Nvidia, gamers all around the world have started to hate you, and bringing in the RTX 3060 won’t fix that. Yes, the GeForce RTX 3060 is quite impressive hardware but throwing a new card during cryptocurrency hype is not a clever thing to do. But for the hardcore hardware enthusiast with GTX 1060, has the time finally come? Is it worth upgrading to an RTX 3060?
Nvidia’s RTX 3060 is weaker and the cheapest Ampere card on the market.
The RTX 3060 is the newest Ampere card in the market and its performance is stunning. The $329 price tag is compelling for the RTX 3060 but it comes with an asterisk. We will look at the performance of the card and later talk about its shortcomings.
The RTX 3060 is the weaker variant among the RTX 3060 family. Nvidia has packed the RTX 3060 with 3584 CUDA cores. The card has a base clock of 1.32 GHz and boosts up to 1.78 GHz. It comes with a hefty 12 GB of GDDR6 VRAM but it sits on the 192-bit bus making it slower than the Ti variant.
But the RTX 3060 comes with the latest 2nd generation Ray-Tracing and Tensor cores.
Here we are taking EVGA RTX 3060 XC. This seems the only card likely to come in the MSRP with limited stocks available in Microcenter and Best Buy or NewEgg. It comes overclocked reaching 1852 MHz. The card is strictly for 1080p gaming over 120 Hz. This is not the fancy 1440p cards like the RTX 3070. So how does the RTX 3060 fare in the gaming benchmarks? Let’s see!
Benchmarks:
The GeForce RTX 3060 is focused on 1080p gaming. It fits right in with the newer gen titles like CyberPunk, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, etc. We hooked up the RTX 3060 with a simple test bench.
Configuration:
CPU: Core i9 10900K
Motherboard: MSI MEG Z490 ACE
RAM: G skill Trident Z DDR4 3600
Storage: Samsung 970 EVO NVMe 500GB
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
Borderlands 3:
Shadow of the Tomb Raider:
Red Dead Redemption 2:
The RTX 3060 Ti easily leads the pack with its superior CUDA cores and aggressive core clock. But the RTX 3060 and the RTX 2060 Super have similar performance with a difference of <10%. On each game title, there is not much difference between the older 2060 Super and newer RTX 60 series cards.
So, the fewer RTX cores might pose a big problem then? No, RTX performance has the same results with a lead of <10%. So basically the RTX 3060 offers more VRAM giving a similar performance to the RTX 2060 super.
The major performance hit comes, thanks to the smaller 192-bit bus of the card. Yes, Nvidia will introduce the resizable BAR technology. But coming from a theoretical stand-point you are getting only a 5 – 10 fps bump.
So Should I get a GeForce RTX 3060?
So there is a mixed conception about this graphics card as of now. The performance is just a tad bit better than the RTX 2060 Super offered at $329.
The previous owner of the RTX 2060 Super or RTX 2060 doesn’t have to swap out their graphics card. But this does show a promise to the older GTX 1060 owners. The time has finally come for the GTX 1060 owners to get their hands on the latest RTX 3060.
The RTX 3060 Ti’s $400 price tag offers better performance but the RTX 3060 is very well positioned with the sub $350 price. Most of the custom cards will cost above $400.
But there is another factor that makes the RTX 3060 alluding, Mining. The RTX 3060 may be good for gaming but Miners are more fashioned towards these cards. The RTX 3060 has a good mining hash rate which the miners will definitely have their eye on.
Nvidia did slash the mining rate of the card, but people have already gotten past the system. The Nvidia drivers only affect the mining hash rate of the ethereum cryptocurrency. You still are free to mine other currencies like Dodge, Litecoin, etc.
The GeForce RTX 3060 is a perfect card but it would be lucky if you can get your hands on the card. Currently, the cards are out of stock, and the 2nd hand market prices the RTX 3060 at an atrocious rate. So getting a new graphics card is quite hard.
