ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition Review

1. Introduction
2. Everything You Need to Know About Ampere
3. ASUS marketing
4. Detailed Look
5. Test System Specs
6. Benchmarks - Synthetic
7. Benchmarks - 1080p
8. Benchmarks - 1440p
9. Benchmarks - 4K
10. Overclocking
11. Power Consumption & Temps
12. What's Hot, What's Not
13. Final Thoughts

TweakTown's Rating: 99%

The Bottom Line

The ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition is a great card offering RTX 2080 SUPER and RTX 2080 Ti levels of performance at a much cheaper price point.

Introduction

Not everyone wants, or can afford, or even find the GeForce RTX 3090 and GeForce RTX 3080 -- some don't want the GeForce RTX 3070 -- and thus NVIDIA has the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti for those people.

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Today, we're looking at the custom ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition graphics card which does everything the RTX 3060 Ti needs to do -- including DLSS and RTX real-time ray tracing technologies, and it does it with a single 8-pin PCIe power connector.

I've become a big fan of the TUF Gaming brand from ASUS over the last year or two, where I've just come in off reviewing the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3090 OC Edition graphics card. I was a huge fan, and I'm equally as much of a fan of the mid-range TUF Gaming RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition variant.

NVIDIA's own GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition is priced at $399 while the custom ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition graphics card was on Newegg for $539 -- and out of stock -- at the time of writing.

• Read more: ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3090 OC Edition Review
• Read more: ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 OC Edition Review
• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition Review
• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition Review
• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition Review
• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition Review

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 2070 Advanced Overclocked

	Today	Yesterday	7 days ago	30 days ago
	$675.00	$675.00	$675.00	$675.00	Buy
* Prices last scanned on 4/17/2024 at 9:14 pm CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission.

Everything You Need to Know About Ampere

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NVIDIA directly compares the new GeForce RTX 3060 Ti against the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER -- although in performance, it is battling out with the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER. Anyway, we're looking at 38 SMs, 4864 CUDA cores, 152 Tensor Cores, 162 TUs, and 80 ROPs.

We have the GPU boost hitting 1665MHz while the 8GB of GDDR6 memory is at 14Gbps on a 256-bit memory bus with 448GB/sec of memory bandwidth. NVIDIA has the TGP at 200W, up from the 175W on the RTX 2060 SUPER.

ASUS marketing

You can read all about the card on the official ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition website.

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Detailed Look

ASUS has its great retail packaging out on show for the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition, and as with previous comments on the packaging I really like it.

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The same goes for the look and style of the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition graphics card, which just looks great. It is a mainstream graphics card that looks like it is punching above its weight, and it does -- the RTX 3060 Ti offers some great performance for the dollar.

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Seriously, I will continue to say I'm a big fan of the backplate on the ASUS TUF Gaming graphics cards.

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The ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition is thicker than the RTX 3060 Ti FE, but it offers a completely different style and much better thermal performance.

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You only need a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, which is great -- equal to the RTX 3060 Ti FE, and better than other custom cards on the market that require dual 8-pin PCIe connectors.

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ASUS includes expanded display outputs on the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, with 3 x DP 1.4 and 2 x HDMI 2.1 connectors.

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There's also dual BIOSes on the card.

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Test System Specs

Latest upgrade:

Sabrent sent over their huge Rocket Q 8TB NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD, which will be my new Games install SSD inside of my main test bed.

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I've got a new upgrade inside of my GPU test bed before my change to a next-gen test bed, where I will be preparing for NVIDIA's next-gen Ampere graphics cards and AMD's next-gen RDNA 2 graphics cards.

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Sabrent helped out with some new storage for my GPU test beds, sending over a slew of crazy-fast Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSDs. I've got this installed into my GPU test bed as the new Games Storage drive, since games are so damn big now. Thanks to Sabrent, I've got 2TB of super-fast M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD storage now.

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Anthony's GPU Test System Specifications

I've recently upgraded my GPU test bed -- at least for now, until AMD's new Ryzen 9 5950X processor is unleashed then the final update for 2020 will happen and we'll be all good for RDNA 2 and future Ampere GPU releases. You can read my article here: TweakTown GPU Test Bed Upgrade for 2021, But Then Zen 3 Was Announced.

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3800X (buy from Amazon)
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII HERO (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: CoolerMaster MasterLiquid ML360R RGB (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: G.SKILL Trident Z NEO RGB 32GB (4x8GB) (F4-3600C18Q-32GTZN) (buy from Amazon)
• SSD: Sabrent 2TB Rocket NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 (buy from Amazon)
• PSU: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 1200W (buy from Amazon)
• Case: InWin X-Frame 2.0
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Professional x64 (buy from Amazon)

Benchmarks - Synthetic

3DMark Fire Strike

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3DMark has been a staple benchmark for years now, all the way back to when The Matrix was released and Futuremark had bullet time inspired benchmarks. 3DMark is the perfect tool to see if your system - most important, your CPU and GPU - is performing as it should. You can search results for your GPU, to see if it falls in line with other systems based on similar hardware.

