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MSI Took a GeForce RTX 2060 and Added Some Gaming Z Flair to it.
MSI is no stranger to making custom cards and they have shown this with the Gaming Z series of cards. Today we have the RTX 2060 Gaming Z which may not seem like a very impressive thing but MSI really took the bull by the horns to make sure they could eek out some extra performance out of the value RTX card and give you some headroom to play.
Now I don’t wanna spoil the whole performance of the card but just understand that if you do not know this card will exceed the reference or “Founders Edition” card in every way from our testing so now we just gotta show you.
The RTX 2060 Gaming Z from MSI joins the RTX Stable with a price point of $389.99 which places it a bit ahead of the FE model which sits at $349.99..
- MSI GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming Z $389.99 (Source: MSI MSRP)
This price point as mentioned is a bit above the FE but I can assure you now that in the coming pages we will show you why we think it is totally worth the extra cost for the RTX 20960 Gaming Z as your choice for the entry-level RTX purchase.
RTX 2060 Features
- New Turing based GPU featuring hardware-based acceleration and hybrid rendering capabilities
- New Streaming Multiprocessor (SM)
- Turing Tensor Cores
- Real Time Ray Tracing (RTX)
- New shading enhancements
- Deep Learning Features for Graphics (DLSS and more)
- GDDR6 High-Performance memory
- GPU Boost 4
MSI Specific Features
- Twin Frozr 7 Thermal Design
- Torx Fan 3.0
- Newly designed fans with specially curved blades to accelerate airflow
- Zero Frozr
- MSI RTX 2060 Gaming Z fans do not even spin below 60C which means longer potential lifespan for fans and less dust build up.
- Mastery of Aerodynamics
- MSI has curved fin leading edge which means that they are not just flat plates of ALU but have a wave to reportedly allow air to pass more smoothly
- Airflow control channels within the fin stack to direct air where needed such as heatpipes or even SMD components
- Concentrated heatpipes
- MSI has a mass concentration of heatpipes directly over the GPU which is the key thermal point for any card
- Copper Baseplate
- MSI has employed a copper baseplate on the GPU contact surface to allow optimum thermal conductivity into the cooling fin array.
- Thermal Compound X
- This is MSI’s way of saying they use premium thermal compound on the GPU. This is good as some cheaper or stock paste can harden and become less effective requiring disassembly to re-paste. This may hold up longer which means more time gaming less time messing with your card.
- Torx Fan 3.0
Specifications
| Graphics Card | MSI GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming Z |
| Graphics Engine | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Core TU106-200A-KA-A1 |
| Bus | PCI Express 3.0 |
| Video Memory | GDDR6 6GB |
| Core Clock (OC) | GPU Boost Clock: 1830 MHz, GPU Base Clock: 1365 MHz |
| CUDA Cores | 1920 |
| RTX OPS | 37T |
| GIGA Rays/s | 5 |
| Memory Clock | 14000 MHz |
| Memory Interface | 192-bit |
| Resolution | Max Resolution:7680×4320 |
| Interface | HDMI Output: Yes x 1 (Native) (HDMI 2.0b) Display Port: Yes x 3 (Native) (Regular DP) HDCP Support: Yes |
| Power Connectors | 1 x 8-pin |
| Dimensions | 9.72″ x 5.08″ 247 x 129 Millimeter |
Here we get a brief spec style overview of the card. One thing to note is the absence of the DVI connector which arrived on the 1070/1060 FE models. Another omission would be the Virtualink connector which I can only assume was a cost-cutting measure and I am ok with it as Virtualink has yet to even take off yet or arrive on any tangible products.
