GoKawiilYour CPU is your PC's "brain," responsible for executing instructions by decoding their binary code and issuing commands. When a component like your graphics card needs to stop what it's doing, it sends an interrupt request, or IRQ, to the CPU via a dedicated hardware line. But since there's only so many of these physical lines, lots of devices can end up cramming onto one, causing latency when the shared line can't tell the CPU which device fired a signal.
Instead of relying on hardware lines, a device that uses MSI raises an IRQ by writing a small value to a specific memory address instead. Every interrupt arrives already labeled with its sender as a result, meaning that it never collides with another device's traffic. The introduction of PCI 3.0 in 2010 brought MSI-X, an extended version that supports more individual messages. Windows now uses this as the default whenever a device offers both, whether you're still on Windows 10 or have made the upgrade to Windows 11.
In terms of what your graphics card stands to gain, the most noticeable change will be consistency over speed. With MSI, interrupts are serviced with less waiting around, which can settle frame pacing and reduce input latency on a system that was otherwise suffering from congested lines. Your card won't render any faster; MSI requests mean your graphics card gets a higher response priority from your CPU. That's it. If it's outright speed you're after, our guide on how to buy a GPU will serve you better.