Nvidia launches the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
Nvidia has launched the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, a new entry-level card in its GeForce RTX 30 Series of Ampere-based gaming GPUs, joining the existing GeForce RTX 3090, 3080 and 3070.
The new $399 card outperforms the much more expensive previous-generation Quadro RTX 2080 Super.
We don’t normally cover consumer GPUs on CG Channel, but since the lines between gaming and workstation cards are becoming increasingly blurred, we’ve summarised the key specs for CG artists below.
| Nvidia GeForce RTX GPU specifications | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RTX 3090 | RTX 3080 | RTX 3070 | RTX 3060 Ti | |
| Architecture | Ampere | Ampere | Ampere | Ampere |
| Process | 8nm | 8nm | 8nm | 8nm |
| CUDA cores | 10,496 | 8,704 | 5,888 | 4,864 |
| Tensor cores* | 328 | 272 | 184 | 152 |
| RT cores* | 82 | 68 | 48 | 38 |
| Base clock (GHz) | 1.40 | 1.44 | 1.50 | 1.41 |
| Boost clock (GHz) | 1.70 | 1.71 | 1.73 | 1.67 |
| Compute performance FP32 (Tflops)* |
35.6 | 29.8 | 20.3 | 16.2 |
| GPU memory | 24GB GDDR6X |
10GB GDDR6X |
8GB GDDR6 |
8GB GDDR6 |
| NVLink | Yes | No | No | No |
| TDP | 350W | 320W | 220W | 200W |
| Release date | September 2020 | September 2020 | October 2020 | December 2020 |
| MSRP (Founders Edition) |
$1,499 | $699 | $499 | $399 |
*Figures taken from third-party website
Slots in below the GeForce RTX 3070 in the Ampere GPU product line
On paper, the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti looks like a cut-down version of the GeForce 3070.
Both are 8GB cards, but the 3060 Ti has roughly a fifth fewer CUDA compute cores and RT ray tracing cores, with an equivalent reduction in compute performance.
However, according to Nvidia, that’s still enough to comfortably outperform the previous-generation GeForce RTX 2080 Super: a considerably more expensive card, with a launch price of $699.
Its comparison chart shows the 3060 Ti outstripping the 2080 Super in a range of 3D rendering tests, including Arnold, V-Ray, Redshift and ‘Blender’ – probably Cycles, given the firm’s past benchmarks.
Nvidia’s blog post doesn’t include any details about the tests, so treat the results with caution, but they are roughly consistent with the results in Chaos Group’s V-Ray 5 benchmark database.
Pricing and release dates
The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is shipping now with an MSRP of $399.
Whether you will actually get hold of one is another question: the card is currently unavailable from Nvidia’s own website, and TechPowerUp reports that online retailers are having trouble ordering stock.