Conclusion
ASUS has created a really nice product with the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 3060 OC Edition, exceeding the competition here in every tested scenario. The card itself simply looks modern yet aggressive, with an impressive array of RGB lighting, a slick shroud, a smattering of I/O options, and the performance to match.
This card stayed above its rated boost clock nearly 99% of the time while averaging clocks that were 34 MHz higher and boosting up to 1972 MHz or 60 MHz higher than its rated 1912 MHz boost. All while standing behind their product with a respectable 3-year warranty. For those looking to overclock this card will be a real treat, in my limited time, I was left impressed with the performance boosts achieved with a little tweaking. I expect many others to reach higher clock speeds than what I was capable of.
Then we have all the NVIDIA-specific features that lead to a more enjoyable end-user experience. Features like DLSS, RTX Voice, GeForce RTX I/O, and GeForce Experience’s built-in gameplay recording and streaming features are welcome additions that increase the overall value of all the products tested here. It is also impossible to ignore the package of included premium software licensing, and ASUS GPU Tweak III. This is a really welcome addition to the entire package that needs to be stated even if you might not be personally interested in those offers.
Gaming Performance
It’s blatantly obvious that the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 3060 OC Edition was consistently in a dominant position through all testing scenarios. With the EVGA card overclocked things would have tightened up a great deal but the ASUS card still manages to provide higher clock speeds and would still outperform the EVGA competition here.
At 1440p, without ray tracing, we were able to play games like Red Dead Redemption 2, Watch Dogs Legions, F1-2020, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Wolfenstein Young Blood with no issues. Of course, 1440p gaming on a card like this will be dependent on the title and settings used, for example, Watch Dogs Legions and Cyberpunk 2077 were simply unplayable with ray tracing enabled at 1440p and we had to drop down to 1080p to achieve decent results. Still, it’s quite competent at 1440p at times and worth exploring that resolution with your gaming library if you intended on picking up this video card.
With Ray Tracing enabled we were forced to drop down to 1080p in every title except Wolfenstein Youngblood, which is the most forgiving of the Ray Tracing titles tested. DLSS was a real boon here as it salvaged the experience in two of the titles tested without sacrificing quality.
Cyberpunk 2077 allowed playable frames at 1080p with DLSS but struggled without that feature enabled. Modern titles like this with Ray Tracing will likely require settings adjustments below maximum to enable full-fledged ray tracing at acceptable frames. DLSS however remedied the situation and allowed these cards to leave all settings at Ultra while still experiencing Ultra Ray Tracing at the same time.
Watch Dogs Legions was far more forgiving, with playable averages even before DLSS was applied, but it’s another title where DLSS creates a silky-smooth gameplay experience, where there may have been compromises before.
Resize Bar ended up showing decent performance gains for minimal effort and while not stressing the card with any overclocking. While true that some games showed no benefits, it’s similarly true that we saw no performance degradation with the feature enabled. In our opinion, it’s a feature worth enabling and we hope to see more titles with this feature working.
Final Points
After concluding all testing it’s safe to say ASUS has lived up to its word in terms of engineering a great product based on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060. The issue is not so much whether this product is any good, it is, the question is whether you can even find this product at a reasonable price. With the price for this card looking to be around $549.99 right now, it’s hard to say it’s worth the money.
If you are in the market for a GeForce RTX 3060 series video card we would aim for the lowest priced option we could find in today’s crazy pricing scenario. Of course, hopefully, these are temporary and prices will resume to normal in the future. In such a case, this is a great card, when it’s at the right price.
Still, that’s not a luxury some of us have when our video cards fail on us or when we are building a new system for a client or family member. In those scenarios, we can confidently tell you that you will not be disappointed by the video card but you very well likely will end up regretting the total cost of the product.
If we were to give this product an award for design and performance it would get a gold award very easily. However, price alone in today’s market makes this video card tough to recommend. In our view, it’s a better bet to try and snag the cheaper EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 XC BLACK GAMING if you can find it for that $329 MSRP. But it too could have price inflations. If price is no concern, and or pricing has returned to normal, the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 3060 OC Edition will give you a high-end RTX 3060 experience with a lot of overclocking potential.