The MSI Trident X is a small gaming PC with some powerful hardware inside. In this review
we’ll check out gaming performance, overclocking, thermals and basically everything else too.
The Trident X is available with different hardware configurations, my unit here has
the 8 core i7-9700K CPU, Nvidia RTX 2080 graphics, 32GB of DDR4-2666 memory running in dual channel,
a 512GB NVMe M.2 SSD and 2TB hard drive. It’s also got gigabit network connectivity, with
802.11ac WiFi and bluetooth 4.2.
You can also get it with RTX 2070 or 2080 Ti graphics, or with an i9-9900K CPU if you
need even more power.
The Trident X is smaller than your typical PC too, at just under 40cm high, 13cm in width
and 38cm in depth, giving it a 10.36L volume and weighing in at around 6.5KG.
The black case is made of metal and plastic, overall I thought the design looked pretty
nice, but that will of course be subjective. You can also get it with an optional tempered
glass side panel too if you prefer, more on that later.
The front panel has some lighting which can be customized using MSI’s light sync software.
The front I/O is found down the bottom towards the left, and from the bottom up we’ve got
3.5mm microphone and headphone jacks, a USB 2.0 Type-A, USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A and Type-C
port.
On top of the case there’s the power button towards the front and some air vents towards
the back for the graphics card to exhaust heat.
On the back down the bottom there’s the power input, although the 450 or 650 Watt
power supply is mounted closer to the front as we’ll see soon. Next to that there’s
the I/O from MSI’s Z370I Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard, from the bottom up giving
us a PS/2 port, two USB 2.0 Type-A ports, DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4 outputs, although
these are only wired to the CPU graphics, a USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A and Type-C port, gigabit
ethernet and two USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports, followed by audio outputs. There’s also
a kensington lock above the power input. Up the top we’ve got the outputs from the graphics
card, in my case the MSI RTX 2080 Ventus which gives us three DisplayPort 1.4 outputs, HDMI
2.0b and a USB Type-C port.
Underneath there’s some rubber feet at the bottom of this plastic sort of shroud which
raises it up, allowing for air flow through the bottom grill, and this is where the power
supply exhausts air.
The left side panel can be removed by taking out two screws with a Phillips head screwdriver.
We can see the back of the motherboard here, and this is where the single M.2 slot is with
our NVMe drive. It’s got a heat spreader on it which comes into contact with the side
panel, allowing it to dissipate heat through the case. Above this we’ve got the graphics
card which is mounted vertically, with the power supply towards the front. Both the power
supply and graphics card have air vents in the side of the case for air intake. There’s
also a light strip running along the top on this side, again this can be controlled through
MSI’s light sync software and customized with different effects.
The right hand side panel has a vent for the CPU fan which also has controllable RGB lighting.
The Trident X is also available with an optional glass side panel, and that can be installed
by simply screwing in the hinges and putting the panel on. It’s got magnets towards the
front to keep it closed, and I did find that there was a gap around all sides of the glass
panel, potentially improving air flow. I put this to the test by running a stress test,
and found that with the glass panel on the CPU was running 2 degrees cooler, which makes
sense as it’s just blowing air in, the glass panel gives it more space for the hot air
to escape. No difference to the graphics temperatures, as that’s on the other side with it’s
own intake.
While I think the glass panel looks better, it’s not really showing off anything extra
than without it as the insides are quite dark, perhaps it would have made sense to either
have the lighting strip on this side, or a second strip, or otherwise have the glass
panel on the left to show off the graphics card more.
Unlike many other prebuilt systems I’ve reviewed, the interior of the Trident X still
looks quite nice in my opinion, there’s no green motherboards or ketchup and mustard
cables for instance, the design of the interior matches the exterior. On the right we’ve
got two 2.5 inch drive bays up the top, mine did come with a spare SATA cable for installing
a second drive, and I’ve confirmed the motherboard does have a free SATA port to accommodate
this.
As mentioned it’s MSI’s Z370i Gaming Pro Carbon AC Mini-ITX motherboard, so it’s
black and matches the colour scheme of the system. It’s just got two memory slots,
so the 32GB that I’ve got installed here is as much as it can take.
MSI’s Command Center software can be used to monitor the system and overclock the CPU,
it worked alright but I didn’t really end up using it for anything other than modifying
CPU fan speed, and I used MSI afterburner for overclocking the graphics and adjusting
GPU fan speed.
Now let’s look at the thermals, testing was completed with an ambient room temperature
of 26 degrees celsius, a bit warm as it’s summer here at the moment and the air conditioning
has been struggling through a heatwave. All testing was completed with the glass side
panel on, so as shown earlier expect up to a couple of degrees difference with the standard
metal panel for the CPU.
