MSI Radeon RX 6750 XT Gaming X Trio Graphics Card Review

AMD announced today three new graphics cards, in addition to the RX 6000 series family. These are the RX 6950 XT, RX 6750 XT, and RX 6650 XT. We have here the Radeon RX 6750 XT from MSI. It’s a refresh of the RX 6700 XT and offers a faster GDDR6 memory speed. Like the RX 6700 XT, the RX 6750 XT is designed for 1440p gaming but is priced a bit higher, starting at $549. Find out how the refresh version performs on our MSI Radeon RX 6700 XT Gaming X Trio review below.

Radeon RX 6750 XT Review Featuring MSI Gaming X Trio Graphics Card

So what’s new with these refresh cards, the RX 6×50 XT? I’m surprised that only three GPUs have refreshed version, and there’s no “RX 6850 XT”. In a gist, these refresh cards offer minimal changes or improvements. The GPU is similar including most of the specs.

According to AMD’s presentation, the RX 6950 XT offers faster game clocks, and the RX 6750 XT has faster GDDR6 memory, while the RX 6650 XT features “enhanced software”. However, when I checked the specs of the non-refresh variants, I found that the game and boost clock speeds of these refresh variants are higher. The typical board power of each GPU is slightly higher as well. Finally, their respective retail prices are “enhanced” as well.

According to AMD:
“All of the new AMD Radeon graphics cards are built on the breakthrough AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, include process optimizations plus firmware and software enhancements, and are equipped with high-bandwidth, low-latency AMD Infinity Cache™ technology and ultra-fast GDDR6 memory at up to 18Gbps. They also support Microsoft Windows 11 and Microsoft DirectX® 12 Ultimate, AMD FidelityFX™ Super Resolution (FSR) 1.0, the forthcoming AMD FSR 2.02 and AMD Radeon Super Resolution upscaling technologies, as well as other advanced features that provide visually stunning, high-refresh rate gaming experiences.”

Key Features and Capabilities Of the Refresh Cards:

• AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition™ – Brings advanced and innovative capabilities to unlock the full potential of gaming experiences on AMD graphics- and processor-powered systems. The latest release offers up to 10 percent higher performance across a range of select DX®11 titles. In addition, AMD Radeon Super Resolution 1.1 driver-based upscaling technology now adds support for select AMD Ryzen™ 6000 Series processors equipped with Radeon integrated graphics.
• AMD FidelityFX Technology – AMD FidelityFX technology is an open-source toolkit of visual enhancement effects for game developers available at AMD GPUOpen. It includes AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 1.0 spatial upscaling technology, which is supported in 80+ games and counting. It also includes the forthcoming AMD FSR 2.0, a cutting-edge temporal upscaling solution that boosts framerates in supported games and generates similar or better than native image quality on a wide range of graphics cards.
• AMD Smart Access Memory (SAM) Technology – Unlocks higher performance when pairing AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards with select AMD Ryzen desktop processors and AMD 500 Series motherboards by providing AMD Ryzen processors with access to the entire high-speed GDDR6 graphics memory. SAM can provide up to 14 percent higher performance in a system equipped with an AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT graphics card and an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor.
• AMD Infinity Cache Technology – Last-level data cache integrated on the GPU die is designed to reduce latency and power consumption and can help enable higher gaming performance than traditional architectural designs.

Below is a table comparing the specs of the reference RX 6700 XT and the new refresh RX 6750 XT.

AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT Specifications

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Radeon RX 6750 XT Graphics Cards are available on Amazon.com here.

Packaging and Closer Look

MSI is using the same retail box quality and a similar theme with its other Radeon RX 6000 series products. There’s nothing different, except for the “RX 6750 XT” at the front portion. A glaring red accent can be seen with AMD’s logo, and additional features including the minimum system requirements are printed on the back.

By now, many of us have seen what MSI’s Gaming X graphics cards look like. It’s using the same design and cooling solution as the RX 6800 XT Gaming X Trio. You’ll know it’s an AMD card since it has a whitish or silver accent on the front cooler shroud. If it’s an NVIDIA GPU, MSI’s Gaming X cards are dominantly dark in color.

The MSI Radeon RX 6750 XT Gaming X Trio features the Tri Frozr 2 cooling solution, with three Torx 4.0 fans, precision-machined core pipes, and a thick aluminum heatsink with Wave-curved 2.0. There are also cutouts towards the rear end, at the back, for (hot) air to pass through.

Unlike the RX 6700 XT GPU, the refreshed RX 6750 XT has a higher typical board power. It has a board power of 250W, 30W higher than the RX 6700 XT. Since the increase is not that high, the recommended PSU is still 650W. The RX 6750 XT Gaming X Trio draws power from two 8-pin PCIe power connectors.