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3DMark TimeSpy

Heaven - 1080p

Heaven is an intensive GPU benchmark that really pushes your silicon to its limits. It's another favorite of ours as it has some great scaling for multi-GPU testing, and it's great for getting your GPU to 100% for power and noise testing.

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Benchmarks - 1080p

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Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is the latest game to be inserted into our benchmark suite, with Ubisoft Montreal using its AnvilNext engine to power the game. It scales really well across the cards, and has some surprising performance benefits with AMD's new Big Navi GPUs.

You can buy Assassins Creed: Valhalla at Amazon.

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Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

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Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS.

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

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1080p Benchmark Performance Thoughts

You're going to get stellar 1080p performance out of the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, with the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition we're matching the performance of the RTX 3070 when overclocked in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. Not too bad at all.

The ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition beats the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition in Shadow of War at 1080p, loses to the RTX 2080 Ti in Metro Exodus and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Still, for a card that is $500+ cheaper than the $1199 that the RTX 2080 Ti debuted at is impressive in itself.

Benchmarks - 1440p

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Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is the latest game to be inserted into our benchmark suite, with Ubisoft Montreal using its AnvilNext engine to power the game. It scales really well across the cards, and has some surprising performance benefits with AMD's new Big Navi GPUs.

You can buy Assassins Creed: Valhalla at Amazon.

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Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

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Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS.

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

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1440p Benchmark Performance Thoughts

ASUS is beating the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti FE by 1FPS in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla at 1440p with its custom TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition graphics card. It loses by 1FPS at stock, beats it by 1FPS when overclocked.

Shadow of War sees similar brute performance with the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition beating the RTX 2080 SUPER by 3FPS but losing to the RTX 2080 Ti by 2FPS. Metro Exodus has the card hitting 52FPS average stock, and up to 55FPS average when overclocked.

Benchmarks - 4K

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Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is the latest game to be inserted into our benchmark suite, with Ubisoft Montreal using its AnvilNext engine to power the game. It scales really well across the cards, and has some surprising performance benefits with AMD's new Big Navi GPUs.

You can buy Assassins Creed: Valhalla at Amazon.

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Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

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Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS.

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

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4K Benchmark Performance Thoughts

I do not recommend buying any GeForce RTX 3060 Ti for 4K gaming, but it's definitely not a bad card when we hit 4K.

But, at 4K in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla we're looking at 39-42FPS average depending on stock/overclocked with the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition. In Shadow of War the card beats the RTX 2080 SUPER but loses to the RTX 3070 and RTX 2080 Ti cards -- still, we have 74-79FPS average at 4K here which is easily playable in a game like Shadow of War.

Metro Exodus dips into 35-36FPS territory, not playable IMO -- while Shadow of the Tomb Raider is above 60FPS average with 64FPS stock and 73FPS average on the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition.

Overclocking

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Out of the box the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition was ticking along at around 1875MHz or so, with temps of 56C with the fans spinning along at 1500RPM or so (65%).

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But then comes the overclocking, where with my sample I was able to push another 150MHz or so with the card sitting between 1965MHz and 2010MHz. With the fans at 100% the card was only running at 47C which is mighty, mighty impressive for the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition.

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Power Consumption & Temps

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The ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition was running at just 56C -- which is actually quiet cool under load, while the overclocked card with fans at 100% saw it drop to 48C.

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Power consumption is perfectly in line with other GeForce RTX 3060 Ti cards, with the entire Ryzen 7 3800X system using 300W under load and up to 330W or so when overclocked.

What's Hot, What's Not

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• Single 8-pin PCIe power connector: I'm a big fan of the single 8-pin PCIe power connector that ASUS has here on the TUF Gaming RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition graphics card. It's still a kick ass card with some great OC headroom and it does it all in that single, sleek 8-pin PCIe power connector.
• Great OC headroom: There's a bit of room to overclock as well, with out of the box performance falling behind NVIDIA's own GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition but when overclocked the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition runs ahead of the RTX 3060 Ti FE -- and it runs much cooler.
• Runs nice and quiet: The ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition runs at around 56C under load, and with the card overclocked and the fans cranked up to 100% we're looking at temps of just 47C. Chilly!

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Final Thoughts

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ASUS continues to impress me with their TUF Gaming graphics cards, with my recent review on the big daddy of the TUF Gaming cards in the TUF Gaming RTX 3090 OC Edition -- but the new mainstream TUF Gaming RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition has its own charm. It's nowhere near as expensive as the RTX 3090, so if you want some 1080p and 1440p gaming then you're in safe hands.

Hell, even 4K gaming isn't out of the question for the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition. We're looking at performance that is equal to, or better than the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER and GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. Previous flagships in their Turing class, now equaled by a mid-range Ampere card.

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If you've skipped over the GeForce RTX 20 series and can manage to find the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition, then you should highly consider this card. If you like the style, the performance side of things is handled with RTX 2080 Ti levels of performance at half the cost.

ASUS has the card running super-chill, and virtually silent with the right fan profile settings. You will get away playing Cyberpunk 2077 without a problem on the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition.