RTX 3060 12GB

[polonyc2]

the 3060 doesn't seem worth it...the 3060 Ti seems like the better buy at the lower end...

 

[TaintedSquirrel]

^ Welcome to the club. In a few weeks,you'll settle for anything new. I went from a 3070 FE --> 3060ti FE and now will accept anything 3060.

You did what?

 

[kirbyrj]

Saw this on Reddit and laughed:

 

[kyang357]

You did what?

Sorry, what I meant to say was that I started wanting a 3070fe at launch, when that didn't happen, I was hoping for a 3060ti fe. Now that didn't happen either and with the crazy gpu prices, I wasn't going to get 1660 at $300 so now I am just hoping to get any 3060, even if they are not much better than a 2060. And all of this is not even for me. It's to finish a build for a friend. I am fine with a 1060.

 

[euskalzabe]

^ Welcome to the club. In a few weeks,you'll settle for anything new. I went from a 3070 FE --> 3060ti FE and now will accept anything 3060.

Certainly, if my EVGA 3060 notify goes through before I manage to snatch a 3060 Ti, I'll just buy that.

 

[x509]

^ Welcome to the club. In a few weeks,you'll settle for anything new. I went from a 3070 FE --> 3060ti FE and now will accept anything 3060.

What he said. Same here.

 

[zandor]

Am I in the same club if I went the other direction, or is it two different clubs? First I wanted a 3080, then a 3080 or 6800XT, then a 3080, 6800XT or 6900XT... ended up with a 3090 because I could get it in my cart. The recent price hikes are making me feel less bad about buying a 3090 last December.

 

[Krenum]

^ Welcome to the club. In a few weeks,you'll settle for anything new. I went from a 3070 FE --> 3060ti FE and now will accept anything 3060.

What are you currently running? Why settle for something you don't want?

 

[kyang357]

What are you currently running? Why settle for something you don't want?

I'm running a 1060. I'm fine with that. I'm on the hunt for a sub $500 gpu to complete a build for a friend.

 

[euskalzabe]

What are you currently running? Why settle for something you don't want?

When lemonade is the only thing you can actually get...

 

[Krenum]

When lemonade is the only thing you can actually get...

View attachment 333646

 

[Decko87]

Really glad I snagged the 3060 ti when I could... This thing is a joke, I'm sorry but it's getting absolutely mopped by the next step up, makes no sense. This card seems like it should be the 3050 ti.

 

[crazycrave]

I remember buying a MSI RX 5700 Mech OC for $329 with free game .. so the 3060 is over priced .

 

[euskalzabe]

This card seems like it should be the 3050 ti.

(it is... ga106-300)

I remember buying a MSI RX 5700 Mech OC for $329 with free game .. so the 3060 is over priced .

Frankly none of the mid range new cards are a GOOD deal. I can get double the performance of my 1060 with a 3060, but I’d also be paying ~%165 what I paid for my current card. Had it been 2 years, or 1 gen difference, ok. Historically, 2 gens/4 years would mean that this 3060 should have this performance... at ~$250.

When I remind myself of this fact, I’m still not sure I’ll click yes on that EVGA notify when it goes out. Or if I really want to buy the FE 3060 TI for double what I paid in my original card. Yes, more than double the performance, but at double the price, that ain’t impressive after 4 years. In fact it’s quite pathetic. At this rate, is the 3050 going to be ~1060 performance for ~$200? Because I already got that 4 years ago.

I think I’m convincing myself again that I perhaps shouldn’t buy anything this generation. It just does not seem worth it. Perhaps AMD will release a $200 card that gives me some performance uplift that I could get as a 1-2 year holdover. Nvidia sure as shit doesn’t seem interested in giving me more performance per dollar than what I have with Pascal.

 

[LukeTbk]

I guess market and timing matter here, but a 3060TI FE in Canada would it be possible to buy it is 10% higher than the cheapest 1060 6gb in may 2018 when I bought mine.

The overpricing seem not too different than the previous craze, if they were possible to buy.

 

[Sir Psycho]

I guess market and timing matter here, but a 3060TI FE in Canada would it be possible to buy it is 10% higher than the cheapest 1060 6gb in may 2018 when I bought mine.

The overpricing seem not too different than the previous craze, if they were possible to buy.

We built a rig for my wife spring 2018 and I remember paying a little over 400 CAD for a 1060. Felt absolutely gutted back then. Sold it for 300 a couple weeks ago (almost 3 years later).

Edit: RAM prices were also batshit crazy IIRC. As in almost double year-on-year (had built mine a year before).

