The Bottom Line
Introduction
It's hard to believe NVIDIA has launched 4 new GeForce RTX 30 series graphics now, with the launch of the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti kicking off today -- the successor to the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER, which keeps up with the RTX 2080 SUPER -- starting at $399.
NVIDIA is today introducing the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, a pocket rocket version of Ampere that with the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition comes in a cute little FE card -- but don't let those (small) looks deceive you. Inside is an Ampere-powered roaring tiger ready to rip through gaming for the $400 price point.
We have 8GB of GDDR6 on the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, an upgrade from the 6GB that shipped with the RTX 2060, and the same 8GB that shipped with the RTX 2060 SUPER and RTX 2080 SUPER graphics cards. We have the latest Ampere GPU so you've got the latest hardware for RTX ray tracing and DLSS, too -- if the games you play are compatible.
We have a card that replaces the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER -- but competes with and at times beats the much higher-end GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER -- all for $399. NVIDIA is coming in with a monster card for the money, so let's dive right into the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super Founders Edition (NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super Founders Edition)
Everything You Need to Know About Ampere
NVIDIA directly compares the new GeForce RTX 3060 Ti against the GeForce RTX 2060 Ti -- 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.
Cooling Tech
Page 3 [Cooling Tech]
Detailed Look
We have the same retail packaging as the rest of the GeForce RTX 30 FE fleet of cards with the new RTX 3060 Ti.
Once again we have a dual-fan design like the slightly higher-end GeForce RTX 3070, with a wicked little pocket rocket Founders Edition design which extends onto the back...
I love the back of the card as well.
The PCB is super-small, coming in at just over the PCIe 4.0 x16 slot.
The new 12-pin PCIe power adapter is used again, splitting off into a single 8-pin PCIe power connector.
We have 3 x DP 1.4 and 1 x HDMI 2.1 for display connectivity.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Benchmarks - 1080p
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.
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.
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.
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.
1080p Benchmark Performance Thoughts
NVIDIA beats the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER and even the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla at 1080p, a surprising feat for the $399 pocket rocket. It is hanging out with both of those cards at 1080p in Shadow of War, too.
We have equal performance to the RTX 2080 SUPER in Metro Exodus, and 4FPS more in Shadow of the Tomb Raider -- all-round impressive stuff at 1080p from the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti.
Benchmarks - 1440p
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.
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.
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.
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.
1440p Benchmark Performance Thoughts
Performance doesn't drop too much at 1440p on the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, with a new game like Assassin's Creed: Valhalla seeing performance that beats the RTX 2080 SUPER and equals the RTX 2080 Ti -- all for $399. It's also just 4FPS away from the RTX 3070 here in AC:V.
In Shadow of War it's just 1FPS away from the RTX 2080 SUPER and 6FPS away from the RTX 2080 Ti, while Metro Exodus has the card equaling the RTX 2080 SUPER again. For $399, this is pretty damn incredible.
Benchmarks - 4K
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.
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.
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.
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.
4K Benchmark Performance Thoughts
I wouldn't recommend the Inno3D RTX 3070 iCHILL X3 for 4K gaming, nor would I for any RTX 3070 -- 4K gaming at 60FPS+ is reserved for the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090, as well as the new Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics cards.
But, we're looking at 47FPS in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla -- so dialing down a few details and you could easily hit 4K 60FPS in something brand new like Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. We have 84-91FPS average in Shadow of War depending on stock and OC, while the card gets punished in Metro Exodus with 42-44FPS average.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider sings on the Inno3D RTX 3070 iCHILL X3 with 75-81FPS average, beating out the RTX 2080 Ti easily.
Overclocking
I didn't have enough time in the end to get OC done on this card before the review, but will have a follow-up to this hopefully tomorrow -- I'll post a link to that new look at the RTX 3060 Ti on this page when I'm done!
They're some exciting results, let me tell you that.
Power Consumption & Temps
NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is still sucking down some power, but it's more power efficient than the RTX 3080 by 130W for example. We're looking at a full Ryzen 7 3800X system with an ASUS Crosshair VIII HERO motherboard with the RTX 3060 Ti FE installed using around 300W of power in total.
The new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition runs at 71C, which is at the same level as the GeForce RTX 3070 FE and new Radeon RX 6800 and Radeon RX 6800 XT.
What's Hot, What's Not
- Great upgrade for GTX 10 series owners: NVIDIA debuted the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER for many hundreds of dollars more than the RTX 3060 Ti, and here is the RTX 3060 Ti beating it. You wouldn't upgrade from the RTX 2080 SUPER, but if you didn't upgrade from the GTX 1080 to the RTX 2080/SUPER, then the RTX 3060 Ti would be a great upgrade.
- It's nearly as fast as the GeForce RTX 3070: Which is kinda crazy, and it beats the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER, too.
- 8GB of VRAM: Thank you NVIDIA, for not chopping the VRAM to 6GB -- which I thought you would've, given you shipped the RTX 3080 with 10GB where it really should have 20GB, and at least 16GB. So the 8GB of VRAM on the RTX 3060 Ti at $399 is nice to see.
- $399 price point: This is going to get a LOT of people into RTX and DLSS -- if NVIDIA has the numbers of cards it needs to really push these in December 2020, and right into starting 2021 off with a huge RTX bang with the RTX 3060 Ti. Perfect timing for Cyberpunk 2077, too.
- Better RTX + DLSS entry point: If you can't afford the slightly-faster RTX 3070, or the much more expensive and hard to buy RTX 3080 -- the new RTX 3060 Ti, if you can buy it, is a great buy for $399.
- Perfect for Cyberpunk 2077 on the cheap: CD PROJEKT RED finally unleashes Cyberpunk 2077 on December 10, and if you want to enable RTX + DLSS and needed a new card for under $500 then the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is kinda perfect for 1080p or 1440p (or even 3440 x 1440 UltraWide) with DLSS enabled.
What's Not
- Only 8GB of VRAM: Yes, I had this in the 'What's Not' as well, but with the competitor launching their new cards with 16GB of RAM -- 8GB doesn't feel like enough. Not that most people would need, or even use anything over 8GB of VRAM -- it's something to bring up.
Final Thoughts
This is now the 4th member of the new Ampere GeForce RTX 30 series graphics card family, and an interesting one -- AMD now has its new Radeon RX 6800 prowling around for $680-$700 or so ($120+ above MSRP) where NVIDIA is launching the new GeForce RTX 3060 Ti at just $399.
NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is quite the pocket rocket, where in a game like Assassin's Creed: Valhalla -- which has been very, very friendly with some truly OP results with the new Radeon RX 6800 series cards -- the RTX 3060 Ti takes some big swings. At 1440p, it equals the RTX 2080 Ti which debuted for $1000 -- over double the cost. It now matches that card in virtually everything.
If it doesn't, it doesn't drop below the RTX 2080 SUPER -- which was $699 when it launched, $300 more than the RTX 3060 Ti at $399.
What you'll want to wait for is the AIB custom cards, of which I have a couple that arrived literally in the hours ramping up into me finishing this review. I'll have reviews on the MSI RTX 3060 Ti GAMING X TRIO and the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 3060 Ti as well.
For now -- the RTX 3060 Ti is a great release from NVIDIA, it feels like a more sensible one with the $399 pricing and RTX 2080 SUPER beating and RTX 2080 Ti levels of performance. Right in time for Cyberpunk 2077 -- if you can buy the new cards, that is.