Upgrading your Trident 3

[lionvandenbrand]

Hi all,

Since there are so many posts about this topic I thought it would be nice to have somewhat of an overview.

Let me start by saying that upgrading your Trident 3 (whatever Gen) is possible. BUT, there is a catch: it depends on what kind of motherboard and power supply you are using.
Trident 3 now comes in 7 versions:

Versions	Chipset	PCB versions	BIOS version(s)	Power	Product page
7th Gen	H110	1.0/2.1	520/A20	230W	https://www.msi.com/Desktop/support/Trident-3
7th Gen Arctic	H110	2.1	A20	230W	https://www.msi.com/Desktop/support/Trident-3-Arctic
8th Gen	H310	1.0/2.1	840	230/330W	https://www.msi.com/Desktop/support/Trident-3-8th
8th Gen Arctic	H310	?	840	230/330W	https://www.msi.com/Desktop/support/Trident-3-Arctic-8th
9th Gen	H310	?	950	230/330W	https://www.msi.com/Desktop/support/Trident-3-9th
9th Gen Arctic	H310	?	950	230/330W	https://www.msi.com/Desktop/support/Trident-3-Arctic-9th
10th Gen	H410	?	800	230/330W	https://www.msi.com/Desktop/support/MPG-Trident-3-10th

Note: This data comes from the datasheets on the specification page within the product page. You can find them in the attachments.

Here is an overview of posts with tested upgrades:

Trident Gen	What's tested?	Working?	Link
7th Gen	I7 7700+GTX1060 3G+230w power supply. Two friends with same model but difference in PCB version (1.0 and 2.1). Version 1.0 tries upgrade 1070 GTX (NOT WORKING with 230W and 330W), version 2.1 tries 1080 GTX (WORKING with 330W)	NO/YES	https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threads/316727
7th Gen	1TB M.2 SSD, GTX1070 Aero 8GB OC graphics card	YES	https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threads/333227
7th Gen	i7-7700 upgraded with Nvidia RTX 2060-6GB and Samsung 970 Evo NVMe PCIe M.2 250GB with 230W using Throttlestop, later 330W without Throttlestop and with Afterburner. NOTE: PCB version 2.1 and BIOS A20	YES	https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threads/313929
8th Gen	Upgraded with ASUS PHOENIX 1660 SUPER (also noted that 1660 Ti works)	YES	https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threads/327434
7th Gen	i5-7400 MSI GTX 1070 Aero using Afterburner and Intel Extreme Tuning Utility. NOTE: did not fit very good	YES	https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threads/298545
7th Gen	i7-7700 Gigabyte GTX1080 Mini ITX using Afterburner	YES	https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threads/298545
7th Gen	i7-7700 Arctic version GTX 1070 upgraded to Gigabyte RTX 2070 ITX version	YES	https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threads/298545
8th Gen	GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1660 Ti	YES	https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threads/298545
7th Gen	I7-7700+GTX1060 3G 230w power supply, upgraded to GTX1070 ITX (also tested with 330W)	NO	https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threads/298545
9th Gen	i7-9700f, 16gb of ram and nvme ssd and gtx 1660 ti with a 230w PSU upgraded to 2060 mini ITX	NO	https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threads/334433

The next question is: which Motherboards and GPU cards work with 230W without additional programs? Which work with 230W using Throttlestop and/or Afterburner? And which work only with 330W?

I have to work now so I'm posting this now, will update this later on.
Feel free to suggest an improvements!

Lion

 

[a_triplett158302dd]

Did you bench mark it before the switch in Hogwarts and after with the new card? If yes what sort of FPS improvement did you get over your previous card?

I did not do any benchmarks, I upgraded this older trident 3 months ago. It does run better on my 11th gen trident 3. Still trying to get the settings fine tuned.

 

[a_triplett158302dd]

View attachment 169131Thanks for posting that. The one I am looking at has all the right markings on it. I guess I will try it and find out! Ebays return policy isnt too bad so should be okay. And you are correct its TDP is 170w for that card. I am putting the card into a slightly older gen Trident but I have a feeling it will work.
Going to order the card and power supply and will update in here what happens so others will know if it works as well.

