Nvidia has been on an epic tear with its launch of the GeForce RTX 30 Series of graphics cards—so much so that finding one in stock has been like tracking Sasquatch. The company is looking to keep that hot streak—and those torrid sales—going with the release of its new GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition midrange GPU. At this writing, the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is almost uncontested at $399, with AMD’s older Radeon RX 5700 Series cards unable to keep up, and even the new RX 6800 Series slipping often enough to rocket the RTX 3060 Ti higher in the standings than we expected it to go. The RTX 3060 Ti, which goes on sale Dec. 2, is another killer entry in Nvidia’s “Ampere” family, and it earns our Editors’ Choice award as a midrange card that punches well above its weight class. Its only credible rival? The great $499 GeForce RTX 3070 above it.
The Design: Powerful Elegance, Again
Upon pulling out the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, I was once again greeted by the familiar RTX 30 Series Founders Edition graphics-card redesign. All the elements are here: dual push-pull fan setup, shrunken PCB, and a new heatsink that fills in the gaps where that PCB used to live in the RTX 20 Series Founders Edition cards.
The only noticeable difference between the RTX 3060 Ti and the rest of the Founders Edition cards in the 30 Series, aside from the card’s shorter 9.5-inch footprint, is the change in paint jobs.
On the RTX 3070 and the GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition we tested, the cards were encased in a brushed matte-gray strip of metal, while the RTX 3060 Ti wears a powdered silver finish instead. It strikes that same balance of “mature” and “intimidating” that we’ve talked about in previous reviews of RTX 30 Series cards, but it lightens things up just a tad, in sync with its less lofty placement in the performance tree.
On the top edge of the card we see the return of Nvidia’s 12-pin power connector, which accepts an adapter that transitions a traditional eight-pin power-supply lead into this smaller, proprietary input.
The RTX 3060 Ti doesn’t stray from the port layout seen on the rest of the 30 Series so far, with three DisplayPort 1.4b ports, and one HDMI 2.1 output. The RTX 20 Series’ USB-C-style VirtualLink port is, once again, nowhere to be seen.
RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition Specs: The Midrange Gets an Upgrade
Let’s look at some specs first. We’ll see how the RTX 3060 Ti stacks up against the two GeForce cards it’s meant to succeed, the RTX 2060 and 2060 Super, as well as AMD’s closest competition, in the Radeon RX 5700 XT and Radeon RX 5700.
If the totally redesigned shroud wasn’t enough to remind you that the 30 Series is bringing a whole new level of heat (or in this case, cool) to the table, the spec boosts from the RTX 2060 Super to the RTX 3060 Ti should drive the point home. The GA104 die that powers the RTX 3060 Ti, based on Samsung’s 8nm lithography, is the same as what we saw on the $499 Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition, and it packs just over 60 percent more transistors into even less space than the TU106 die found in the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 and GeForce RTX 2060 Super.
On AMD’s side of the comparison fence, it makes sense to put the RTX 3060 Ti up against AMD’s current offering at the $399 price point: the Radeon RX 5700 XT, as well as the slightly less expensive Radeon RX 5700. But, you might be asking yourself looking at our chart above, what the $579 Radeon RX 6800 and the $649 Radeon RX 6800 XT are doing there. Both of those cards are punching well into the heavyweight class, given their prices. Without spoiling the ending, we’ll just say, “Stick around until the benchmarks to find out.”
Testing the RTX 3060 Ti: Radeons in the Crosshairs
PC Labs ran the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti through a series of DirectX 11- and 12-based synthetic and real-world benchmarks. Our 2020 PC Labs test rig is Intel-based and employs a PCI Express 3.0, not 4.0, motherboard. It’s equipped with an Intel Core i9-10900K processor, 16GB of G.Skill DDR4 memory, a solid-state boot drive, and an Asus ROG Maximus XII Hero (Wi-Fi) motherboard. All cards below were retested on this rig with their latest drivers for an even playing field. Given our tests with the Core i9-10900K and recent Ryzen 9 CPUs, this rig is the best reasonable configuration of the moment in 2020 to cut the CPU out of the equation for frame rates. (Read more about how we test graphics cards.)
