In today’s “not shocking, but still welcome” news, MSI’s lineup of gaming PCs is now available with Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs. That includes the price-conscious RTX 3060 Ti, the powerful RTX 3070, the impressive RTX 3080 and the arguably best-in-class RTX 3090.
These graphics cards will be available in MSI’s Trident, Infinite, Aeis and Codex gaming desktop lines, so in theory, there’s a 30 series system to match any price range. (As long as your price range is “at least $1,400,” anyway.)
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This info comes from an MSI press release: As of today, GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs are available in MSI gaming desktops. These GPUs support both high-resolution gaming, as well as fancy 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 “money is no object” power gamers and more restrained, budget-minded fans.
“There were a few challenges with including the Ampere 30 series graphics cards into our pre-built PCs,” Cliff Chun, an MSI product manager, told Tom’s Guide. Fitting the GPU into the company’s smaller chasses was one of them. “Since 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 little bit in order to accommodate them.”
Chun also cited thermal dissipation and increased power consumptions as challenges related to installing RTX 30 series cards on four separate lines of desktops. But the process apparently worked, since some of the 30-series-equipped machines are available right now, while others are available for pre-order.
While it would take too long to document every single MSI desktop variant available, you can take a look yourself by navigating to the MSI website, then clicking on “Products,” “Desktops” and your preferred line.
What RTX 30 Series PCs you can buy
The least expensive 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 RAM, a 512 GB SSD and a 1 TB HDD, as well as a mouse and a keyboard. Whether the machine itself is worth the price is hard to say, as we haven’t tested it. But at the very least, it seems like a reasonable amount, considering the parts you get.
Unfortunately, this PC is currently sold out, but it's worth checking to see if stock comes back.
More expensive models were actually somewhat harder to track down, as MSI’s website actually links to older or less powerful cards, even when you select the “3090” option in its desktop search. The Aegis R at Best Buy is $3,999 and features an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090, with an Intel Core i9-10900K CPU, 32 GB Ram, a 2 TB SSD and, again, a mouse and keyboard. This model is currently out of stock, though.
In any case, if you’re desperately trying to track down an Nvidia RTX 30 series card and don’t mind buying a prebuilt machine, MSI’s offers seem as good as any. Building a similar system yourself would be cheaper, of course, but you’ll also have to wait for stocks to stabilize.
