MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Aero Brings Speed to Mini-ITX Systems

Small form-factor Mini-ITX systems are pretty popular among gamers, but Nvidia's Ampere architecture is not exactly friendly to compact systems, which is why GPU makers have been reluctant to produce the latest GeForce RTX 30-series boards in the Mini-ITX form-factor. Fortunately, there are exceptions, and MSI's GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Aero ITX 8G OC LHR is one of them.

So far, a couple of GPU makers have introduced GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards based on the GA106 GPU with 3584 CUDA cores and 12GB of memory in the Mini-ITX form-factor. By contrast, MSI is the first company to launch a GA104-based GeForce RTX 3060 Ti board with 4864 CUDA cores and 8GB of GDDR6 memory connected to the graphics processor using a 256-bit interface, reports Hermitage Akihabara.

MSI's GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Aero ITX 8G OC LHR measures 172×125×43 mm and requires up to 200W of power that will be delivered using an eight-pin auxiliary PCIe power connector. Considering the fact that the card uses a rather compact and simplistic cooling system with four heat pipes and one fan, do not expect it to be truly quiet, especially under high loads. Like other GeForce RTX 3060 Tis, MSI's Mini-ITX card has four display outputs: three DisplayPorts 1.4a and one HDMI 2.1.

MSI's Mini-ITX graphics card operates at up to 1695 MHz, 30 MHz higher than Nvidia's recommendations. Also, the company has a non-OC version with standard clocks.

As the name suggests, MSI's GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Aero ITX 8G OC LHR is a low-hash-rate graphics card that is unsuitable for mining. Meanwhile, the board has a single-precision performance of over 12,7 TFLOPS and is one of the highest-performing Mini-ITX graphics cards released to date. It is also smaller than the Asus Dual GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Mini, which is 200-mm long.

MSI didn't announce the MSRP for the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Aero ITX 8G OC LHR, but Hermitage Akihabara expects the unit to cost around ¥71,000 with taxes (around $650 with taxes).