Conclusion
We ran our PNY GeForce RTX 3060 12GB XLR8 Gaming REVEL EPIX-X RGB Single Fan Edition video card through about as many test run-throughs as its name is long. What we see is that this video card indeed falls right in the middle of the mid-range performance stack. If you look back into the video card reviews that were linked at the beginning of the article, the PNY RTX 3060 12GB XLR8 will give you better performance than an RTX 3050 but will fall short of what an RTX 3060 Ti can do.
Performance
F1 2002 is fairly easy on the video card until you enable Ray Tracing. Once DLSS is enabled the FPS returns to a fast smooth level. 1440p is a struggle with Ray Tracing, barely playable as you can see. On the other hand, rasterized rates are fast and smooth even at 1440p.
Dying Light 2 is much the same. Very playable frame rates at1080p and 1440p until you hit the switch for Ray Tracing. At that point, you are confined to 1080p and upscaling.
Forza 5 Horizon is a very playable game at both resolutions with nearly the same FPS results.
Far Cry 6 is a very playable game across the entire spectrum for our PNY RTX 3060 12GB XLR8 REVEL. Of course, the FPS declines as one turns up the resolution or adds in DXR, but the game is still playable and beautiful across the board.
Cyberpunk 2077 once again demands a lot. Our video card essentially can’t get past 1080p. DLSS doesn’t even save the day with Ray Tracing.
Watch Dogs Legion is the third in the trio of demanding games we use. The game will not allow much past 1080p coupled with upscaling. Like Cyberpunk, Ray Tracing is fairly futile.
Well, all of that discussion was essentially ignoring the elephant in the room…..in purely rasterized performance, the XFX Merc 308 6600XT was the best performer today. In F1 and Cyberpunk, the 6600XT ran away. This video card also had good Ray Tracing results in those same games. The PNY RTX 3060 12GB XLR8 REVEL did perform adequately with Ray Tracing enabled in the remainder of the games if confined to 1080p.
In looking at the performance of the PNY RTX 3060 12GB XLR8 REVEL, the initial hypothesis seems to be spot on. The RTX 3060 will give better results than the RTX 3050 including Ray Tracing. It will also allow you to play games at 1440p using DLSS or FSR, Ray Tracing would generally be a no-go but may be doable in selected games.
Overclocking
The PNY RTX 3060 12GB XLR8 REVEL overclocked to a lesser degree than other RTX 3060 cards reviewed previously. We were able to reach +120MHz on the core clock resulting in a 10% gain in the Boost Clocks. Practically, this resulted in 6 to 8% in-game at most. Looking at the power and sensor graphing, it appears the video card is held back by the reference power limits. The card remained cool using a custom and very quiet fan curve.
PNY offers its Velocity-X overclocking software. We found it easy to use, with good video instructions. One can also adjust fan speeds and RGB within the same software. What we truly liked was each function had its own “page” in the software. This made adjustments quite easy. Unfortunately the “power limit” could not be adjusted past 100%.
Final Points
The PNY GeForce RTX 3060 12GB XLR8 Gaming REVEL EPIX-X RGB Single Fan Edition video card was run through the wringer today. After all, was said and done, we knew what we already knew. This video card is in the middle of the middle. It’s a bit better than the RTX 3050, sometimes you can play at 1440p. You can sample some of the good things Ray Tracing has to offer. You have DLSS and FSR to enable if you need to. You can overclock the card to some extent. But you simply can’t get to the 3060 Ti level of gaming.
It all comes down to what you want from your gaming and of course the dollars. This is not a bad video card by any stretch, its performance can’t match its foot-long name, but its size would come in handy in a compact build, and that’s its primary benefit, the size and form factor that you can squeeze this into and still get good gaming performance at 1080p.