For our testing, we focused some of the effort on the esports aspect of the RTX 3060 Ti with games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) and Rainbow Six: Siege. We also ran the card through the rest of our standard benchmark regimen, which tests a card’s abilities to handle AAA games at the highest possible quality settings, as well as how it performs in synthetic benchmarks that stress the card in a variety of ways.
Also remember that almost every test we run (aside from the esports titles) is done at the highest possible quality preset or settings. If you have a higher-hertz gaming monitor and you’re worried your card might not make the frame-rate grade, it could still be possible with the right card and a combination of lower settings. Not only that, but many of these titles (including Death Stranding, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and F1 2020) have both DLSS and FidelityFX CAS with Upscaling integrated directly into the game. This can mean boosts of up to 40% more performance on top, depending on the setting and the card you’re playing with.
And so, onward to our test results. Note: If you want to narrow down our results below to a specific resolution (say, the resolution of the monitor you plan to game on), click the other resolution dots in the chart legends below to suppress them and see fewer results. Our list of AAA titles includes a mix of recent AAA titles like Red Dead Redemption 2 and F1 2020, as well as some older-but-still-reliable pillars of the benchmarker’s toolkit, like Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Far Cry 5.
Testing Results: Synthetic Benchmarks
Synthetic benchmarks can be good predictors of real-world gaming performance. UL’s circa-2013 Fire Strike Ultra is still a go-to as an approximation of the load levied by mainstream 4K gaming. We’re looking only at the test’s Graphics Subscore, not the Overall Score, to isolate the card performance. Meanwhile, we also ran 3DMark’s Time Spy Extreme test, which is a good test of how well a card will do specifically in DirectX 12 games at 4K resolution. Finally, there’s Port Royal, which is strictly a test for RTX cards right now, measuring how well they handle ray-tracing tasks. (Thus why blank results for the AMD cards on that one.) Also here are a handful of GPU-acceleration tests (Furmark and LuxMark); more details on those at the “how we test” link above.
In synthetic testing, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti started out with a strong lead over the previous generation of Nvidia cards, as well as AMD’s RDNA 1 options like the RX 5700 XT. 3DMark results were a trade of wins and losses with the RTX 2080 Super, while Superposition put the RTX 3060 Ti comfortably ahead of the RX 5700 XT.
All that said, in this card price range, synthetic test results like these aren’t quite as important, since content creators generally will opt for higher-end cards in the consumer space like the GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition, or just go straight for Nvidia’s Quadro cards, since the programs they rely on usually demand a huge amount of power to process onscreen elements in a timely fashion.
Testing Results: Recent AAA Games
Now, on to the real-world games that you can play. We typically used in each case (for these AAA games) the highest in-game preset and, if available, DirectX 12. In contrast, the multiplayer-focused and esports titles (such as CS:GO and Rainbow Six: Siege) coming up in the next chart group were set slightly below top detail settings to maximize frame rates.
In our runs of Red Dead Redemption 2, the card fell so tightly within expectations it was almost a bit freaky. It was a single frame faster than the RTX 2080 Super (Nvidia’s preferred point of comparison for the RTX 3060 Ti) in every resolution we ran. If the rest of the RTX 30 Series cards hadn’t already been running tight as a drum up until this point, we might even be suspicious enough to take a second look. But that story repeated itself again and again as we ran through the rest of the benchmarks. The RTX 3060 Ti swayed just a few frames above or below the RTX 2080 Super in most cases.
Then there’s the RTX 3060 Ti’s performance against the Nvidia card it’s set to replace in both price point and badge number: the $399 RTX 2060 Super. The results only got better as we continued down the line of testing. On average, the RTX 3060 Ti is roughly 40% faster than its predecessor in 4K, and it regularly manages to jump just over the 60-frame-per-second (fps) line for high-detail gaming at 4K in titles such as Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Death Stranding, and Far Cry 5. For anyone with a 4K/60Hz display (or those planning to upgrade soon), the RTX 3060 Ti should be a top contender for your bucks this shopping season…if you can find one.
