Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Review

The new GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is Nvidia'due south latest $400 GPU designed to replace the RTX 2060 Super. This has been a long rumored release, and instance in point, we accept several cards on hand already.

Although nosotros did not receive a Founders Edition model on time for this review, we do have 4 AIB cards, including the Evga RTX 3060 Ti FTW3 Ultra, Asus ROG Strix RTX 3060 Ti, MSI RTX 3060 Ti Gaming 10 Trio and Gigabyte RTX 3060 Ti Gaming OC Pro. That's prissy. Since the Gigabyte model arrived first we've used information technology for testing and volition be representing the RTX 3060 Ti on our benchmarks, later on we'll explore what is unique about each card nevertheless.

Now, when compared to the RTX 2060 Super, the RTX 3060 Ti should be a substantial upgrade as in terms of specs it sits somewhat close to the excellent RTX 3070. Information technology packs but 17% fewer cores, TMUs and ROPs. The memory subsystem remains the same, though we saw the same configuration with the 2060 Super, that'south 8GB of GDDR6 retention clocked at 7000 MHz for a xiv Gbps transfer speed. The 256-fleck broad memory jitney results in a peak bandwidth of 448 GB/s.

The cores are clocked three.5% lower than the RTX 3070'south at 1665 MHz. Every bit a result the 3060 Ti has a board power rating of 200 watts which is a xiv% increment from the 2060 Super. Given what we've seen from Ampere then far, we're expecting the 3060 Ti to exist a good bit faster than the 2060 Super, though the real test should exist how it fares against the outgoing Radeon RX 5700 XT.

GeForce	RTX 3080	RTX 3070	RTX 3060 Ti	RTX 2060 Super
Price MSRP	$700	$500	$400	$400
Release Engagement	September 2022	Oct 2022	November 2022	July 2022
Procedure	Samsung 8N			TSMC12FFN
Transistors (billion)	28.iii	17.4		10.8
Die Size (mm2)	628.four	392.5		754
Cadre Config	8704 / 272 / 96	5888 / 184 / 96	4864 / 152 / lxxx	2176 / 136 / 64
GPU Boost Clock	1710 MHz	1725 MHz	1655 MHz	1650 MHz
Memory Capacity	x GB	8GB
Retention Speed	19 Gbps	xiv Gbps
Retentivity Blazon	GDDR6X	GDDR6
Bus Type / Bandwidth	320-scrap / 760 GB/southward	256-scrap / 448 GB/s
TGP	320 watt	220 watt	200 watt	175 watt

After all, the 5700 XT is the previous generation $400 champ as it was over 20% faster than the 2060 Super on average, so we're keen to encounter if the 3060 Ti tin finally put downward AMD's first fissure at their RDNA compages.

For testing we're still using our Ryzen 9 3950X test system, which will become upgraded to the 5950X as soon equally nosotros can. The 3950X has lilliputian influence on the 1440p information and doesn't limit the 4K results at all, so for the virtually role very piddling will change when moving to the 5950X, or then we expect.

Speaking of resolutions, our focus on today'southward review volition be on 1440p performance since this isn't a 4K graphics menu. We've also dropped 1080p performance every bit scaling is very similar to what will be shown at 1440p. With that said, nosotros accept provided the 18 game boilerplate 1080p and 4K data, while also including information technology in our price power frame assay.

Ane final important detail, since nosotros are not testing Nvidia'southward RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition graphics menu, we've tested using the Gigabyte Gaming OC Pro. This card comes with a 6% factory overclock, so it volition perform slightly amend than cards post-obit the reference or base spec, please be aware of that. On the upside, we're also using the MSI Gaming X version of the 2060 Super which is also a factory overclocked, every bit is the 5700 XT we tested, represented by PowerColor'due south Red Devil.

