Long story short:
For 300-350 Euros, it is a very powerful card that delivers high frame rates in games (high graphics) and does not increase temperatures or noise, but it does not provide good RTX gaming.
9/10 would buy again
Short story long:
I bought it in April '22 for 345 Euros, still during shortages, and I chose this one because it happened to be the only 20xx / 30xx card under 400 Euros at that time (I didn't want to spend 300+ for an older card).
It is plugged into an MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk (ATX motherboard) along with 16 GB RAM & Ryzen 5 5600X.
Nothing overclocked (more on that later) and a Deepcool Matrexx 55 case (Midi tower).
First impressions when I started:
It is small. If anyone prefers a visual, it is like 1.5 mobile phones, maybe even less. It definitely fits in a midi tower and I'm almost certain it fits in 99%, if not all, mini towers. It was perhaps the easiest part during installation.
After building it:
Windows 10, absolutely no problems. The drivers were installed quickly.
Linux (Debian 11), however, I had a crazy time finding compatible drivers. While there were drivers for other 30xx cards, this one was very new and I had to dig deep to find them. I couldn't confirm if the issue has been resolved.
Performance in games (NOTE: at least on High graphics, never lower and rarely higher):
I play a variety of games depending on the company. I have tested the card on LoL / CS:GO / GTA 5, on 4X grand strategy titles (Hearts of Iron, Civilization, Stellaris, etc.), numerous RPGs (Sekiro, Sea of Thieves, Lost Ark), etc... Many of them are CPU-intensive, I know, but the card always plays a role.
Without RTX, I was impressed. 100+ FPS in all the titles I mentioned. In heavy games, it dips a bit lower, but it's always above 60 and I have never seen any dropped frames.
With RTX, it's a bit of a joke. I tried it three times in total because I was never interested in RTX, but the truth is that this card was clearly not designed with RTX in mind. It struggles even for 30 FPS and loses a lot of frames. I don't care about RTX and never use it, but let it be known for anyone interested.
Hardware performance:
First of all, I have to note that airflow was the first thing I had in mind when building the system, so I got the right Arctic PWM fans and made sure to place them correctly for good ventilation.
Now, the card itself is completely silent. It is not audible at all, except in a few cases when it struggles for a while at 60-90 frames. But even then, it's very quiet.
Also, I have never seen it reach dangerous temperatures. The highest I have seen with the monitor is 55 degrees Celsius. I don't know if I missed something because I didn't have the monitor open, but I guarantee that it never throttles even under pressure.
As for overclocking, the card is already OC "out of the box", so when I tried to tweak it, I was very conservative with what I did. It was fairly easy, but I didn't see significant improvement, so I reverted back.
Overall:
Now that I'm writing this review, it is priced at 300 Euros. It is definitely worth it for this price. It is a great card, as long as one does not intend to engage in RTX gaming.
9/10 would buy again