NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition Review

Brent_Justice

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Introduction



Today NVIDIA continues to roll out its line of GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs and video cards.  The new Ampere generation for desktops, known as the GeForce RTX 30 Series is a series of GPUs, and it makes sense NVIDIA wants to stack the deck with GPUs at every major price point and gaming segment.  NVIDIA started at the top on September 16th with the GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition at an MSRP of $699 and went to the very top with the GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition at an MSRP of $1,499.  Then on October 27th  NVIDIA launched the...

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Thanks for the review Brent! It's a shame that nothing is available at this time. All these reviews, with no stock in sight and the holidays approaching makes for a depressing time of year for gaming enthusiasts. :(
Cmon Space man. just play some games, chill out and let the madness flow without you in it :)
 
Cmon Space man. just play some games, chill out and let the madness flow without you in it :)
I'm trying. I really was looking forward to upgraded my displays to 4k displays, but without the graphics card to drive them sufficiently there's no use in making the move.
 
Reading this over now, the card looks promising.
Now lets hope that they can be made in quantity, because this might be the GPU I nudge my room mate towards.
 
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Will be a great card when I can get one, in 2022
 
Granted, the actually being able to buy it issue is a big issue. I do believe cards will eventually be available. There will be a time they can be purchased and prices at normal range. It'll happen, it's just a matter of when.

At least until then we can try and give you all the data we can muster with the cards so that you can make a more well-informed decision when you do go to buy. This time just gives us reviewers more time to really test these cards more and more, in more games, more overclocking, more driver updates, and in more unique ways so that you can be just better informed and make a good buying decision for yourself. Remember the whole cards burning out problem early on, glad you didn't buy one of those eh, so stuff like this can get worked out over time before you even can purchase one. The delay actually saved a lot of people a big headache.

I personally am very interested to see how all of these cards will handle Cyberpunk, that's going to be a defining game, and pretty much a staple/benchmark for a long while. So being able to test that, before you buy a card, will be important for a lot of people.
 
Well, we can call 1440p 'cooked' with this one.

I'm also impressed that Nvidia has continued to scale down their 'flow-through / flow out' cooler. This thing is set up very well for many smaller platforms as well as any reasonably open platform while avoiding the main limitation of blowers: noise. I have two ITX systems where such a cooler would be just about the only way to shoehorn in something this powerful, as they just don't have the space for something that needs circulation like an open-air cooler or the elbow room for an AIO hybrid cooler.

I do wonder, did Brent mention NVENC? A *060 part should have the latest one, but as Nvidia removed the Turing NVENC from the 1650Ti and below (it was in the 1050Ti) I'm hoping that they haven't pushed that practiced up another bracket!
 
I don't take any issue with the review - it's a dissertation on technical performance. And in that light, it's a very good review.

I do think that not mentioning availability is an issue - it's just as important as price. If a video card presents awful performance for the price, that weighs on the recommendation, correct? Then I think, at least for some finite window around the review itself, availability should as well.

As far as availability changing over time - yeah, it does. So does price though. And reviews still get weighted upon price despite that. You just don't go back and update them.

As far as pre-release review samples - ok, you have no idea of knowing if cards will be available, because you got an early review sample. I get that. As I said before - the technical part of the review is entirely appropriate and accurate. But maybe you should hold off on a recommendation or award until you can see that these cards are available and it's not just another paper launch, or scalper/miner fodder.

2020 has just been maddening across the board, maybe this is just isolated to this particular time and place. But we saw something awfully similar with the 1080 release, where it wasn't available for months, and off and on mining bubbles have hit that just sucked up everything out there. I hate to say it, but since the scalpers are making bank, I don't see the trend stopping. The manufacturers are afraid of ramping up production too much, because they all got burned during the mining bubble and had to eat a good deal of older inventory, and retailers don't care who's buying the cards so long as they are flying off the shelves - so there's no real incentive to fix it either.

Just frustrating. I hope this card is widely available, and this is just me whining about nothing. But no other GPU release has been, nor any electronic device that is even remotely popular or in demand right now, so I am not holding my breath.
 
could you add 4k scores?
and add RTX3070 scores also. I'd like to know if its worth the extra $100, if I am ever able to get one :p :p :LOL::LOL:
 
I don't take any issue with the review - it's a dissertation on technical performance. And in that light, it's a very good review.

I do think that not mentioning availability is an issue

Availability was mentioned in the conclusion, very last paragraph.

- it's just as important as price. If a video card presents awful performance for the price, that weighs on the recommendation, correct? Then I think, at least for some finite window around the review itself, availability should as well.

