Question RTX 3060 Review Thread

[Mopetar]

It doesn't look like anyone else is jumping on this, so I may as well. I'll update this main post frequently as I add reviews for various sites and the different cards they've covering.

Written Articles:
Tom's Hardware: (EVGA XC)

It's nice that Nvidia equipped the card with 12GB (though we still think a 6GB 3060 is coming), but more VRAM can't make up for the reduction in memory bandwidth and GPU computational prowess. Slightly better performance than an RTX 2060 Super at a moderately lower price is the least we could expect, and that's pretty much what we got.

TechPowerUp: (EVGA XC), (MSI Gaming X Trio) , (PALIT Dual OC), (Zotac AMP White)

Overclocking the MSI RTX 3060 Gaming X Trio worked extremely well. We gained almost 10% in real-life performance. Overclocking worked better than on any other RTX 3060 tested today, possibly helped by the low temperatures and excellent VRM circuitry design.

Guru3D: (ASUS STRIX Gaming OC), (EVGA XC), (MSI Gaming X Trio), (PALIT Dual OC), (Zotac AMP White)

That's said, in the 300 to 350 USD range, the price on the 3060 is a bit steep already; however, I could warrant it solely based on your framebuffer; the 12 GB GDDR6 is really nice value that will help you at least a few years. The performance does not disappoint either; I mean, roughly RTX 2070 levels are the best comparative not that I can make.

ComputerBase: (ASUS STRIX Gaming OC and MSI Gaming X Trio)

(translated) Unlike the GeForce RTX 3080, for example, the GeForce RTX 3060 is not a spectacular ampere graphics card, but compared to the GeForce RTX 2060 it shows progress on all fronts and is therefore a rock solid product.

PCGamer: (Zotac Twin Edge)

For my money, then, I'm sticking with the RTX 3060 Ti as the mid-range champion. The Nvidia RTX 3060 strays a little too far from the pack of high-end Ampere to have the same impact generation on generation. But in that same breath it must be said that the RTX 3060 a fine upgrade for a 10-series or older card, especially if it stays anywhere close to MSRP, and one that will likely see you confidently through the next few years of major game releases.

Sweclockers: (Gigabyte Gaming OC and MSI Gaming X Trio)

(translated) If we put the availability issue aside and instead look at what the Geforce RTX 3060 offers in terms of performance, it is clear that the newcomer lands a good distance behind his big sibling with the Ti suffix. That being said, the level of performance is by no means bad, as it is on average just above the Geforce RTX 2070 and 23 percent better than its predecessor Geforce RTX 2060 when playing in 1080p.

HotHardware: (EVGA XC)

If you haven't upgraded for a few generations and have a GeForce GTX 1060 or anything below a 1660-class GPU, the GeForce RTX 3060 would offer a big performance and feature boost. If you've already got an RTX 20-series card, the RTX 3060 will be less appealing, since it trades blows with the GeForce RTX 2060 Super. Saving up some additional money for a 3060 Ti (again, when street prices come back to reality), will net significantly better performance.

TweakTown: (MSI Gaming X Trio)

If you're gaming away on the older-gen GeForce GTX 1060 and want to upgrade, it's a great upgrade -- but the GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition and stock AIB models can be found for the same $500-ish pricing... so why would you get the gimped RTX 3060 that fails to touch the RTX 3060 Ti?

ArsTechnica: (EVGA XC)

Really, the worst thing I can say about the RTX 3060 is that it's not as tantalizing a jump from the 2060 as other "plus-1,000" RTX cards have proven over the past six months.

Eurogamer: (Zotac Twin Edge)

While there's a lot to like here, the RTX 3060 is undoubtedly not as strong a value as the RTX 3060 Ti. That card costs around 20 per cent more ($400 vs $330), yet provides a significant boost to frame-rates - especially at 1440p and 2160p, where the Ti is often 26 to 36 per cent faster. For 1080p gaming, the RTX 3060 is sufficient, but in a world where graphics cards are freely available at their recommended retail price, I'd suggest that people with a bit of flexibility in their budget consider the Ti instead.