When we update all our benchmarking information with the Ryzen 9 5950X, we'll replace the Founder Edition results for the 3070, 3080 and 3090 with manufactory OC AIB models, nosotros'll too practice the same for our Radeon RX 6800 and 6800 XT results. Truth be told, it won't make a huge difference, a 6% overclock volition typically net y'all a 3 to 4% functioning uplift, but we wanted to exist transparent near what'due south going on here.

Benchmarks

First up nosotros have Godfall and every bit expected the 3060 Ti isn't a great bargain slower than the RTX 3070, abaft by just a 13% margin with 62 fps on average. That meant it was 19% faster than the 5700 XT, which is a reasonable performance uplift. Of course, the massive 48% uplift over the 2060 Super is far more impressive.

Whereas Godfall is a new AMD sponsored title, Watch Dogs Legion is a new Nvidia sponsored championship and unsurprisingly the 3060 Ti does even improve here relative to the 5700 XT, beating the previous generation Radeon GPU by a thirty% margin.

The RTX 3060 Ti is besides 42% faster than the 2060 Super and just 13% slower than the 3070.

Having said all that, but 61 fps on average at 1440p isn't exactly amazing performance and we've yet to enable ray tracing, though we will expect at that soon along with DLSS performance in this title.

The RTX 3060 Ti performs very well in Assassinator's Creed Valhalla, trailing the 3070 by just a 9% margin, though again we're only looking at 58 fps on average which admittedly is enough for this fashion of game, though I personally would tune the quality settings for reduced input latency.

When compared to the 2060 Super we're looking at an most 30% performance boost, then that'due south prissy, though the 3060 Ti was simply able to match the 5700 XT in this new AMD sponsored title. So it would seem Nvidia has some driver optimization work to do.

Dirt five is yet another new AMD sponsored title and we find a state of affairs where the 3060 Ti is slightly slower than the sometime 5700 XT, despite chirapsia the 2060 Super by a xxx% margin. It will be interesting to see how the 5700 XT and 2060/2070 Super stack upwards by this time side by side year, nosotros certainly seem to already exist seeing a situation where the RDNA architecture is aging much meliorate than Turing.

Even in Decease Stranding the new RTX 3060 Ti isn't a not bad deal faster than the 5700 XT, beating it by a 13% margin despite trailing the 3070 by just a 9% margin.

Nosotros're also talking about a massive forty% functioning uplift over the 2060 Super, then again while the 3060 Ti looks fantastic compared to Nvidia's previous $400 offer, information technology'southward far less impressive when compared to AMDs.

We are seeing a rather salubrious 25% performance boost for the 3060 Ti over the 5700 XT in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2022, taking the average frame rate at 1440p upwards to xl fps on average. That means it's merely 9% slower than the 3070 and almost 30% faster than the 2060 Super.

Even in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the 3060 Ti was just nine% slower than the RTX 3070 with 108 fps on average. Information technology was also much faster than the 5700 XT, beating it by almost 30% and a massive 46% margin over the 2060 Super, making Tomb Raider one of the best showings yet for the 3060 Ti.

The RTX 3060 Ti remains strong in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege, chirapsia the 5700 XT by a convincing 24% margin and burning the 2060 Super by an incredible 56%.

Information technology'due south also just 12% slower than the RTX 3070, so overall a great result and non that far from the 2080 Ti, a card that once fetched $1200.

F1 2022 has been a stiff title for AMD in the past and here nosotros're seeing that the 3060 Ti is just able to beat the 5700 XT by 7%, though we are seeing 2080 Super-like performance from the 5700 XT, so like nosotros said, this is a potent title for AMD.

Despite the disappointing margin from the 5700 XT, the 3060 Ti was 51% faster than the 2060 Super, so that's a monstrous generational improvement for Nvidia at the $400 price bespeak.

We're again seeing the RTX 3060 Ti delivering RTX 2080 Super-like performance with 82 fps on average at 1440p in Gears 5, making it just 9% slower than the 3070. It was also 11% faster than the 5700 XT, despite beating the 2060 Super by an about 40% margin.