The only games that managed to hold it back from a clean sweep in that kind of 4K play were the two current card-crushers of the bunch: Red Dead Redemption 2 and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. There, the RTX 3060 Ti finally buckled a bit, keeping the torch lit above 60fps at 1440p in RDR2, but falling to 43fps once we went to 4K. A few settings tweaks could get you back into the 60fps range at 4K, but anyone looking for the ultimate 4K experience is still better off going with an option like the $699 RTX 3080 Founders Edition instead. But then again, remember: $399 is a long way from $699.
Testing Results: Multiplayer Games
Though most of PC Labs’ game tests are maxed out in graphical fidelity to push the cards to their limit, multiplayer gaming is all about maintaining the best balance between graphical fidelity and frame rate. With that in mind, we’ve kept CS:GO, Rainbow Six: Siege, and Final Fantasy XIV tuned to the best combination of necessary improvements in settings (higher anti-aliasing and lower shadows, for example), while still trying to keep frame rates for 1080p games above 144fps.
Why 144fps? That’s a coveted target for highly competitive esports gamers who have high-refresh-rate 144Hz or higher gaming monitors. For more casual players with ordinary 60Hz monitors, a solid 80fps or 90fps at your target resolution, with some overhead to prevent dips under 60fps, is fine.
CS:GO was, as usual, a blowout for any card above $300, but the RTX 3060 Ti did just barely fall short of the new 360fps-at-1080p ceiling set by 360Hz monitors like the Asus ROG Swift 360Hz PG259QN.
Meanwhile Final Fantasy 14, running on an engine known for its favorability to Nvidia cards, kept the RTX 3060 Ti within firing range of the AMD RX 6000 Series cards at 1080p and 1440p.
A big mention in this department is the inclusion of Nvidia’s Reflex feature, which works at its most optimal when playing at either 1440p (for many, the new esports sweet spot), or 4K resolution. In this regard, the RTX 3060 Ti performs how it should, delivering just over 240fps in Rainbow Six: Siege, which means owners of monitors like the 1440p-native/240Hz ViewSonic Elite XG270QG would be very happy with the RTX 3060 Ti as their next card.
Testing Results: Legacy AAA Titles
Next, let’s see how the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti does with some past-their-prime AAA titles. We ran some quick tests on some oldies-but-goodies that still offer the AAA gaming experience. These legacy tests include runs of Hitman: Absolution, Sleeping Dogs, Tomb Raider (2013), and Bioshock: Infinite, the last being a game that has no business still being as well optimized as it is here in 2020.
The driver inconsistencies of the RX 6000 Series cards we saw in our review of those cards only become more apparent once the RTX 3060 Ti enters the field. Things already looked shaky against the RTX 3070 Founders Edition on these older games, and the RTX 3060 Ti comes in to seal the deal. In Bioshock: Infinite, Hitman: Absolution, and Sleeping Dogs, the $399 RTX 3060 Ti keeps a near pace with, or even outright beats, the $579 RX 6800 in frame rates across all three resolutions. In fact, the lower you look in resolution, the higher the RTX 3060 Ti’s chances of topping even the $649 Radeon RX 6800 XT in those same games. That happened here and there.
So, for now, the narrative is crystal-clear: If you plan to play lots of legacy titles, or are worried about how well a card that goes for $250 more than the price of the RTX 3060 Ti will handle older games we weren’t able to benchmark on this list, tread carefully before opting for the Radeon RX 6800 XT or RX 6800, based on the current AMD Radeon Software 20.1.4 driver set.
Overclocking and Thermals: New Cooling Comes Into Its Own
We ran a 10-minute stress test in 3DMark Port Royal on the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, and found the card clocked well under the temperature expectations set thus far by other releases in the RTX 30 Series line of Founders Edition cards. While both the RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 Founders Editions were able to only match the temperatures of their 20 Series predecessors, the RTX 3060 Ti undercut them by a lot.
