GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition
The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition is based on the Ampere architecture on Samsung 8nm. The MSRP for the Founders Edition is $399. It has 38 SMs, which means 4864 CUDA Cores, 80 ROPs, 152 TMUs, 38 RT Cores (2nd generation), and 152 Tensor Cores (3rd generation). It has a GPU Boost clock of 1665MHz. It has 8GB of GDDR6 at 14GHz on a 256-bit memory bus providing 448GB/s of memory bandwidth. The TGP is 200W.
Ray Tracing and Tensor Cores
Importantly for this architecture, the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is using Ampere’s newer 2nd generation RT Cores and 3rd generation Tensor Cores. So, while it has fewer Tensor Cores than the RTX 2060 SUPER, they are faster and superior to the previous generation, and can get away with less, but yet equals better performance. The same is also true of the RT Cores. NVIDIA rates this video card at 16 Shader-TFLOPS, 32 RT-TFLOPS, and 130 Tensor-TFLOPS. To learn more about the Ampere architecture check out our review.
Memory
The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti has the same memory setup as the RTX 2060 SUPER with 8GB of GDDR6 at 14GHz on a 256-bit memory bus. They have the same memory bandwidth of 448GB/s. However, once again, because of the advancements of the architecture, it can get away with this while still offering a lot better performance on the same memory configuration. Technically the RTX 2080 SUPER exceeds the memory bandwidth of this card, but what you are about to see proves that doesn’t really matter when the whole architecture has been improved.
Power
In terms of power, the RTX 2060 SUPER had a TGP of 175W, and the RTX 2080 SUPER is 250W. The new GeForce RTX 3060 Ti comes in at a TGP of 200W, so only 25W more than the RTX 2060 SUPER, and a large 50W savings over the RTX 2080 SUPER. The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti may actually pull less Wattage, yet better performance than the RTX 2080 SUPER, which is exciting.
Features and Games
The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti also has all the other features of this architecture. It supports HDMI 2.1 and AV1 decoding. Accelerated by the Tensor Cores it supports DLSS, and special machine learning and AI applications. It also supports NVIDIA REFLEX technology which is now supported in eleven games. Also, it will support the upcoming NVIDIA RTX IO technology when that comes to pass.
The ability to do machine learning and AI acceleration in Tensor Cores is a unique feature and opens up unique abilities like NVIDIA Broadcasting features. In fact, we think the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti may be the perfect streaming video card. It’s at a great price, allows all the NVIDIA Broadcasting features, and acceleration, and allows very affordable entry into streaming. Speaking of DLSS, DLSS is supported in twenty-six games right now.
Founders Edition Pictures
Here is the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition. It looks similar to the GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition. It has the same design and cooling configuration. That is it has two fans, and one fan pushes air completely through to the backside of the card, cooling the heatsink and the heatpipes. The other fan pushes air outside the I/O bracket, and it has a rather large opening for the I/O bracket exhaust as well. It has three DisplayPorts and one HDMI. The backside is completely covered with plastic, except where the air comes through the back heatsink vents. There is a “RTX 3060 Ti” label on the back.
This video card does use NVIDIA’s 12-pin connector. An adapter is included which changes it from 12-pin to a standard PCIe 8-pin power connector. Therefore one 8-pin power is required.
In terms of size, the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is just slightly longer than the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER. The GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER measures 9” in length, and the new GeForce RTX 3060 Ti comes out to 9.5” in length. It’s just very very slightly longer, not really enough to make much difference. In terms of width and height, they are the same.
The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is shorter than the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER FE. It measures 10.5” in length, so the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti FE is a whole inch shorter, which can make a difference in small cases.
PCB and Heatsink Pictures by NVIDIA
The pictures above are provided by NVIDIA, you can see the custom PCB design by NVIDIA for the Founders Edition design. Unfortunately, there are is no LED or RGB lighting on the Founders Edition of this video card. The GeForce RTX logo atop does not light up. Custom add-in-board partners will have RGB lit video cards of course.