PC Perspective: (EVGA XC)

Let’s pretend that we are living In a world where both the RTX 3060 and RTX 3060 Ti are available at their starting list prices (isn’t it glorious?). In that world I would strongly recommend the RTX 3060 Ti at $399 – $70 above the $329 price level of the RTX 3060 but with performance closer to the RTX 2080 Super. An outstanding overall card, the RTX 3060 Ti is just a significantly faster option in spite of the lower 8GB VRAM total.

KitGuru: (Gigabyte Gaming OC)

All told, Nvidia’s RTX 3060 is certainly a decent graphics card, but I wouldn’t go further than that. My main lack of enthusiasm stems from the fact the gen-on-gen gains are just not that big with the RTX 3060, and certainly not as big as we’ve seen from the other Ampere GPUs.

Video Reviews:
Gamer's Nexus: (EVGA XC)
Digital Foundry: (Zotac Twin Edge)
Hardware Canucks: (EVGA XC)
Linus Tech Tips: (MSI Ventus 2x)
Paul's Harware: (EVGA XC)
Hardware Unboxed: (Gigabyte EAGLE)

Mining Performance:
Since this is a bit of a hot topic, particular for this card given Nvidia has artificially limited performance through drivers and locked them down, there were a few reviews that addressed points concerning mining.

The Tom's Hardware review in particular suggests that the drivers Nvidia used aren't effective against all currencies:

The good news is that DaggerHashimoto, aka Ethash, which is the algorithm used by Ethereum, was definitely a lot lower than expected. It would start at 45-50MH/s and quickly drop to about half that speed. . . . The bad news is that there are a lot of other mining algorithms, and in some of these — like Octopus — the RTX 3060 is still reasonably profitable. With the recent drop in Ethereum pricing, and the increased difficulty, at 45-50MH/s the RTX 3060 would have netted around $5.50 per day. In Octopus, it can still do around $4 per day, which means it could hit the break-even point in just 82 days at current rates.

Obviously, the rates are prone to wild swings, but given the potential profits, there's no way miners don't buy these cards. Plus, there's no guarantee that some future miner update doesn't figure out a way around Nvidia's driver and firmware protections, and miners are probably counting on that. It would technically be more profitable to buy a different GPU — even the RTX 2060 can beat the 3060 in mining profitability right now — but the current shortages mean that miners will try to buy up any reasonably priced graphics card.

The Ars review also comments on mining specifically:

All of these tests included GPU downclocks, VRAM upclocks, and power-level adjustments (as tweaked within MSI Afterburner) to keep the GPUs in question operating at roughly 65°C, as I'm not trying to fry this hardware to make a few fake bucks. The exception came from the lowest performer on my list, the apparently nerfed RTX 3060, which I couldn't tweak to run any higher than 55°C, try as I might.

And how easy might it be to edit Nvidia's drivers (or repurpose older ones) to make the RTX 3060 pump out a few more vertcoin per hour? We can't say. But something is going on with the RTX 3060 and its default Nvidia drivers, and based on specs, it stands to reason that this rate is half the GPU's actual mining capabilities.

It seems like Nvidia's efforts are hit and miss and that because at least some form of mining is rather profitable that miners will still be buying up these cards even if there aren't any hacks that get around Nvidia's limitations.

Availability and Pricing:
I have no idea how quickly all of these sold out, but some anecdotal evidence from other posts suggests mere minutes. Any of the sites I looked at are out of stock, even for the premium AIB models that are priced above $400. I found a few scraps of information that stated the 3060 availability will be similar to the 3070, but that isn't exactly an encouraging idea. There's also some discussion around pricing because there's no reference design for the 3060 so it's unlikely to see the $330 MSRP in most cases.

From the TweakTown review:

The price on the MSI RTX 3060 GAMING X TRIO is TBD right now... so I guess I'll update this review once I have the price. These GPU shortages are making reviews harder for us hardware reviewers too, the stock is low -- you guys can't buy them -- and then the prices are so insane pre-launch that we're being told not to even state pricing in the review of said product.

This isn't MSI's fault... but is it NVIDIA's fault? Well, they could be clearer on pricing and availability but they're not being easy with that. I'm not the only reviewer who thinks this way, and the RTX 3060 launch is having us all scratch our heads collectively.