While the RTX 2060 Super peaked at 74 degrees C, even in the thick of our stress test the RTX 3060 Ti never topped 60 degrees C. This is one of the coolest cards we’ve run in recent years, and that even includes the low-end, super-small Zotac GeForce GTX 1650 OC, which topped out at 57 degrees C.
It finally looks like the all the design improvements made between the release of the RTX 20 Series and the RTX 30 Series are paying off in midrange cards like the RTX 3060 Ti, and the new airflow design is able to hit the sweetest thermal spot so far among all of Nvidia’s RTX 30 Series cards. The laws of thermodynamics are inflexible, and will forever be one of the most complicated problems for engineers to solve, whether it be in industrial design or chip architecture. By approaching those problems with a unique solution, and the first true redesign we’ve seen in years in GPU heatsinks, the Founders Edition cards well rate their scarcity. They’re just great cards.
Once again the FLIR One Pro thermal camera shows the majority of the heat output centered on the card, with a slight amount of output showing from the top side of the bottom-facing pull fan.
For a sense of contrast with other, more traditional cooling systems, AMD’s Radeon RX 6800 XT reference card we tested hit 81 degrees C on the same stress test, 35% more than the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. That same card also lost to the RTX 3060 Ti in certain benchmarks and resolutions with legacy games.
In testing the overclocking capacity of the RTX 3060 Ti, I was able to achieve a stable OC profile of 150MHz across both the clock speed and the memory, amounting to just over a 9% boost in clock. That translated, surprisingly, to almost an equivalent frame-rate gain in F1 2020, at 8.3% more frames per second (84fps in 4K up to 91fps).
Verdict: Team Green Won’t Stop Winning
When the RTX 2080 Super was launched, we at PC Labs considered it to be a great card, but one that didn’t offer up the same level of “Super”-ness that we saw in the RTX 2070 Super. So much for all that Super stuff: At $399, the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti beats the $699 RTX 2080 Super in every test we ran, effectively cutting the cost of entering high-detail 1440p and 4K gaming by almost half.
The RTX 30 Series has continued to course-correct the high prices of Nvidia’s Turing era by offering up huge gains in both gaming and synthetic performance. (With a big caveat: If you can find one of the cards for sale, of course!) And beyond frame rates and benchmarks, the company’s innovative cooling solution seems to have finally found its sweet spot in the power output of the RTX 3060 Ti. We could see this ferocious card installed in a thermally and physically tight PC case.
All this makes the RTX 3060 Ti an almost equal price-to-performance value today to Nvidia’s other midrange option, the 5-star GeForce RTX 3070. Now that the RTX 3060 Ti comes within a few percentage points of the RTX 3070’s performance in certain benchmarks (while also costing $100 less), it’s an excellent alternative to that stupendous card.
Once you start comparing to AMD’s options like the RX 6800, the price-to-performance equation also favors the $399 RTX 3060 Ti. If AMD patches its cards with solid drivers for legacy games and sees tweaks for games like Rainbow Six: Siege and PUB:G, that narrative could change. But as of right now, that’s the rub of this card’s launch.
When compared with AMD’s other closest offering on price, 2019’s $399 Radeon RX 5700 XT, the results become even clearer: Nvidia is now uncontested in the midrange. Although an RDNA 2-based midrange option coming from AMD in the next few months seems inevitable at this point, as far as confirmed hardware goes, Nvidia offers up the best combination of performance, features, and technology at the $399 MSRP today.
So there it is, another RTX 30 Series Founders Edition card from Nvidia, and another Editors’ Choice award for the Team Green shelf. AMD has its work cut out, and we’ll likely have to wait at least until 2021 to find out how it answers the multiple daunting challenges that Nvidia just threw down this fall. All Nvidia has to do is ship enough cards to keep its legions of eager shoppers happy. We’ll see if that’s even more daunting of a task.
