+. Before I bought it I checked a few videos on YouTube, which gave it an overall positive review. After installing it and setting up the drivers and software, I fired up The Division 2 to see what the card could do. After about 3 minutes of gameplay, I noticed some very loud fan noises. I pressed ALT+Z and looking at NVIDIA's overlay, I noticed the card temp at above 85 C and the fan rpms at 2300.

I tried several games, including AOE 4, still got the same results. Tweaking the card using MSI's Dragon Center and later with Afterburner didn't really work. I could lower the fan rpms, but then the temp would hit above 95, which throttled the card's performance. Later I looked online and found out that a lot of users were having the exact same problem with the MSI card (something that the YouTubers failed to mention). Suggestions were third party cooling (expensive and voids the warranty), installing a bios from another manufacturer (risky and voids the warranty) and/or buy a different case (I have a good case with good cooling).

Real solution? Return it and buy something else. I'm going to stay with Sapphire and AMD. Currently I'm looking at the Sapphire RX 6700 XT Nitro+. It costs less than the MSI RTX 3060 ti and user reviews and comments are positive.

Edit: I ordered the Sapphire RX 6700 XT Pulse instead of the Nitro+ version. I don't need the extra features the Nitro+ has, and the 6700XT Nitro+ version only comes in 310mm length. All my HD cages are full and I would have to remove one to install the card. The Pulse is 260mm, the same length as my current card.

 

[voyagerfan99]

Cool story bro

 

[beers]

You'll probably see similar behavior with the 6700XT.

83 is 'traditionally' on the higher end of the scale however modern components are designed to float up into the 90s.

 

[dr3ams]

You'll probably see similar behavior with the 6700XT.

83 is 'traditionally' on the higher end of the scale however modern components are designed to float up into the 90s.

The temps didn't bother me as much as the fans. It was like sitting next to a drone. Looking at some posts online, some users said that the fan speeds reached nearly 3000 rpms. One user also said that it was a BIOS issue that MSI has ignored...regardless of the many complaints.

 

[dr3ams]

It arrived today...I unboxed and installed it already. Great card, really good performance. As Beers said the temps did hover between 70 and 92 depending on which games I was playing and the settings I used, but the fans never exceeded 1200 rpms. Even at that rpm I could barely hear them.

 

[gillmanjr]

I just had an MSI Ventus...a 2080. Same thing...extremely loud fans and they typically ran at high speeds. Thats the nature of an entry level card like the Ventus line. Those are MSIs cheapest cards, the cooling isn't great and they can't really be overclocked. I just replaced it with an MSI gaming trio RTX 4070 ti and the difference is stunning. I can barely hear it during gameplay and even when I manually turn up the fan speed it is nowhere near as loud as my Ventus card was.