I picked up the 8th gen used with the i5 8400, 8gb ram. It came with a gtx 1050 2gb and an old mechanical hard drive. I upgraded to i7 8700, 16gb ram 2tb m.2 along side of a 2tb 2.5 ssd and the 12gb rtx 3060. Quite a performance boost all around. Keep me posted and let me know how your upgrades go. Thanks!

 

[shanetac1]

Yeah thats a hefty upgrade! That should upgrade to Windows 11 as well without any issues.
This Trident I'm going to be upgrading has the i7-7700 so it is listed as incompatible even though it has TPM 2.0 which is a requirement. For some reason though this one isn't on the compatible list.
If you haven't already check out Throttle stop. Its actually really good what it can do and probably be able to use that to really fine tune your system. I have it on the Trident and my Stealth. Found a decent enough price on the 3060 so going to get that ordered up Watched a few vids earlier and the performance didnt look too bad. My stealth's got the RTX 3080 16GB Ti so be interesting to compare them to each other side by side.

 

[a_triplett158302dd]

Yeah thats a hefty upgrade! That should upgrade to Windows 11 as well without any issues.
This Trident I'm going to be upgrading has the i7-7700 so it is listed as incompatible even though it has TPM 2.0 which is a requirement. For some reason though this one isn't on the compatible list.
If you haven't already check out Throttle stop. Its actually really good what it can do and probably be able to use that to really fine tune your system. I have it on the Trident and my Stealth. Found a decent enough price on the 3060 so going to get that ordered up Watched a few vids earlier and the performance didnt look too bad. My stealth's got the RTX 3080 16GB Ti so be interesting to compare them to each other side by side.

My 8th gen wasn’t listed as compatible either, or it hasn’t been confirmed as working until now. You never know unless you give it a go. If it didn’t work natively, I was prepared to run a separate power supply to the graphics card, just glad I didn’t have to. I will definitely have to check out throttle stop. That rtx 3080 ti should be a killer, probably blast the 3060 out of the water.

 

[shanetac1]

Yeah definitely. Its a really good laptop just the fans are noisy. I use ThrottleStop to control that now though. The built in MSI centre didnt work very well. Havent really put it through its paces yet as its my work machine but it now has 64GB of 4800hz of DDR5 ram and 12th gen i9 so should toast the Trident but still going to be interesting trying to get as much as I can out of the Trident. I think I am more excited to upgrade it than my son is. He doesn't know what my laptop is capable of thank god! If he did he would be on that all the time instead and I wouldnt get any work done lol. I always keep finding his Trident hooked up to my Ultragear monitor as his doesnt have as good a refresh rate on his one. He is currently trying to squeeze as much FPS out as he can on Sky Rim Special Edition with all the mods and using Vortex.

Interesting. I thought the 8th Gen were supported in Windows 11. I will probably try and update this one to Windows 11 anyway and just make a backup image to my NAS before I do. Can't wait to get this 3060 in it now. Thanks again for providing all that info

 

[a_triplett158302dd]

Yeah definitely. Its a really good laptop just the fans are noisy. I use ThrottleStop to control that now though. The built in MSI centre didnt work very well. Havent really put it through its paces yet as its my work machine but it now has 64GB of 4800hz of DDR5 ram and 12th gen i9 so should toast the Trident but still going to be interesting trying to get as much as I can out of the Trident. I think I am more excited to upgrade it than my son is. He doesn't know what my laptop is capable of thank god! If he did he would be on that all the time instead and I wouldnt get any work done lol. I always keep finding his Trident hooked up to my Ultragear monitor as his doesnt have as good a refresh rate on his one. He is currently trying to squeeze as much FPS out as he can on Sky Rim Special Edition with all the mods and using Vortex.

Interesting. I thought the 8th Gen were supported in Windows 11. I will probably try and update this one to Windows 11 anyway and just make a backup image to my NAS before I do. Can't wait to get this 3060 in it now. Thanks again for providing all that info

Good luck, let me know how it goes!

 

[robiama161d02f1]

dont know how you made out but you can put I7 8400 in it, evga 1060 6g works good, 64 gig rip jaw 3200mhz, 1T mnve m2 drive k3000 works good. my only grip with it is id like to find a bios that i can replace this one with that is not locked. and by the way windows 11 works real well with it.