From the Guru3D ASUS STRIX OC review:

NVIDIA is pricing the GeForce RTX 3060 at USD 329. We have not yet received the MSRP for the gaming STRIX OC, but knowing ASUS, this product is a premium design, you may add another 100 USD. But with a predicted low availability, it's hard to really make a factual statement here if prices inflate due to e-tailers hiking up prices.

 

[ultimatebob]

No, the 3060 is ~25% faster in actual games than a 1070 Ti. Userbenchmarks is entirely useless.

It would probably be more comparable in performance to a GeForce 2060 Super, GeForce 2070, or GeForce 1080ti in non RTX benchmarks.

 

[Mark_Venture]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but figured this was better than starting a new...

I counted myself a little lucky having been selected in a Newegg shuffle yesterday to be able to buy a VGA GeForce RTX 3060 XC GAMING, 12G-P5-3657-KR, for $389 in a bundle with an EVGA SuperNOVA 750 GA, 80 Plus Gold 750W ($126.89). [Total bundle was $511.88 + tax + $8.95 shipping]

Reading this thread, I'm a little concerned that maybe I just wasted my time/money (at least shipping costs because I can return if desired). I'm not into heavy gaming, and don't mine (don't know where to start, and don't have time to look into it) but do video editing/encoding, and use Virtual Desktop and Oculus Link with my Oculus Quest (1st Gen).

I currently have an Intel i9-10900K, 32gig ram, w/EVGA GTX 1660ti XC Ultra Gaming 06G-P4-1267-KR, but was thinking of getting a new card and moving the 1660ti to my 12 year old son's i7-6700 PC (currently using GTX970) as he is playing more games, or my Plex Server (I7-8700K, currently using the Intel GPU),.

With video card prices being what they are, I figured $389 for the RTX3060 wasn't too bad and gave me options, but reading the reactions to the RTX3060 in this thread, I wonder, did I make a mistake?

 

[Kenmitch]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but figured this was better than starting a new...

I counted myself a little lucky having been selected in a Newegg shuffle yesterday to be able to buy a VGA GeForce RTX 3060 XC GAMING, 12G-P5-3657-KR, for $389 in a bundle with an EVGA SuperNOVA 750 GA, 80 Plus Gold 750W.

Reading this thread, I'm a little concerned that maybe I just wasted my time/money (at least shipping costs because I can return if desired). I'm not into heavy gaming, and don't mine (don't know where to start, and don't have time to look into it) but do video editing/encoding, and use Virtual Desktop and Oculus Link with my Oculus Quest (1st Gen).

I currently have an Intel i9-10900K, 32gig ram, w/EVGA GTX 1660ti XC Ultra Gaming 06G-P4-1267-KR, but was thinking of getting a new card and moving the 1660ti to my 12 year old son's i7-6700 PC (currently using GTX970) as he is playing more games, or my Plex Server (I7-8700K, currently using the Intel GPU),.

With video card prices being what they are, I figured $389 for the RTX3060 wasn't too bad and gave me options, but reading the reactions to the RTX3060 in this thread, I wonder, did I make a mistake?

You won the lotto and your still not happy? I'm sure many that read your comments would happily buy the combo off you at cost plus shipping. It's kind of a lackluster offering, but in todays market you got lucky to even have the opportunity to purchase it.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but figured this was better than starting a new...

I counted myself a little lucky having been selected in a Newegg shuffle yesterday to be able to buy a VGA GeForce RTX 3060 XC GAMING, 12G-P5-3657-KR, for $389 in a bundle with an EVGA SuperNOVA 750 GA, 80 Plus Gold 750W.

Reading this thread, I'm a little concerned that maybe I just wasted my time/money (at least shipping costs because I can return if desired). I'm not into heavy gaming, and don't mine (don't know where to start, and don't have time to look into it) but do video editing/encoding, and use Virtual Desktop and Oculus Link with my Oculus Quest (1st Gen).

I currently have an Intel i9-10900K, 32gig ram, w/EVGA GTX 1660ti XC Ultra Gaming 06G-P4-1267-KR, but was thinking of getting a new card and moving the 1660ti to my 12 year old son's i7-6700 PC (currently using GTX970) as he is playing more games, or my Plex Server (I7-8700K, currently using the Intel GPU),.

With video card prices being what they are, I figured $389 for the RTX3060 wasn't too bad and gave me options, but reading the reactions to the RTX3060 in this thread, I wonder, did I make a mistake?

