Conclusion
Today marks the launch of NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. We reviewed the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition model today. NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 30 Series, based on the Ampere architecture, is a series of new GPUs. Previously NVIDIA has launched the GeForce RTX 3090 at the very high-end for $1,499, and also the GeForce RTX 3080 at $699, and most recently the GeForce RTX 3070 for $499. With the new GeForce RTX 3060 Ti NVIDIA answers the $399 price point for gamers, which is an exciting and more reachable price segment for gamers.
The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is based on the Ampere architecture on Samsung 8nm. It has 4864 CUDA Cores, 80 ROPs, 152 TMUs, 38 2nd Generation RT Cores, and 152 3rd Generation Tensor Cores. The Founders Edition runs at a GPU boost of 1665MHz. It has 8GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit memory bus at 14GHz providing 448GB/s of memory bandwidth. All of this at a TGP of just 200W.
Performance
NVIDIA made a bold claim when introducing this $399 video card. NVIDIA claimed it would perform faster than a GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER which is the $699 video card introduced in 2019 based on the previous Turing architecture. The GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER was second only to the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti at the time. It was pretty much as fast as you could get, cause the next step up was the RTX 2080 Ti at $1,199. Therefore a $399 video card matching, let alone betting that seemed like a very bold claim.
In our testing today we included a GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Founders Edition video card to see if this was true. We tested in 9 games at 1080p and 1440p. We also included Ray Tracing and DLSS in separate testing. We also included a GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER Founders Edition video card, which was last year’s $399 equivalent to see what kind of an upgrade the RTX 3060 Ti FE would be. To be even more thorough we also included a Radeon RX 5700 XT which is AMD’s current $399 video card as well.
1080p
The performance speaks for itself, whether 1080p or 1440p the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition was for the most part faster than the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER FE. Since we know that 1080p can be a CPU dependent resolution it was very positive to see the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti FE actually providing an advantage in performance over the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER FE by as much as it did in some cases. In Horizon Zero Dawn and Ghost Recon Breakpoint, it was 6% faster, in Control it was 4% faster, In Wolfenstein Youngblood, it was 7% faster and in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, it was 5% faster.
In the games where it wasn’t faster, it was at least as fast as the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER FE. Remember, this is 1080p, a CPU dependent resolution, yet it performed at that level still. Compared to the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER Founders Edition the new GeForce RTX 3060 Ti FE was between 32-43% faster. We saw some even bigger percentages of an upgrade versus the Radeon RX 5700 XT.
1440p
At 1440p, which is more GPU dependent we saw even larger gains. The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti FE was faster than the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER FE in Watch Dogs, and in Horizon Zero Dawn by 9%, and in Ghost Recon by 8% and in Control, and in Wolfenstein by 4%, and in Tomb Raider. Compared to the GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition the new GeForce RTX 3060 Ti FE was faster between 30-50% and a bit more.
Playable
In terms of what is playable, there is no problem enabling the highest in-game settings at 1080p on the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti FE. In rasterized performance, it owns 1080p performance. At 1440p the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti FE mostly owns 1440p at maximum game settings. There are a couple of performance-intensive games in our testing like Red Dead Redemption 2, Metro Exodus which are on the border of being playable at maximum settings. We also wonder how future games like Cyberpunk 2077 will perform.
The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti FE is still providing above 50FPS average, so it isn’t bad at all, but if you are looking for solid 60FPS you may have to enable DLSS or lower a setting here or there in those games. Honestly, though, this video card is very good at 1440p, and with add-in-board partner video cards with factory overclocks it’ll be even better at 1440p than what we are showing here. With those factory overclocks the RTX 3060 Ti will own any game at 1440p at max settings. Don’t forget DLSS, that is also a big key to making games playable, so we are glad to see DLSS expand to more and more games.
The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is Exciting
We think the new GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is exciting for several reasons. At its $399 price point, it is reachable to more gamers. According to our testing, it can provide up to 50% better performance compared to the previous generation GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER at $399. For the same price, that’s a nice upgrade only one year after the RTX 2060 SUPER launched. It also provides an upgrade path from people on Radeon RX 5700’s or Radeon RX 5700 XT’s. If you have a Radeon RX 5700 series GPU this one will give you a 30-40% upgrade in performance.
It is also exciting because here is a $399 video card matching and beating a $699 GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER, and it’s doing it with less power usage. The performance per Watt and efficiency have been improved. You are getting more, for less, and that’s exciting.
Ray Tracing and DLSS
The new GeForce RTX 3060 Ti also allows you to upgrade to a video card that can run Ray Tracing, and we don’t just mean support it, but we mean you can actually use it and run it. We found the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti actually does have the performance to run with Ray Tracing turned on in games and still have a smooth experience with high framerates. This is something that could not be said for the last generation’s GeForce RTX 2060 and RTX 2060 SUPER. While they supported Ray Tracing, there wasn’t enough performance left on the table to actually enjoy gaming with it at a decent resolution.
With the new GeForce RTX 3060 Ti FE you can actually “max out” Ray Tracing and game settings at 1080p without even needing DLSS to achieve it. That’s impressive. Then, if you want to bump up to 1440p all you have to do is enable DLSS in games that support it and you get a big enough boost to make Ray Tracing possible at the higher 1440p resolution.
DLSS is a big deal, and you get that with the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti FE. With more support coming out in games, especially using the newer DLSS 2.0 and 2.1 we are seeing larger advantages to performance and image quality using it. It’s also the gateway to allowing Ray Tracing to be enabled at higher resolutions and actually useful.
Final Points
We’d summarize the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti as such: At 1080p it allows maximum game settings and Ray Tracing, and at 1440p it allows the highest game settings. In addition at 1440p in the games that support DLSS you can enable DLSS and then Ray Tracing can also optionally be playable. If you don’t use Ray Tracing it’s a perfect 1080p and 1440p video card. In games that do support Ray Tracing it should run great at 1080p, and then at 1440p just enable DLSS and it’s right on the ball. In fact, you can also run DLSS at 1080p and 1440p without Ray Tracing if you just want faster performance period.
The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition is so fast that we are already wondering how close to a GeForce RTX 3070 it actually comes. Especially with factory overclocked video cards, or a manual overclock. It actually may not be too far from the GeForce RTX 3070. We will have to test this in our overclocking article, and AIB factory overclocked reviews. It could be quite interesting.
We think the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is going to be “the” card for a lot of people. Not just for gamers, but also for streamers and creators. We truly think that this is the perfect card for streamers using NVIDIA Broadcast. It’s at an attractive price point and with its machine learning and AI capability with Tensor Cores is a powerful streaming card.
A streamer may not need the fastest gaming card there is, but still the ability for esports gaming performance and such. This would be the perfect card for that, not too expensive, plenty fast for the types of games streamers stream, NVIDIA Reflex support, and the flexibility of NVIDIA Broadcast. We just see this card being popular among that group. For gamers, it’s also a good card. If you aren’t a 4K gamer, you still game at 1440p or 1080p this is the card you are probably eyeing the most, and rightly so.
At the end of the day, NVIDIA hit the mark on this video card, it’s very exciting. It still gives you 8GB of RAM, not that 6GB nonsense, and will give you a great gameplay experience with useable Ray Tracing and DLSS. The only problem is the supply of GPUs lately, but that’s an issue shared by everyone due to world issues. We just have to get through this period of time, eventually, the cards will be available and out there in quantity. Therefore we can review them now for you, so you know if it’s good when they become available. When they are, you owe it to yourself to give this one a look.
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