 

[robiama161d02f1]

ok well I've successfully upgraded the trident 8th gen i5 8400 to i7 9700 with 64gig of ram, evga 1060 6g, mag coreliquid 240 v2 cooler running at 27c, mnve m2 K3000, 750watt second psu for accessories. if anyone has information on a alternative or newer bios please msg me. thank you

 

[shanetac1]

Finally ordered the GPU. Been busy with life and work! Bought the ASUS GeForce RTX 3060 12GB Phoenix V2 Ampere Graphics Card. Ordering the new power cord as well. If this all works going to upgrade the CPU next as well and then see how this thing copes with being moved onto Windows 11.

 

[shanetac1]

GPU is here! Got the new PSU as well yesterday. Going to be doing this tomorrow so hopefully it works!

 

[MSI_user_NL]

Hi all,

Great that this topic is alive.
I have a MSI Trident 7th gen (motherboard version 1.0). I have upgraded RAM successfully before to 24GB by adding a 16GB Kingston KVR24S17D8/16.

Yesterday I tried to replace the M.2 SSD with a WD Black SN770 2TB M.2 SSD . Although it fits in the M.2 slot in the motherboard, it is not compatible - it's not recognized by the BIOS. Seems that only SATA M.2 drives are compatible? If anyone has other suggestions please share, in this topic I saw someone replace it with Samsung 970 Evo NVMe PCIe M.2 but that person had motherboard version 2.1 or a Trident 8th gen.

I am also wondering whether the new ASUS Phoenix GeForce RTX™ 3050 V2 8GB GDDR6 is compatible ? I have the stock MSI GeForce 1060 3G GPU at the moment.
In terms of physical size it should fit. TDP is 130W I believe.

Other GPU option would be Palit GeForce RTX™ 3050 StormX. Physical dimensions are good and TDP is rated at 115W. However it makes use of 8 PCIE lanes instead of 16.

I am curious what others think!

 

[shanetac1]

I reckon either of those will work. I went with Asus as read back things about Palits return policy.
I am still waiting to stick the 3060 in. Waiting for my son as want him to help so he can learn how to do it.. Will let you know how that works out. If it works I assume the 3050 will work.

 

[shanetac1]

So the ASUS GeForce RTX 3060 12GB Phoenix V2 Ampere Graphics Card I should have measured it all fully but it does not fit. lol. There is not enough clearance because of the fan encasing being so high. Think going to just get a new case for it or modify this case as due to the custom board probably be a pain to move it into a new case as well. The Asus card is 5.1cm high and that is just too much. Looking at also possibly returning this one and getting the PNY as that is 3.99cm

 

[MSI_user_NL]

So the ASUS GeForce RTX 3060 12GB Phoenix V2 Ampere Graphics Card I should have measured it all fully but it does not fit. lol. There is not enough clearance because of the fan encasing being so high. Think going to just get a new case for it or modify this case as due to the custom board probably be a pain to move it into a new case as well. The Asus card is 5.1cm high and that is just too much. Looking at also possibly returning this one and getting the PNY as that is 3.99cm

Haha that's unfortunate. For comparison, the MSI GTX 1060 3GB in my case measures 175 mm (length) x 115 mm (width) x 38 mm (height).
I would estimate I could buy a GPU which is 10 millimeters wider but only has 1-2 millimeters more in length/height.

For you I would recommend looking at Techpowerup's website for 3060 12GB and 3060 8GB cards, checking the 'Other changes' column for physical dimensions per brand, and choosing a compatible card that way.

Edit: did you try to run it with an open case? To see whether there were any issues?

 

[shanetac1]

Cheers. I have ordered the MSI Aero version a_triplett158302dd had used in their setup and that arrives today. It is meant to have a slightly smaller depth. The ASUS just was about a cm too high. Hopefully this fits.
I did not bother running the Asus as the SSD being on the underside of the board made it a pain in the butt to secure back after pulling it out and putting the GPU in. I could have put the SSD into a case I have but figured I was sending it back anyway and it is easier to return something I have not actually used.
I have just bought Resi 4 on Steam. Going to undervolt the cpu on the Trident with Throttle Stop and use MSI afterburner to undervolt the GPU and see what fps I can get on the 2k monitor setup we have this machine on. My Stealth is getting 60fps on 4k so going to be cool to test them side by side.

 

[shanetac1]

Haha that's unfortunate. For comparison, the MSI GTX 1060 3GB in my case measures 175 mm (length) x 115 mm (width) x 38 mm (height).
I would estimate I could buy a GPU which is 10 millimeters wider but only has 1-2 millimeters more in length/height.