The Horizon Zero Dawn results are surprising equally here the 3060 Ti was just four% slower than the RTX 3070, delivering 92 fps on average, allowing information technology to trounce fifty-fifty the RTX 2080 Ti. When compared to the 5700 XT we're looking at a 31% operation increase, so very impressive and a truly massive 61% increase over the 2060 Super.

Nosotros're looking at a decent 21% performance gain over the 5700 XT in World War Z. Also a massive 61% operation jump over the 2060 Super. When compared to the 3070, the RTX 3060 Ti was just 11% slower, and so not much separating these two Ampere products.

Metro Exodus is ane of the few games that's quite heavily CPU limited with the Ryzen nine 3950X at 1440p, and as a result the 3060 Ti is just 4% slower than the 3070. Despite that, the 3060 Ti doesn't appear all that CPU limited given information technology was nevertheless 27% faster than the 5700 XT and almost forty% faster than the 2060 Super.

Testing with Resident Evil 3 reveals the 3060 Ti to be just 10% slower than the 3070 and this is adequately typical of what we've seen so far. Even more impressive is the fact that in this championship information technology was 32% faster than the 5700 XT and 51% faster than the 2060 Super. That'southward a really nice upgrade at the $400 price point.

The RTX 3060 Ti managed to border out the 2080 Super, this time in DOOM Eternal and that meant it was 99% faster than the RTX 2060 Super, pretty crazy stuff.

So basically the RTX 3060 Ti is a brute in Doom.

It was less impressive relative to the 5700 XT, though still a big gain at 42% faster. And then basically the RTX 3060 Ti is a beast in Doom.

The RTX 3060 Ti also dominated the previous-generation competition in Wolfenstein: Youngblood, beating the 5700 XT by a 42% margin and the 2060 Super by a 56% margin. It was too a mere 11% slower than the 3070 and 2080 Ti.

In the last game we tested, the 3060 Ti was simply 10% slower than the RTX 3070 in Hitman 2 and 27% faster than the 5700 XT, so an excellent result here.

We're also looking at a 42% performance uplift over the 2060 Super, and so when compared to Nvidia'southward previous generation $400 part, the 3060 Ti looks amazing.

Average Gaming Functioning

Here'due south a look at the average performance seen across the eighteen games tested. Although we didn't spend time looking at 1080p performance on each of the games tested and then far, we did collect the data.

A wait at the 1080p average information is below and as you can see at this lower resolution the RTX 3060 Ti was on average just 8% slower than the RTX 3070, though be aware at times the 3070 volition have been limited by the CPU.

Withal, for those gaming at 1080p with a CPU similar (or slower) than the Ryzen nine 3950X, the 3060 Ti won't exist much slower than the RTX 3070, though it also won't be much faster than the older Radeon RX 5700 XT. Here nosotros see a xv% performance uplift on average.

When compared to the 2060 Super we are looking at a rather massive 41% performance comeback, then that's quite impressive.

At present at 1440p we're almost never CPU express, with the exception of two or iii titles.

The 3060 Ti is 9% slower on boilerplate when compared to the RTX 3070, which is similar to the margin seen at 1080p. The GeForce does extend its lead over the 5700 XT out to 21%, which is a decent performance uplift, while non an farthermost leap for a next generation GPU.

Of class, the super impressive leap is seen when looking at the RTX 2060 Super. Here the new RTX 3060 Ti is on average fifty% faster at 1440p and that'south a serious generational improvement.

At 4K, the RTX 3060 Ti is seen abaft the 3070 by merely 12%, which is a surprisingly modest margin. It's too now 28% faster than the 5700 XT which is a decent margin, though in our opinion neither are actually suitable for 4K gaming. The cutting off here we'd say is the 2080 Ti / RTX 3070 and even the 3070 might be questionable moving forrad with its limited 8GB VRAM buffer.

Cost Per Frame

Time for a expect at the cost per frame and for now we're going to stick with the MSRP information for the 1080p results. We'll brand some adjustments to the 1440p results, which nosotros'll look at in a moment.