 

[euskalzabe]

I'll admit, this is really, really bothering me. Take a random 3060 review from a reputable site, say this one for PC perspective. Let's look at some of their 1080p performance numbers:

Let's do this math exercise with Metro Exodus, which I feel is a good representative of a high quality, 2020 3rd person game performance. According to that chart, for someone on a 1060 like myself, this is what I have to look forward to performance wise:

1060 - 34.41fps, %100 performanc. Price: $199 = %100
2060s - 63.68fps, %185 performan. Price: $399 = %200
3060 - 60.97, %177.1 performance. Price: $329 = %165.3

So, judging from my current base performance of a 1060, these are the conclusions I arrive at:

1) 2060s would give me %185 performance at %200 the price. That is a BAD deal, so I never bought it.
2) 3060 would give me %177 performance at %165 the price. That is a BETTER deal than 2060, and not necessarily a bad value proposition. However,
3) The value proposition has barely changed. If I wanted more performance in 2016 I could have paid more for it. If I want more performance in 2021, instead of paying the same $199 for it (that's what you expect after 4 years and 2 generations of GPU architecture, more for the same cost), I have to pay more for it, just as I would have in 2016.
4) The logical next 30 series evolution would be a 3050, which at $199 or so, would give me similar performance to my current 1060. Same value I got in 2016, so why would anyone want to buy in 2021 what they could have had for the past 5 years?

Overarching conclusion: 2021 = 2016. There has been barely any low-midrange performance/price uplift (~%12) in the past 5 years from Pascal, to Turing, to Ampere. On this topic, I recommend you watch this video. It makes excellent points.

Giving Nvidia (or AMD for that matter) money to reward this behavior seems like a mistake. It's saying I'm OK with them offering me absolutely no improvement in 5 years and 2 architecture changes. And reality is, I'm not OK with that. And so, I think I'm legitimately not going to buy a card this generation, and keep my 1060 yet another year, hoping that next year they'll finally offer some improvement. If they don't, I'll keep NOT buying until they offer a compelling upgrade path, not more performance for more money as years keep passing by. And I'll repeat this strategy until even setting games at 720p no longer gives me playable framerates. Otherwise, I can't shake the feeling that I'm getting royally ripped off.

 

[TaintedSquirrel]

TPU's summary of their entire suite shows the 3060 is precisely twice the performance of the 1060 6GB in raster, about 7% more than the 2060S, about the same as the vanilla 2070. Or ~2.3x more performance than the 3 GB model.

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/zotac-geforce-rtx-3060-amp-white-edition/30.html

GTX 1060's are selling for about $300, if you get a 3060 at MSRP you can upgrade for a net loss of $50-$100 depending on taxes/fees/shipping. Doubling performance for $100 out of pocket is nothing to sneeze at.

It's absolutely worth it in your case to try to upgrade right now -- That is: Get the cheapest card you can find (3060 or 3060 Ti FE @ MSRP) and sell your 1060 as much as you can on the inflated market. "Giving up" and buying nothing is a bad idea because Used prices are only going to drop over time and that's bad for you.

Unless you weren't planning on selling your 1060... Then you can wait as long as you want.

My advice then is to stay in the 3060 Black queue and keep trying for 3060 Ti FE at Best Buy. I don't think there's anything else tbh.

 

[euskalzabe]

Unless you weren't planning on selling your 1060... Then you can wait as long as you want.

That is in fact the plan. I have a secondary pc where I put my old parts, and I use it whenever I want to game in the living room tv. The 1060 will enjoy a long life there (that pc currently has a 770) as you can set games at 720p at that distance and not really notice the drop in quality (but certainly notice the FPS gain!).

The value proposition is certainly not there for a 3060. I think I’ll pass on this generation, unless a 3060 6GB is a lot cheaper (~$250) or AMD releases something similar that’s worth my time.

 

[jobert]

This is by far the dumbest product in the Ampere lineup. It is only a few percent faster than the old 2060 Super while using a few watts more. Sure its MSRP is 70 bucks cheaper but who cares when you are talking about performance you could have have already had for 2 freaking years now. Plus MSRP means nothing now and the 2060 Super had numerous discounts, sales and even game promos over it's 2 years. They should have neutered the specs by another 10% or so, stuck 6gb of vram on it, and called it a 3050 ti for $200.

 

[euskalzabe]

They should have neutered the specs by another 10% or so, stuck 6gb of vram on it, and called it a 3050 ti for $200.