For you I would recommend looking at Techpowerup's website for 3060 12GB and 3060 8GB cards, checking the 'Other changes' column for physical dimensions per brand, and choosing a compatible card that way.

Edit: did you try to run it with an open case? To see whether there were any issues?

The 1060 3GB is exactly what is in this machine as well. And yeah it is just under 4cm and has clearance not just with its height but the front of the card has a huge gap as well which allows it to fit without any issues. These 3060s cards fans go right to the front so have to go under the lip of the case.

 

[shanetac1]

Got the new card into the Trident and it is running extremely well.
Thank you to everyone who has posted in here. Was extremely helpful.
We were running the opening village scene of Resi 4 on 2k and it was getting consistently 50-60fps. Only issue was being caused by the CPU hitting 100% not the gpu. I honestly didnt see any difference in the visuals on there compared to my laptop with a 3080ti 16gb running in 4k. Going to look at what can I upgrade the CPU with next.
Will have a read through here again and see what others have managed to get running on this board.

Temps are decent on the GPU. Between 50-70c. I expect undervolting to bring that down even further.
Also ran Sky Rim with about 200 mods and my son is happy as the textures are very crisp and the fps has greatly improved. He can run it on the 2k and it is getting fps of between 60-100 outside. He was getting 25-60 before and I believe he was just on HD 1920 x 1080 then as well not 2k 2540 x 1440.
It is an old game granted but it looked really good with all the mods! It didnt look far off current gen.

Going to undervolt the CPU and GPU tomorrow and will then update this.
For anyone catching the tail end of this to recap I upgraded the Trident 3 7th Gen that came with the 1060 GTX 3GB to the RTX 3060 MSI Aero 12GB. Tried with the Asus Phoeniex 12GB 3060 but it does not fit the case. It was well over 5cm. Probably would work as well but would require some case modifications.
The clearance for the GPU is important to note as the old gtx cards have room in front of them, well the 1060 I ripped out of this did, so it fit under the lip of the case easily. The clearance you have I guestimated with a tape was about 4.6cm for the GPU. I believe the MSI card we have in there now is about 4.5cm so it just fit. The max length you could probably get away with is about 18-19cm (think the MSI is about 17cm long if i remember correctly and the depth is just a little over 12cm. You have more room in that regards as can always remove the board and clip in the GPU but I would say that won't be an issue on any cards really. Height/depth with the case flat is the biggest issue.
To get this to work had to update the bios to the A.20. It has baseboard of 2.0 so was able to update to this bios. The board you have will dicatate if you can do this or not.
This is posted throughout the thread but the reason this matters is because you need to be able to use the higher PSU, so once that is done you will need to get hold of a 330 PSU if your system does not already run on that. Our one was on the 220. I purchased this off ebay. It is a genuine Delta 330. Be careful when purchasing this as if it is a counterfeit or just a very old used one there is a high chance it won't work.
You will also need a 6 Pin to 8 Pin PCIe Adapter as it is 6 pin on the board and 8 pin on the new GPUs.

 

[shanetac1]

I don't think the H110 can use a better CPU. The 8th gen uses the H310 and think that can use up to the i7 9700. Anyone know where to buy one of the custom H310 or H410 boards?

 

[MSI_user_NL]

I don't think the H110 can use a better CPU. The 8th gen uses the H310 and think that can use up to the i7 9700. Anyone know where to buy one of the custom H310 or H410 boards?

No experience as I have the 7th gen Trident (H110 chipset) but here's the CPU compatibility list from Intel for the H310 chipset. This shows up to i9-9900. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/133348/intel-h310-chipset/compatible.html

BTW nice work on the GPU upgrade, I'd like to upgrade the PSU as well (220>330W) but I don't think my motherboard version is compatible, so am stuck with RTX 3050 or maybe RTX 4060 once it is released later this year.

 

[shanetac1]

I emailed MSI support and asked the motherboards name for the gens after the 7th using the The H310 and H410 chipsets. They are apparently end of life they said now so they aren't making or selling them anymore. Trying to find out the boards name though so can see if can find anyone selling one on ebay.
Our current one has the MSI B9061 2.0 so was able to use the higher PSU but stuck on the i7 7700.
I believe they may have took a board and customized it so might be impossible to find one anyway.