Conclusion
In this review, we took a look at the GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 3060 Ti ELITE 8G video card. This is one of two premium, top-of-the-line video cards in this class from GIGABYTE. Quite honestly this card comes loaded. You get a massive 3-slot video card with an equally massive direct contact Heatpipe cooler, a full metal backplate with airflow slots, Windforce 3 fan cooling, “neonpunk” RGB lighting, a factory overclock 120MHz above the rated Boost clock, and a 4-year warranty. But is it Elite?
Performance
The focus of the gameplay was at 1440p. All games were set at their highest, with a few exceptions. We used DLSS and FSR in every game that featured the choice.
F1 2022 is our newest game. It looks great and performs equally well. The card can handle Ray Tracing at 1440p well. DLSS/FSR really is the key here. Performance was neck and neck with the MSI 6650 XT. Dying Light 2 ran amazingly well on the GIGABYTE Aorus 3060Ti Elite, but with RAY Tracing it had to be lowered to 1080p. It ran circles around the 6650 XT, regardless.
The card was so good, we tried to raise the resolution to 1440p in Ray Tracing. Unfortunately, it wasn’t THAT good. Forza Horizon 5 was no problem at 1440p. FarCry 6 looked and performed very well. This game looks great at 1440p. Interestingly, when you add in FSR the GIGABYTE Aorus 3060 Ti Elite and the MSI 6650 XT are essentially the same. This was only one of two games that Radeon was able to take win.
Cyberpunk 2077 is one of those games made to really work the graphics. Both our cards were inadequate without DLSS or FSR in Ultra settings. In rasterized settings at 1440p, the Aorus 3060 Ti Elite managed 63FPS, versus the Radeon RX 6650 XT at 59. We simply could not ask Ray Tracing to be anything but 1080p, but both cards looked amazing and ran well, the Aorus 3060 Ti Elite did best the Radeon by 15FPS however. The Aorus 3060 Ti Elite did not have the horsepower to run Ray Tracing at 1440p.
Finally, another tough game on video cards, Watch Dogs Legion. Our GIGABYTE card did manage some good frame rates at 1440p with DLSS added. With Ultra Ray Tracing we simply had to turn things to 1080p and even then the GIGABYTE card could only manage 58FPS.
Overclocking
We had a very easy time overclocking the GIGABYTE Aorus RTX 3060Ti Elite. In fact, we were able to push the throttle to +190 which set our Boost clock to 1975. This was a really big jump, nowhere did we find a bigger overclock. The massive cooler of the Elite did its job of keeping the GPU and memory cool without having to manually intervene with fan speeds.
Again, Aorus Engine was used to adjust frequencies. In our RTX 3050 review (here) we had issues with the software. On this occasion, Aorus Engine performed flawlessly. Even RGB Fusion worked as advertised. All that said, it seems that we hit some sort of throttle. Temperatures were fine. The power draw on the video card was 270Watts. BUT….when we compare results versus our recent ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Amp White Edition review the maximum clocks were identical. The Zotac card was only clocked to +150. The other downside was that in nearly every game, the overclocks gained only a few frames increases or less.
Final Points
We have to say, the AORUS GeForce RTX 3060 Ti ELITE 8G is an impressive video card. Right from the opening of the box, one gets the impression that this is a premium, well-built video card. The GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 3060 Ti ELITE 8G video card is a big video card, taking up 3-slots, but it is fast and has a clever neonpunk lighting and a theme to it. We know that the video card is fast, but what makes it Elite?
We’ve had the opportunity to review two premium, top-of-the-line, RTX 3060 Ti video cards in a short period of time. The GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 3060 Ti ELITE 8G and the ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3060 Ti AMP White Edition. The testing results were essentially a dead heat, be it gameplay performance, Ray Tracing, or overclocking, although the cards are as different as black and white (pun intended). ELITE just simply may be in the eye of the beholder (or reviewer).