You know, I think I finally understand what Nvidia is doing here. Let's start with the premise that Pascal was a good deal:

1) Nvidia releases Turing, using the GTX>RTX rebrand as an opportunity to reconfigure what price/performance ratio each tier represents. The percentages I posted earlier didn’t have initial Turing numbers, but we know it cost the same asTuring Super for worse performance, so it was a very bad deal in the low/mid 60 tier. Turing Super was only a bad deal (price/performance vs Pascal).
2) Nvidia releases Ampere. Price/performance wise, it is an improvement. Ampere is an OK deal in the low/mid tier. However, compared to Pascal, because of the tier reconfiguration, it only achieved parity with Pascal price/performance. You get an additional performance percentage increase, but you pay a similar additional price percentage to get it. Value has gone from bad with Turing, to equivalent to Pascal with Ampere after the tier reconfiguration. If a $199 3050 is released, I’d expect it to offer 1060 performance + ability to ray trace (however badly).
3) The next architecture (that’s series 4000 in 2022) is when, from a Pascal perspective, Nvidia’s low/mid tier becomes a good deal again to Pascal owners. The reconfigured tiers remain: what used to be a 60 tier user has now become a 50 tier user (= $200 range). However, value has gone from bad with Turing for the price point, to catching up and becoming equivalent to Pascal with Ampere, to finally giving you performance gains vs Pascal for similar money with the 4000 series.
4) The issue, then, is not that there has been no improvement. It’s that because Nvidia reconfigured price tiers, kicking each tier 1 notch up in price, it’ll take a Pascal owner ~6 years to get better performance for the same money.

You have to wonder why Nvidia did this, what the goal is or what there was to be gained (other than creating more expensive tiers). I’m sure there’s people who buy a specific tier, but I’d argue most people buy a price point. I don’t care if I’m a 60 or 50 buyer, I care that I don’t spend more than $200 for a GPU if I can avoid it. Whatever the logic in this move is, it’s finally clear to me why neither Turing nor Ampere seemed like good deals. From a Pascal perspective, they’re not (unless you just want new features - DXR, DLSS - and are not looking for more performance for the same money). And understanding this also makes it clear that Ampere Super should finally represent some improved value proposition to a Pascal owner, with series 4000 being the real upgrade for the price category. I can certainly wait until then to buy a $200 50 tier card: the spiritual successor to the 60 tier pre-Turing reconfiguration.

 

[zandor]

[snip]
You have to wonder why Nvidia did this, what the goal is or what there was to be gained (other than creating more expensive tiers). I’m sure there’s people who buy a specific tier, but I’d argue most people buy a price point.
[snip]

I have a couple theories on what happened with NV's usual price levels and tiers.

For Turing, I'm pretty sure it was technical issues involving raytracing plus a bit of marketing. First look at the 2060. It was $350 at launch, and it's the least powerful card with raytracing created so far. If you look at benchmarks a lot of times you'd just turn RTX off on one. 40fps because of fancy shadows? Just turn it off. Raytracing is very computationally intensive. Games use rasterization because it's much faster. Also the die size is huge for a "60" card. It's 445mm^2. That's bigger than the chip used in a 1080 (314mm^2) or 3070 (392.5mm^2) and almost as big as the chip in the 1080Ti and Titan X (471mm^2). The 1060 was 200mm^2 and the 3060 is 276mm^2. Kind of gives you a hint about what they had to do to make raytracing work at all. So basically the RTX 2060 cost $350 at launch because that's what it took to make a card NV thought had acceptable performance with RTX enabled. I figure it got called 2060 because they wanted a "60" in the RTX lineup for marketing reasons. NV has been doing the 50-60-70-80 thing long enough that a lot of people think <50=not for gaming, 50=budget, 60=normal, 70=premium, 80=high end and Titan=WTF!?. So they needed a "normal" RTX 2000 series card. Voila, $350 RTX 2060.

Of course NV did make another Turing 60 series for budgets too low for RTX. They just stripped out the RT and tensor cores and taped out a couple more chips for the GTX 1600 series. The initial 1660Ti and 1660 weren't anything to write home about as far as price/perf goes vs. Pascal, but the 1660 Super is about as fast as a 1070 and launched for $230.

My theory on Ampere is totally different, and mostly based on the 3080 and 3090. I suspect the cards that were released were not the original plan. I think the cards were supposed to be laid out more like Pascal in price and design. The last "80" card that didn't have a 256-bit memory bus was the 780. That used the "big" chip like the original Titan. The rest of the 700 series was mostly just rebadged 600 series cards. 680->770, 670->760, etc. They just dropped a new "80" on top and rebadged the previous gen for everything else. The current 3080 looks more like a 1080Ti or 2080Ti. They cut down the big chip instead of using the full second largest like they usually do. Then there's the 3090 that looks like a Titan but isn't.