Aside from the RGB lighting on the front side and on the front cooler shroud, there’s not much left to talk about. It doesn’t have a dual-BIOS feature unlike on the SURPIM X cards. Nevertheless, the overall build quality and design are excellent. Although, that RGB light bar feels out of place or uninspired.

Test Setup for RX 6750 XT

In testing the MSI Radeon RX 6750 XT Gaming X Trio, I’m using Intel’s latest platform. I used an Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero motherboard powered with an Intel Core i7-12700K. The CPU is paired with a 32GB Kingston Fury Beast DDR5 memory clocked at 5200MHz. Below are the rest of the specifications of the system:

Operating System	Windows 10 Pro 64bit
Processor	Intel Core i7-12700K
Motherboard	Asus ROG Maximus Z690 HERO
Memory	Kingston Fury Beast DDR5-5200MHz
Graphics Card	MSI Radeon RX 6750 XT Gaming X Trio
OS Drive	MSI Spatium M470 1TB Gen4 SSD
Game Drive	SanDisk Extreme PRO Portable SSD V2 and Extreme Portable SSD V2
Power Supply	Seasonic Prime Titanium 850W
Chassis	Thermaltake Core P5

The graphics card was tested at 1920×1080 FHD, 2560×1440 WQHD, and 3840×2160 UHD resolutions. For synthetic benchmarks, I used 3DMark’s benchmark suite. I also used the following games to test the graphics card: Cyberpunk 2077, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Gears 5, Ghost Recon: Wildlands, Horizon Zero Dawn, Monster Hunter World, Red Dead Redemption 2, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, The Division 2, The Witcher 3 and Watch Dogs Legion.

Below is the GPU-Z screenshot of the graphics card.

Note: I am using a new system for this review. I previously used an AMD system powered with a Ryzen 7 5800X and DDR4 memory. However, due to time constraints, I haven’t updated and re-tested all the graphics cards yet, except for this one and another. The Core i7-12700K may offer a little bit more FPS compared to the 5800X. But it’s not really a huge difference in general. With that in mind, let’s check out the results below.

Another thing that I noticed is that there are some bugs with the initial (beta) driver that AMD provided for these refreshed cards. For example, I wasn’t able to include Assassin’s Creed Valhalla since it keeps crashing before the game can load on the main screen. But I expect that these issues will be resolved with future driver updates.

MSI RX 6750 XT Gaming X Trio Temperature

Below you can see the idle to light load temperature of the graphics card. The card’s fans were not spinning at this point, but the temperature is hovering around 50°C to 57°C (+ or -) depending on the activity. It’s a bit higher from the Asus Strix RX 6700 XT OC, but I guess this is due to higher clock speeds and higher board power.

Running FurMark for around 15 minutes or more, the card’s temperature settled at around 71°C for the GPU and 87°C for the GPU hotspot. That’s a bit high, but still, nothing to be alarmed about.

I don’t have an accurate sound meter tool, but even at full load, MSI’s RX 6750 XT Gaming X Trio was relatively running silent. Even with an open chassis, the fans were almost inaudible.

MSI RX 6750 XT Gaming X Trio Benchmarks

Below are the results that I got with 3D Mark’s benchmark suite. On the left-hand side are graphics scores, while on the right-hand side are the average frames per second (FPS).

Based on the result I got, there is a noticeable performance increase from the RX 6700 XT. AMD was comparing the RX 6750 XT against NVIDIA’s RTX 3070 on its press materials. And as you can see from the graphs above, it outperformed the RTX 3070. Although, it is still not good when it comes to ray tracing performance as reflected in Port Royal’s benchmark result.

1080p Game Benchmark Results

Just like its predecessor, the Radeon RX 6750 XT is primarily designed for 1440p gaming. But it performs exceptionally well on a 1920×1080 resolution too. Below are the results:

The MSI RX 6750 XT Gaming X Trio performed excellently at 1080p resolution. There’s no bottlenecking issue due to lower resolution, unlike with other higher-end GPUs. It also performs faster than an RTX 3070 on most games and is almost on par with the RTX 3070 Ti in some games. AMD cards tend to perform well on AMD-sponsored titles, and a bit weaker on NVIDIA-sponsored titles.

1440p Game Benchmark Results

1440p is the target resolution of the Radeon RX 6750 XT. Let’s see how it performs at 2560x1440p. Below are the results:

We can see a similar pattern in the 1440p resolution. The RX 6750 XT is faster than the RX 3070 and RX 6700 XT (as it should be). It’s also almost on par with the RTX 3070 Ti in some of the games.