In a perfect world, where the MSRP meant something, the RTX 3060 Ti would exist coming in well below annihilation we've previously seen in terms of cost per frame...

But let's move to the 1440p results to continue this discussion.

We'll get-go with an MSRP comparison earlier looking at retail prices. When compared to the RTX 3070, the 3060 Ti should exist coming in offer xiii% more than value per frame and 14% when compared to the RX 6800.

Now, when compared to the outgoing models like the 2060 Super and 5700 XT, the 3060 Ti is xviii% more than affordable per frame when compared to the 5700 XT and 33% more affordable when compared to the 2060 Super. Given the performance simply seen and the fact that they should all toll $400, no surprises there.

But what almost bodily retail prices? Well let's commencement with pricing over at Newegg. At present exist aware virtually all of these graphics cards are out of stock and while the Ampere GPUs have seen numerous re-supplies, they sell out instantly.

What we're looking at here is the cheapest list cost for each AIB model, at that place are three 3070 AIB cards at the MSRP and three 3080 cards at the MSRP. At that place is a single 6800 that's just below the MSRP, it's the PowerColor Fighter and in that location'southward some other at the MSRP. The 6800 XT though doesn't take any AIB models at the MSRP, the cheapest being the Sapphire Nitro+ at $770.

Finally, at that place's a few 5700 XT's at $400, but the vanilla 5700's are all overpriced, presumably due to a lack of supply at the moment. Taking those listings this is what we terminate upwards with. Basically the 3060 Ti is withal great value with the RX 6800 also looking very good, albeit at a much higher toll. The RTX 3070 also looks practiced though information technology is coming in at a 14% premium per frame when compared to the 3060 Ti.

It's really only the 6800 XT that looks a chip weak hither, though it'due south not too bad compared to the RTX 3080, at least for those wanting to game at 1440p.

Ray Tracing Performance

For ray tracing and DLSS operation, we're going to accept a await at 1080p and 1440p functioning. Nosotros'll exist comparing the RTX 3060 Ti with the 2060 Super and the RX 6800, which is currently the cheapest Radeon GPU that supports ray tracing, though it's not a straight competitor for the 3060 Ti.

As we saw before, the 3060 Ti is 34% faster than the 2060 Super in Watch Dogs Legion at 1080p and with ray tracing enabled that margin doesn't change much, using ultra quality ray tracing the RTX 3060 Ti is 38% faster and 41% faster with medium quality RT.

Nosotros're so looking at a 36-42% margin when RT + DLSS enabled and so just a 26% margin with both using but DLSS. So while Nvidia has optimized the second-gen RT cores and 3rd-gen Tensor cores, at that place's no tangible improvement in performance at the stop of the day given at that place'southward less of them. An efficiency improvement sure, but an actual performance comeback relative to the standard rasterization performance, not so much.

The RTX 3060 Ti will offer like ray tracing performance to that of the 2080 Super, which is skilful for a $400 graphics bill of fare, just how useful that is at this performance tier volition depend on your standards.

Personally, gaming at 60 fps feels pretty sluggish for me, even games similar Watch Dogs, I similar to play at effectually ninety fps, the input just feels a lot better and I favor input over visual quality, at least when it means playing at or beneath about ninety fps.

Of course, everyone is unlike, so if yous're happy gaming at around 60 fps so the RTX 3060 Ti will deliver a good experience at 1080p with DLSS enabled.

Nosotros also find the visual upgrade from 1080p to 1440p to be massive, certainly bigger than the upgrade from 1440p to 4K, which is probably one reason why gamers aren't rushing to 4K. Anyway, if you want to play at 1440p you'll have to be okay with less than lx fps with DLSS enabled and you can await regular dips downward in the low 40s. The game is unplayable using RT in my opinion without DLSS enabled.

