During its special “Game On” event on Tuesday, Nvidia officially announced the GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card. Based on the new Ampere GPU architecture, the GeForce RTX 3060 aims to be Nvidia’s entry-level option for all gamers that want to experience RTX and DLSS performance on their PCs.
At a price of just $329 USD, the GeForce RTX 3060 enters the market as the most affordable in Nvidia’s Ampere lineup. The new card sits alongside the recently released GeForce RTX 3060 Ti with just slightly lower specs.
Next-gen performance for all
The GeForce RTX 3060 will feature 3584 CUDA Cores, 12 GB of GDDR6 memory, and a memory clock of 17 Gbps on a 192-bit memory bus. In addition, it will have a total bandwidth of 408 Gbps, a boost clock of 1.78 Ghz, and a TDP of just 165W. Where many people will look and question this new card is the aforementioned 12 GB of GDDR6 memory.
| Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 | |
|---|---|
| Architecture | Ampere |
| GPU | GA106-300 |
| CUDA Cores | 3584 |
| RT Cores | 28 |
| Tensors/TMUs | 112 |
| Memory | 12 GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Bus | 192-bit |
| TGP | 165 W |
| Price | $329 USD |
| Availability | Late February 2021 |
The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3070 both have just 8 GB of memory despite being more powerful graphics cards. The reason for the higher memory total in the base RTX 3060 is solely to help bring the performance up to par. By including the extra 4GB of GDDR6 memory, the RTX 3060 can reach higher levels of performance — particularly at 1440p and 4K gaming — without the higher CUDA Cores, memory bus, or sensors.
(Credit: Nvidia).
During the reveal, Nvidia pushed the card as featuring massive increases in performance over both the GTX 1060 and the RTX 2060 GPUs. When talking about games like Watch Dogs Legion and Cyberpunk 2077, Nvidia touted the new 60 fps performance on the RTX 3060 with both ray tracing and DLSS enabled. On the old GTX 1060, neither feature was even available. For the RTX 2060, turning both features on would drop frame rates to unplayable levels.
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 will be available starting in February. Once it’s launched, however, the question then becomes whether or not there will be enough for consumers to purchase. Hopefully, the GeForce RTX 3060 is not destined to have similar shortages like the previous four Nvidia Ampere launches.