2160p Game Benchmark Results

Since the RX 6750 XT is just an enhanced/refined version of the RX 6700 XT, I wasn’t expecting it to perform well on 2160p. The Asus ROG Strix RX 6700 XT OC‘s performance was a bit underwhelming at 4K resolution. Below are the results:

And yes, it’s still a bit underwhelming at 4K UHD. Too bad we don’t have an RX 6800 XT to compare. I would like to see if the RX 6750 XT performs near the RX 6800 XT or if it’s just a bit faster than an overclocked variant of the RX 6700 XT. If you really want to play at 4K with this GPU, you can still push the frame rates higher by adjusting and lowering the graphics settings and/or with the help of AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution. But generally speaking, I wouldn’t buy an RX 6750 XT for 4K gaming.

Now that we have seen the results, let’s conclude this review.

Pricing and Availability

At the time of publishing this review, the MSI Radeon RX 6750 XT Gaming X Trio retails for $650 USD. AMD’s MSRP for the RX 6750 XT starts at $549. That’s $70 more from the starting price of the RX 6700 XT. And it’s a $100 increase for the custom card. For the latest pricing and availability of the Radeon RX 6750 XT, kindly follow the links below.

UPDATE: It’s mid Q2 2023, and prices of these RX 6750 XT are just all over the place. Some are selling below $400, while others haven’t adjusted yet.

Check the latest pricing and availability: (#ad)
Radeon RX 6750 XT Graphics Cards are available on Amazon.com here.

MSI Radeon RX 6750 XT Gaming X Trio Review Conclusion

Let’s discuss the MSI Gaming X Trio first and after that its performance. MSI’s Gaming X and Gaming X Trio cards usually offer a superb cooling solution and solid build quality. And we can see that on this RX 6750 XT Gaming X Trio as well. The temperature was a bit high, perhaps due to the higher board power. But the card remained relatively silent during testing and benchmarking. There was no coil whine noise as well, at least for my unit.

There is a metal bracket in between the PCB and cooler shroud that prevents the card from sagging. The backplate is solid metal and the aesthetics are overall pleasing with a gamer vibe to it. If there’s one thing that I would like to nitpick about the Gaming X (Trio) lineup is the RGB lighting on the front side portion. It feels uninspired like MSI just slapped it there for the sake of RGB lighting. Hopefully, they won’t do this anymore in the next generation of Gaming X cards.

Aside from the RGB lighting bar, I think the Gaming X Trio is a well-built solid graphics card. Not to mention it’s not that bulky compared to the SUPRIM X series.

It’s An Overclocked Version of an Overclock RX 6700 XT

When it comes to performance, the Radeon RX 6750 XT isn’t really that jaw-dropping or surprising. Since it sits in between the RX 6700 XT and RX 6800 XT, I don’t expect it to outperform or perform on par with the RX 6800 XT. While AMD wasn’t successful in outperforming the RTX 3070 with their RX 6700 XT, this time they did it with the RX 6750 XT.

In short, the RX 6750 XT is like an overclocked version of an overclocked RX 6700 XT. Like what AMD said, the refresh cards are refined versions of their predecessors – “faster game clocks and faster memory speed, with enhanced software”.

The Radeon RX 6750 XT performed well at 1440p and exceptional at 1080p too. Performance is a none issue, but my main concern here is the price. No doubt that the RX 6750 XT performs well on traditional rasterization. But if the card retails or sells for a similar price to the RTX 3070 Ti, then it’s tough to recommend.

Although, currently, it looks like these RX 6750 XT are cheaper compared to the RTX 3070 Ti, at least on Newegg.com. I hope it stays that way, and I hope there would be a price adjustment on the non-refreshed cards.

Overall…

I don’t have any issue with the RX 6750 XT, including its performance. I think it’s a good graphics card for 1440p gaming and 1080p as well. As long as this graphics card sells for cheaper than the RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 3070, I’ve no problem recommending it. The only thing to consider is if you care about ray tracing. AMD is behind when it comes to ray tracing and upscaling technology. The RTX 30 series GPUs are better when it comes to ray tracing and it has a more mature DLSS implementation. Although, AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 seems to be improving as well.

AMD also announced the Raise the Game Bundle. So, if you purchase an eligible RX 6000 series graphics card, customers will receive a code that can be redeemed when the promotion launches later in the quarter. Although this is a limited offer.

Finally, the MSI Radeon RX 6750 XT Gaming X Trio is an excellent graphics card for 1440p and 1080p gaming. I just don’t recommend this one for 4K gaming. It is a very silent-running graphics card, even under full load. Its design and aesthetics are pleasing and the card feels premium on hand. If you can spot one for MSRP, I don’t have an issue recommending this graphics card.