It's different IMO. Availability doesn't change the performance or price or value, it's a separate factor. If the card is worth it on value, performance, money, then I will desire the card. If I desire the card having it be available or not won't change my desire for the card. If it is not available now, I will still want the card, and when it becomes available, then I'll get it. My desire for the card, or like of it is not dependent on the availability of it, IMO.

I desire a lot of things that I cannot always buy at the moment, that doesn't change its value to me.

When we give awards or recommendations it is based on the specifics of the video card itself, not the political issues surrounding it that we cannot control. I'm putting the world aside and focusing only on the card.

As far as availability changing over time - yeah, it does. So does price though. And reviews still get weighted upon price despite that. You just don't go back and update them.

We cannot predict what the price will actually end up being, and how it will change. But we have to go on something, the only way to fairly compare is by using the MSRP, it's at least a baseline by which we compare. If we had no baseline, there could be no comparison. It's a given that the price will change, just like availability in the real-world.

As far as pre-release review samples - ok, you have no idea of knowing if cards will be available, because you got an early review sample. I get that. As I said before - the technical part of the review is entirely appropriate and accurate. But maybe you should hold off on a recommendation or award until you can see that these cards are available and it's not just another paper launch, or scalper/miner fodder.

Availability doesn't affect the value of the card though. This goes back to the first question. At the end of the day, if you are interested in a card then us (and other reviewers) reviewing them before you buy it or can buy it is important to your buying decision ultimately. That's why you read reviews. You want to see the technical aspects, the data, the objective data, but people also want to know if the reviewer recommends it or not.

We cannot control the availability, but what we can provide for you is a review of the product, and our opinion, so that WHEN it becomes available you can make an informed purchasing decision. Our job is to give you the information you need to make an educated, informed, purchase decision. You decide what's best for you based on the information we can provide. The only way we can do this is to take samples and review the product.

When it becomes available, you'll have our reviews to look back on. Look at it this way, the availability is a short window, but our review will be up online forever. When the cards are available, this review will be here for you to reference.

2020 has just been maddening across the board, maybe this is just isolated to this particular time and place. But we saw something awfully similar with the 1080 release, where it wasn't available for months, and off and on mining bubbles have hit that just sucked up everything out there. I hate to say it, but since the scalpers are making bank, I don't see the trend stopping. The manufacturers are afraid of ramping up production too much because they all got burned during the mining bubble and had to eat a good deal of older inventory, and retailers don't care who's buying the cards so long as they are flying off the shelves - so there's no real incentive to fix it either.

I don't like it either /shrug

In the grand scheme of things, I have very little control.
 
Thanks a ton Brent for this most excellent review. I had heard the rumors about a 3060 Ti but I certainly wasn't expecting one so soon, especially since it hadn't even been officially confirmed by nVidia ahead of the launch. The new king at $400. Where was this card when I paid a bit more than that for a brand-new 1080 Ti last year? Now we have another graphics card that we can read about, but not actually buy. Hopefully in a couple months, all the new cards from nVidia and AMD/RTG will be plentiful. 3060 Ti seems to be a pretty dang good value. Wish it had more vRAM, but eh.
 
could you add 4k scores?
and add RTX3070 scores also. I'd like to know if its worth the extra $100, if I am ever able to get one :p :p :LOL::LOL:

3070 is being added in an upcoming factory overclocked retail card review

I'll also include the 3070 in my overclocking rtx 3060 ti review, and since you asked for it, I'll throw in some 4K :)
 
3070 is being added in an upcoming factory overclocked retail card review

I'll also include the 3070 in my overclocking rtx 3060 ti review, and since you asked for it, I'll throw in some 4K :)
Tnx man, be assured that if I ever manage to get either card it will largely be based on your reviews.
On a sidenote, do you have comissioned links?
 
Tnx man, be assured that if I ever manage to get either card it will largely be based on your reviews.
On a sidenote, do you have comissioned links?
I believe if you take the Amazon Item page, and paste it to a post in the forums, the commissioned tags get added to the link automatically. After pasting the link and posting here, navigate back to Amazon via the posted link and they'll get a commission on the sale..
 
I believe if you take the Amazon Item page, and paste it to a post in the forums, the commissioned tags get added to the link automatically. After pasting the link and posting here, navigate back to Amazon via the posted link and they'll get a commission on the sale..
Good to know.
 
The GeForce RTX 2060 Ti Founders Edition is so fast that we are already wondering how close to a GeForce RTX 3070 it actually comes.

Typo
 
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