Starting at the bottom of the graph I’ve got the idle temperatures, and it was running
fairly cool and quiet, no problems there. Going up to the gaming tests I’ve tested
using Watch Dogs 2, as I find it to use a good combination of processor and graphics,
and at stock the temperatures were perfectly fine. With the CPU overclocked to 5GHz on
all 8 cores, graphics overclocked by 150MHz and the fan maxed out the CPU temperature
rises a bit while the graphics drop back.
The stress test results are from running the Aida64 stress test and Heaven benchmark at
the same time, in order to try and fully utilize both the processor and graphics in a worst
case scenario. Continuing up the graph at stock both CPU and GPU are in the low 70s,
still fine. With the overclocks applied and fan still left at stock the temperatures rise
a little. With the fans maxed out at stock the temperatures drop back a bit, then the
CPU temperature rises back up once overclocked to 5GHz.
These are the average clock speeds for the same tests just shown. We can see that every
time the overclocks were applied all 8 cores were able to hit the specified 5GHz with no
problem at all, there was no thermal throttling however I did see intermittent power limit
throttling at the defined 95 watt TDP. I had to boost this to 120 watts with the overclock
applied for full performance. Either way no problems even with the fan at stock, and as
we saw previously maxing the fan out did help further. The 9700K seems to be running perfectly
fine, not even reaching 80 degrees celsius worst case in my test with my warm room. It
would be interesting to see how the 9900K holds up, based on this I suspect it would
be a bit warmer but it may actually be alright, and if not there’s still undervolting.
Here are some Cinebench CPU benchmarks, which show the difference in performance at stock
and then with the extra performance gained by running all 8 cores at 5GHz instead of
the stock 4.6GHz all core turbo speed. Again I also needed to boost the TDP for the overclock
to achieve full performance, otherwise it would power limit throttle at the defined
95 watts, I had it capped at 120 watts for all my overclock testing.
As for the fan noise produced by the system I’ll let you have a listen to some of these
tests.
At idle it was fairly quite and as we saw before the temperatures were in the 30s. While
gaming and under stress test at stock it wasn’t actually that loud, and then with the fans
maxed out it does get pretty loud, but you can of course customize the fans to get a
good mixture of cooling while not being too loud, and there’s still undervolting which
I found could easily drop the CPU by at least 7 degrees Celsius.
I’ve also measured total system power draw from the wall, at idle we’re looking at
43 watts, then 346 watts with the Aida64 stress test and Heaven benchmark running. This rises
by around 60 watts once we overclock the CPU to 5GHz and graphics by 150MHz, and we’ll
see how this helped improve gaming performance soon.
Finally let’s get into some gaming benchmarks, I’ve tested these games at stock settings
as that’s probably how most people will use the PC, don’t worry we’ll look at
overclocking after. I’ve tested at 1080p, 1440p and 4K resolutions at all setting levels
so that we can really see what this hardware can do.
Let’s start out with Battlefield 5. I’ve tested with RTX on, shown by the green bars,
and we’re seeing around half the frame rate compared to RTX off at the higher settings,
although it was still playable at ultra settings with RTX on, getting a solid 60 FPS. Stepping
up to 1440p with RTX off it was still running very well, even with ultra settings, but with
RTX on medium was needed for a good experience, and in my opinion it both played better and
looked nicer at ultra with RTX off. At 4K RTX on is basically a write off unless you
run low settings, but again it looks better with RTX off and higher settings. Even ultra
settings with RTX off at 4K is still able to average 60 FPS with this powerful hardware
combination.
Far Cry 5 was tested with the built in benchmark, and at 1080p the results were quite impressive,
scoring over 120 FPS even with ultra settings. At 1440p we don’t lose too much performance,
still averaging above 100 FPS at ultra settings in this test. At 4K we lose a fair bit of
performance, but realistically for 4K with a game like this the results aren’t bad,
still able to average around the 60 FPS mark.
Fortnite was tested using the replay feature, and as expected for a well optimized game
we’re getting crazy high frame rates at 1080p, with over 200 FPS at epic settings.
Even at 1440p the frame rate at epic settings would be well matched with a 1440p 144Hz monitor,
with even higher frame rates possible at lower settings if you actually need more than this.
At 4K epic settings was still playable with above 60 FPS possible, while medium would
go alright if you’ve got a 4K 144Hz display.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the built in benchmark, and again even with
max settings at 1080p we’re seeing very nice frame rates. At 1440p the frame rates
are still great, and easily playable no problems with max settings on this hardware. At 4K
you’ll probably want to go medium settings or lower in order to still get a decent experience,
but still definitely usable.
CS:GO was tested using the Ulletical benchmark, and as expected we’re seeing insanely high
frame rates with this game. Even with all settings at maximum the average frame rate
was above 400 FPS with the dips in performance shown by the 1% low still around 140 FPS.