Again, my personal preferences would see me disable ray tracing entirely in Sentry Dogs Legion with an RTX 3060 Ti and instead go with quality DLSS for 77 fps on boilerplate which saw frame rates consistently above lx fps. For this championship and likely many others that support DLSS 2.0, the RTX 3060 Ti tin deliver a meliorate experience than even the Radeon RX 6800, and that's very impressive.

Power Consumption

Because nosotros don't have the base Founders Edition model on manus, these ability figures are going to be a scrap all over the place, and therefore we've tested all iv AIB models which may be even better for time to come reference.

As you tin see on the graph beneath, the Asus ROG Strix model used the least amount of power, only all the same full arrangement consumption was increased by a few watts when compared to the RTX 3070 Founders Edition.

The 3060 Ti FE model should use around twenty watts less power, making these AIB models a lot less efficient, thought that's fairly typical.

Using Nvidia'south PCAT to expect at lath ability specifically, nosotros encounter that the Asus ROG Strix model uses the same power as the RTX 3070 Founders Edition at 226 watts, which is 200 watts over the base spec.

The MSI Gaming X Trio is way more power hungry though hitting 255 watts which is well over spec, presumably MSI's been ambitious with their stock voltage.

For functioning per watt, we're using the Gigabyte Gaming OC Pro data as that'south the model we used for all game benchmarks. We're as well using the 1440p information, previously we've focused on the 4K data for this which is much more favorable for the college-end Ampere GPUs which do scale meliorate at this higher resolution.

At 1440p nosotros've seen simply how inefficient the 3080 and 3090 are in terms of performance, and as a result performance per watt isn't as impressive as what nosotros've seen at 4K.

The RTX 3070, which scales more consistently does fair every well, losing only to the RX 6800. The Gigabyte RTX 3060 Ti Gaming OC Pro though uses the aforementioned amount of power every bit the RTX 3070 Founders Edition and therefore doesn't score besides, though the functioning per watt is still quite adept. If we had the Atomic number 26 model to test, we imagine the 3060 Ti would be comparable to the 3070.

Thermal Functioning

Let's talk a fleck about thermal performance, fan speeds and operating clock speeds. Starting with the Gigabyte Gaming OC Pro, information technology peaked at just 67C, which is a fairly low temperature, though the fan speed was very high as 2100 RPM.

At that place'due south the pick of a silent BIOS just due to extreme time constraints nosotros've just been able to test each of these four AIB graphics cards using the principal or default BIOS. And so, 67C with a 2100 RPM fan speed and maintaining a clock speed of 1950 MHz after 30 minutes of gameplay. By the mode, all this testing was conducted in the Corsair Obsidian 500D, with a 21C ambient temperature.

Next up nosotros accept the Asus ROG Strix which peaked at but 58C, that's a 9C improvement on the Gigabyte model, though you lot can expect the Strix card to fetch a higher toll. Anyway, 58C with a 1600 RPM fan speed, an excellent effect.

The Evga FTW3 Ultra peaked at 72C with a 2000 RPM fan speed, that's the worst effect we've seen so far and although the clock speed was i.v% college at 1980 MHz, that's a negligible difference.

Finally, the MSI Gaming X Trio which is some other premium RTX 3060 Ti and this model peaked at just 61C with an 1800 RPM fan speed, though like the EVGA version information technology maintained a core clock speed of 1980 MHz. Based on this quick expect, we'd say the best model here is the Asus ROG Strix, though it's likely to price the nigh, and then the MSI Gaming Ten Trio.

Overclocking

Here'due south a look at overclocking with the Asus ROG Strix RTX 3060 Ti, given how cool this model ran we decided to use it for overclocking.

It managed a stable 2.one GHz for the cores, while the memory accomplished 16 Gbps and this resulted in a further 9% operation which placed it on par with a stock base of operations spec RTX 3070. Bang-up, though fairly typical for these new Ampere GPUs.