I think the reason is mostly AMD. NV got wind of what they were cooking and changed the lineup around so they wouldn't get beat. They used the big chip for the 3080 to keep up with AMD, but that pushed the price up. If AMD had kept out of the high end the 3080 would probably use the chip the 3070 is using, likely with GDDR6X, and start at $600-650 instead of $700. The 3080 we got would have been the 3080Ti... or maybe it has 10GB so they can make an 11GB or 22GB 3080Ti or Super with more memory bandwidth and more cores enabled. Then the Titan got renamed to 3090 to make sure a Titan didn't get beat by an AMD card. The 6900XT is pretty close, and wins sometimes. This would of course cascade down the stack, making the 3070 slower and cheaper, etc.

As for the 3060, that's just tariffs/pandemic/shortages/mining craze/etc. pushing the price up. Prices on everything except for the FE cards have gone since last year. 1660 Super is $300+ if you catch one in stock. I see them in stock occasionally but as far as price/perf goes a 3060 for $330 is much better. The 3060Ti launched at $400 but anything other than an FE seems to start at $460. If you back that 15% price increase out of the $330 for a 3060 you end up with $287. The 3060 wasn't announced until this year when the price increases were already happening so it has a 2021 MSRP and everything we're comparing it to has a 2020 or earlier MSRP. If this mess wasn't going on I think it would be a $280-300 card. But we are having a mess and you have to pay mess prices if you can find a card. $330 for a $280-300 card by pre-2021 standards and feel lucky that you got one.

edit: add alternative memory option for theoretical 3080Ti.

 

[x509]

But we are having a mess and you have to pay mess prices if you can find a card. $330 for a $280-300 card by pre-2021 standards and feel lucky that you got one.

Ain't that the truth.

 

[euskalzabe]

Yeah, even if the EVGA queue pans out in the next few weeks I might not pull the trigger on the 3060, I really am not interested - those 12gb won’t do me much good at 1080p, and if I actually needed them for gaming the card won’t be powerful enough anyway. If a 3060 6gb is released for $250, that could be more interesting...

No rush. I just finished RE7, 6 and I’m now on 4 - it’s graphically the oldest. Still have 5 and the 0 and 1 remasters to play. Then Rage 2 (thanks Epic!) and Dying light which I got for $9 this weekend. Plenty of old games to play, and my 1060 3gb keeps performing like a champ.

 

[LukeTbk]

Was a 5700xt ever a 280-330 card pre-2021

1060 - 34.41fps, %100 performanc. Price: $199 = %100
2060s - 63.68fps, %185 performan. Price: $399 = %200
3060 - 60.97, %177.1 performance. Price: $329 = %165.3

are you assuming it was a 1060 3gb used in that example and not a 1060 6GB ?


Because 177% performance for 131% (or 120% after inflation) after 5 years is not good, but the 3060 is particularly bad here.

 

[euskalzabe]

3060 Ti is in stock right now if you don't mind paying $526 for it... I certainly wouldn't. It's been beeping for like 5min, so I don't think many others are excited to pay this sort of price either.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B083Z5P6TX?tag=nismain-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1

The tracker for the 3060 beeped a few times yesterday, if anyone's interested in having this open:

https://www.nowinstock.net/computers/videocards/nvidia/rtx3060/

 

[euskalzabe]

2 hours later and that 3060 Ti is still available to purchase on Amazon. I'm really glad that it seems people willing to overpay for these cards seem to be running out. Maybe prices will finally start coming down as people refuse to purchase at insane prices.

Personally, it's the FE 3060 Ti at $399 or bust. Not giving anyone else a single more cent.

 

[LukeTbk]

2 hours later and that 3060 Ti is still available to purchase on Amazon. I'm really glad that it seems people willing to overpay for these cards seem to be running out. Maybe prices will finally start coming down as people refuse to purchase at insane prices.

Personally, it's the FE 3060 Ti at $399 or bust. Not giving anyone else a single more cent.

Could be the VPN, but it show up has: Currently unavailable, to me

 

[defaultluser]

I'm not surprised it's priced so high (ask how much more expensive those 2GB modules make the RX 6800?) But the fact that they didn't also launch a 6gb cut model at under $270 yet is pretty sketchy!

Pointless until they finally get those high-density modules down in price, as I have to wait: My 1060 6gb card refused to max-out Doom: Eternal at 1080p (Ultra-nightmare), even though I was able to run at a mix of the two settings t 80fps (vram-limited).

No nightmare textures @ 1080p on a 2020 game means all 6gb graphics card upgrades are effectively dead-to-me (but I dont feel the need to spend over $400 just to get the extra performance I'm not really using).