Yes, by itself 3060 is a very lackluster card. However given the current GPU shortage the fact that you got a new card at MSRP is frankly amazing. AFAIK plex should use QuickSync on your intel CPU to transcode if necessary, if that's true then I see no point in putting GPU in your plex rig. 3060 is about 50% faster than 1660ti, and you got twice as much RAM too. Used 970's go for $160-250 on ebay, and 1660ti's go for $500-600. Keep the 3060, and either give your son 1660ti and sell 970 on ebay, or keep 3060 and sell 1660ti on ebay.

Congrats dude on winning the lottery, literally!

 

[Mark_Venture]

You won the lotto and your still not happy? I'm sure many that read your comments would happily buy the combo off you at cost plus shipping. It's kind of a lackluster offering, but in todays market you got lucky to even have the opportunity to purchase it.

I wouldn't say that I'm not happy, just questioning if I did the right thing, or if I should have left it for someone else to get.

I didn't really "need it", and certainly didn't need the power supply. It's a nice to have as a spare power supply, however it makes it feel like more than retail price for the video card.

But considering the climate for graphic cards, I do feel lucky on getting it, was excited, and jumped on it as soon as I was notified (when I got the text I was selected, I dropped everything, and had completed the transaction in less than 5 minutes). The comments in this thread were a bit of a downer though.

 

[Mark_Venture]

Yes, by itself 3060 is a very lackluster card. However given the current GPU shortage the fact that you got a new card at MSRP is frankly amazing. AFAIK plex should use QuickSync on your intel CPU to transcode if necessary, if that's true then I see no point in putting GPU in your plex rig. 3060 is about 50% faster than 1660ti, and you got twice as much RAM too. Used 970's go for $160-250 on ebay, and 1660ti's go for $500-600. Keep the 3060, and either give your son 1660ti and sell 970 on ebay, or keep 3060 and sell 1660ti on ebay.

Congrats dude on winning the lottery, literally!

Yes, the Plex rig is using the Intel GPU for transcoding now.

From stand alone encoding, I get better video quality using NVENC than QuickSync, so I was hoping that using the 1660ti in the Plex server might give a little better quality when Plex is transcoding. Then again, I'm not doing much, if any, transcoding as my home devices direct play everything on my server just fine, except my son's Roku Streaming Stick+. And I'm not sharing my server.

And while we sync media to our tablets (and reduce quality to save space while doing it), we don't do it often during Covid, and that seems to be limited to 2 sync/encodes at a time.

So yeah, at this point, it's looking more like my son gets the 1660ti, not the Plex server.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I was thinking about scoring one of these in a Newegg raffle but decided even if I win and even if I sell my 1660ti for $400 it still doesn’t make that much sense. 20-30% more performance for around $200.

 

[fleshconsumed]

I was thinking about scoring one of these in a Newegg raffle but decided even if I win and even if I sell my 1660ti for $400 it still doesn’t make that much sense. 20-30% more performance for around $200.

From what I read 3060 is around 50% faster than 1660ti depending on a game. It still makes sense, but only if you get in on the cheap EVGA bundles like Mark_Venture did, in that case you're essentially getting a free upgrade. Total nobrainer.

 

[ultimatebob]

You won the lotto and your still not happy? I'm sure many that read your comments would happily buy the combo off you at cost plus shipping. It's kind of a lackluster offering, but in todays market you got lucky to even have the opportunity to purchase it.

He could do way better than that, and probably sell it on eBay for about $800 right now... which is insane.

 

[Mark_Venture]

just a follow up. Since winning the shuffle, and purchasing the card, Newegg hasn't had a more reasonably priced RTX card, in fact, they've had the RTX3060 cards for $100+ more than i paid in the bundle. (The only shuffle since I won that had this EVGA RTX3060 not in a bundle, it was still nearly $500... I've seen RTX3060's from other companies offered in more expensive bundles too). So I feel I got a good deal, even if I didn't immediately need the power supply it was bundled with.

From a performance perspective, and for *MY* usage, this RTX3060 doesn't provide much/any noticeable improvement over the GTX1660ti I had for *MY* usage (again, non-gaming, mostly video editing and encoding).

I didn't even try putting the GTX1660ti in the Plex server, i just put in my son's pc. He is happy too.