At 1440p the results are still very nice, with 400 FPS still achievable with medium
settings and a 100 FPS 1% low. At 4K the results drop back a bit comparatively, but realistically
still pretty good frame rates and should play pretty well even at this higher resolution.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested using the built in benchmark, and again very high frame rates
at 1080p, with over 300 FPS possible at ultra settings, and still a very high 200 FPS for
the 1% low. 1440p is again getting very nice results in this test, with over 200 FPS possible
at ultra settings, and still high results for the 1% low. 4K still scored quite well,
125 FPS at ultra settings with the 1% low still above 100 FPS, with higher possible
at lower settings should you need it.
PUBG was tested using the replay feature, and there wasn’t too much of a difference
seen at 1080p, with ultra settings giving us a high frame rate, even the 1% low was
at 100 FPS. The 1440p results aren’t too bad, almost no change at the lower settings
while the higher settings should still be very playable on this hardware. 4K should
be playable with lower settings, although in this particular test we are still able
to average 60 FPS at high settings which I think is pretty impressive for this unoptimized
game.
We’re seeing really nice performance here from the i7-9700K and RTX 2080, all games
at 1080p and 1440p played very well even with higher settings, and in many cases 4K was
possible with playable frame rates and decent settings, depending on the game of course.
As mentioned before it was possible to improve performance by overclocking the CPU and graphics,
so let’s take a look at how these settings helped out.
I’ve retested Far Cry 5, and we can see that there is an improvement to frame rates
with the overclocks applied. At 1080p there was a 3.9% improvement to average frame rates
once overclocked. At 1440p there was a larger 8% improvement with the overclocks applied
at ultra settings and a 6% improvement to the 1% low. Finally at 4K I was seeing a 7.5%
improvement to the average frame rate at ultra settings, and a 7.8% improvement to the 1%
low, so we are able to get some nice improvements with these overclocks, though this will of
course vary between games.
I’ve used Crystal disk mark to test the storage, and my 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD was getting
very nice read speeds and nice write speeds too, while the 2TB disk was performing about
as expected for a 5,400RPM hard drive.
For up to date pricing check the links in the description, as prices will change over
time. At the time of recording, in the US with these specs we’re looking at around
$2300 USD. Here in Australia the 9700K with RTX 2070 seems to go for $3500 AUD, so you’re
definitely paying a premium for this nice looking pre-built machine with high end hardware
in such a small and thin case. It’s worth remembering that the target market for pre-built
systems like this are generally for people that just want to buy a PC and start gaming
straight away, they may not necessarily care about learning how to build one themselves
to save money, so consider that before you comment about the price and how you could
just make something yourself for less, that will always be the case.
Now let’s talk about upgrade options, I’ve left this to the end as I suspect most people
buying a prebuilt system like this just want it to work out of the box, but if you know
a bit about what you’re doing this information may be useful if you’re after some upgrades.
In terms of graphics it should be possible for you to replace the GPU as long as it fits
in the given space in the case. There’s only room for a 2 slot card, no wider than
that. I measured about 31cm of length, so there’s a little room spare, and maybe 3
of 4cm of extra height over the MSI’s 2080 Ventus card.
The power supply may be a limitation though, the Trident X comes with either a 450 watt
or 650 watt unit depending on your hardware configuration. It should be possible to change
this, given the motherboard and graphics just use standard ATX connections, but I’m not
sure on what models would fit here and wasn’t able to determine the model installed.
The CPU is also upgradeable, the Z370 chipset supports up to the i9-9900K at the moment,
but like the one I have it also comes with the 9700K. If you have the 9700K model it
should be possible to swap in a 9900K in the future, but again like the graphics change
this may require a power supply change. At this point we don’t know if future Intel
CPUs will work with the Z370 chipset like the 8th and 9th generation chips, so it’s
unclear if the 9900K is the end of the road, granted that does offer a lot of performance
so you should be set for a while with that.
As mentioned already the motherboard has two memory slots which support up to 32GB of DDR4
memory. While I kept mine at DDR4-2666, the motherboard does support overclocks up to
4500, so faster memory should also be possible, just refer to the motherboards QVL for known
working memory.
In terms of storage there’s just the single M.2 slot, so you can only mount up to two
2.5 inch drives.
Overall MSI’s Trident X gaming PC is a very capable machine while being quite small and
portable without sacrificing on cooling. With this particular hardware configuration even
4K gaming was possible with perfectly acceptable temperatures, and you’ve still got the option
of going for even more powerful specs if you need. Unlike most other pre-built systems
even the interior of this one looks quite nice, and you’ve got the option of a glass
side panel, although as discussed it doesn’t really let you see anything extra, an extra
light strip would have been nice I think. Let me know what you guys thought about the
Trident X from MSI down in the comments, and if you’re new here get subscribed for future
tech videos like this one.