 

[TaintedSquirrel]

tbh the TUF 3060 Ti is realistically worth at least $450 regular price. Yes the FE is $400 flat, the AIB cards are definitely worth more.
That card is probably selling for $1,000+ on the market right now. Don't know why anyone would pass on it.

Could be the VPN, but it show up has: Currently unavailable, to me

I don't think it's actually in-stock, just a display error.

 

[JasonPC]

Yeah Amazon has had a lot of in stock errors giving the discord bots fake availability.

 

[euskalzabe]

Yup. I was able to add it to cart a couple hours ago, even one hour ago. I just tried now and it goes to an empty cart, so it's no longer working properly. It was for a good 2 hours though.

 

[dexvx]

2 hours later and that 3060 Ti is still available to purchase on Amazon. I'm really glad that it seems people willing to overpay for these cards seem to be running out. Maybe prices will finally start coming down as people refuse to purchase at insane prices.

Personally, it's the FE 3060 Ti at $399 or bust. Not giving anyone else a single more cent.

Amazon gives a lot of false positives. Just because the page says in-stock doesn't mean squat. Go through checkout and you'll find that Amazon says no stock.

Fact of the matter is if you want a 3060 Ti, you'll be paying $800-1100 street price. For the average person, the BB drop is the best way to obtain a GPU at MSRP.

 

[euskalzabe]

If anyone here has seen AMD's RX6700 XT announcement, that just ended, if you had any hopes that AMD would price things competitively with Nvidia, forget about it. Their 3060 TI equivalent will cost $480. I'm guessing their 6700 will cost $400. So they might not even announce a $300 or $200 card, because by the time they get to it, it'll already be time for the next generation. I guess they have 0 motivation to price anything lower, since it'll instantly sell anyway.

With those hopes dashed, I keep hunting for a FE 3060 TI... although I'm starting to see myself in the second half of this year, getting that EVGA notify on the regular 3060 and just going for it begrudgingly... Although all that AMD's slides did was convince me of what a good deal the 3060 Ti is at basically the same performance as the 3070, just a bit bellow their new 6700XT, for $80 less than the latter.

Not that we didn't know this before, but the 3060 12GB really has no business costing a penny over $299.

 

[defaultluser]

If anyone here has seen AMD's RX6700 XT announcement, that just ended, if you had any hopes that AMD would price things competitively with Nvidia, forget about it. Their 3060 TI equivalent will cost $480. I'm guessing their 6700 will cost $400. So they might not even announce a $300 or $200 card, because by the time they get to it, it'll already be time for the next generation. I guess they have 0 motivation to price anything lower, since it'll instantly sell anyway.

With those hopes dashed, I keep hunting for a FE 3060 TI... although I'm starting to see myself in the second half of this year, getting that EVGA notify on the regular 3060 and just going for it begrudgingly... Although all that AMD's slides did was convince me of what a good deal the 3060 Ti is at basically the same performance as the 3070, just a bit bellow their new 6700XT, for $80 less than the latter.

Not that we didn't know this before, but the 3060 12GB really has no business costing a penny over $299.

View attachment 335216

Notice they have strategically excluded every RTX title from that list (aside from Legion, but that game has such a low-effort RT implementation you can't even tell when it's on, because console port.)

Even with the world's easiest RT implementation, the card is still slower than the 3060 Ti!

And Borderlands 3 proves how pointless this thing is - going back TWO YEARS to paint a positive vibe for a brand-new card smells of desperation

 

[legcramp]

Notice they have strategically excluded every RTX title (aside from Legion, but that game has such a low-effort RT implementation you can't even tell when it's on, because console port.)

But cyberpunk is on there.

 

[TaintedSquirrel]

FYI those benchmarks have SAM enabled (but not Nvidia RBar), according to GamersNexus.

 

[defaultluser]

But cyberpunk is on there.

doesnt support rt on amd, you know! until it does, it's yet-another pointless comparison added to marketing materials to inflate hype.

 

[Decko87]

We'll see, they typically pick games that suit their purposes. It's 479 bucks to start so it's basically the same price as the 3070, so it's in a higher price bracket than the 3060 ti.

 

[euskalzabe]

We'll see, they typically pick games that suit their purposes. It's 479 bucks to start so it's basically the same price as the 3070, so it's in a higher price bracket than the 3060 ti.

Nothing about this is typical, I'd say. It seems AMD have given up on value, no longer trying to get market share, so they're going to maximize how much they can get per card sold. Nvidia is not a better value, although no one provides good value these days. We need Intel to enter this market and hopefully manage to disrupt it.