What Nosotros Learned

The RTX 3060 Ti is a mighty impressive upgrade when compared to Nvidia's previous $400 offer, the RTX 2060 Super, offering 50% more performance at the same price point. The 2060 Super wasn't exactly great value all the same, same as about of Turing's lineup, and in this price range the go to selection for all-time performance for your dollar was the Radeon RX 5700 XT. In that comparison, the RTX 3060 Ti is offering near 20% more performance.

The 5700 XT has been available for about 18 months, so a 20% heave in that timeframe isn't bad, it's just not earth shattering. Had the RTX 3060 Ti offered more than VRAM, it'd be a bit more than exciting and possibly more enticing for someone already rocking a 5700 series GPU.

The RTX 3060 Ti is a great upgrade selection for those with something like a GTX 1070, who decided to skip Turing, the ray tracing hype generation that offered very piddling in the manner of a cost per frame improvement. For those with a GTX 1070, you're looking at a ninety% performance uplift on average at 1440p, while GTX 1080 owners are looking at a solid sixty% functioning uplift. You're also getting ray tracing support, which as you lot know from previous reviews, it's not something I personally observe relevant because of the pocket-size but growing list of games supported (and consequent performance hit).

Let's talk a fleck about that, and know that this is all based on my personal preferences... First, nosotros're non down to play at 1080p, especially when spending $400 (or more than) on a graphics card. That's just too much to be spending on a 1080p experience, unless you're doing it for professional competitive gaming. In my view, 1440p offers a significant visual upgrade and because of this I oasis't used a 1080p display in over a decade -- non since 2008 when I purchased my first 2560x1600 monitor, an investment that was with me for almost a decade.

That existence the case, 1080p ray tracing performance just isn't where it'due south at for me. These cards need to deliver at 1440p and a sub-60 FPS experience when leveraging DLSS is not something we're specially interested in. So for me the RTX 3060 Ti technically doesn't support ray tracing as it tin can't deliver an acceptable level of gaming performance with it enabled, even with the help of DLSS.

On the other mitt, what is a very peachy characteristic and something nosotros'd absolutely use is DLSS.

Going from 61 fps in Watch Dogs Legion to 77 fps with no noticeable downgrade to the visuals is a big deal. It's also a feature we'd use in more competitive games, such equally Fortnite, for example, which now also supports DLSS. Fortnite supports ray tracing, but information technology'south a complete waste material fifty-fifty with an RTX 3090, every bit any half decent gamer volition exist turning most effects down or entirely off, for competitive advantage, and that's exactly what we do.

For those of you who are wondering why nosotros didn't enable DLSS for the benchmarks we just saw in the games that support it, like Death Stranding for example, in curt we prefer to prove native performance as that's an apples to apples comparison. DLSS while super impressive, isn't ever flawless, sometimes suffering from artifacts where it fails to properly fill in the missing data. AMD has said they accept their own DLSS-type technology on the way, and promise to have it supported by a much broader range of games. That could drastically modify this discussion in the near future, simply of form, nosotros'll accept to wait and meet on that one.

No matter which way you slice information technology though, right at present the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is the best value $400 graphics carte on the marketplace. There's but no way you'd invest in a Radeon RX 5700 XT beyond this point. So once again, if availability is anything like what we're seen with the 3070, 3080 and 3090, buying a 3060 Ti is going to be extremely difficult at launch. Based on what nosotros're hearing, availability will be like to that of the RTX 3070. There will be some RTX 3060 Ti stock available simply it'll sell out correct abroad and volition be hard to get for the side by side few weeks.

Another relevant point to this conversation, of the four 3060 Ti graphics cards we have on hand, none of them will be available at the $400 MSRP. The Evga RTX 3060 Ti FTW3 Ultra is expected to cost $450, while the MSI RTX 3060 Ti Gaming 10 Trio will starting time at $470, and nosotros expect we'll encounter a like price for the Gigabyte RTX 3060 Ti Gaming OC Pro. Asus didn't get u.s. proper pricing in fourth dimension for this review, but rest assured that the ROG Strix model will cost at least $500, at which indicate you might as well beginning looking at buying an RTX 3070 instead.