Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 8GB: Why You Should Avoid It

[bexwhitt]

Make 199$ and I will take one. If not, then best budget GPU is still by far RX 6600

that's what I went for, more than good enough for 1080p

 

[takaozo]

Ups they did it again.

 

[Watzupken]

It is sad to see that this card consistently underperform a RX 6600, yet cost more. It just shows that people hold such high regards to Nvidia that the company is clearly exploiting due to brand loyalty. And before anyone says that the RTX 3050 is stronger in RT than the RX 6600, I want to point out that both cards will perform really badly with RT enabled.

 

[Eldritch]

I want to point out that both cards will perform really badly with RT enabled.

It would have been been great if Ray Tracing benchmarks were also included, even if only couple of them, to drive home the point that how utterly useless Ray tracing is for lower segment.

 

[HafizNafes89]

I really wonder how this compares to a laptop 3060 6Gb. I'm willing to bet that it's somewhere in the same ballpark of performance which is just sad!

 

[OortCloud]

More grubby tactics by what's become a really grubby company.

 

[NumberSix]

Nvídiots

 

[d5aqoep]

Whichever way you put it, this is clearly Bait and switch tactic and it is illegal in many countries. I hope someone sues Nvidia hard for this. They should have named it something else. RTX 3050ti for example.

 

[neeyik]

Hardware specifications for some of the cards covered in the review:

 

[bexwhitt]

It would have been been great if Ray Tracing benchmarks were also included, even if only couple of them, to drive home the point that how utterly useless Ray tracing is for lower segment.

Ray Tracing is unless full stop, people who spend $1000 plus on a card want high performance which turning on RTX kills

 

[Avro Arrow]

As someone who only buys Radeons, stories like this make me laugh because it demonstrates to me just how low nVidia's opinion is of their customers' intelligence.

I can't say that I blame them though because no matter what they do, people still buy their products. If nVidia's customers don't care enough about themselves to prevent nVidia giving them (as the British would say) "A right buggering!", why should nVidia give a damn about their customers?

 

[EdmondRC]

Why didn’t they just call this the 3050 Ti

This is rhetorical right? haha, we all know why.

 

[Stardude82]

Similar story with the 1060 6GB/3GB, 1050 2GB/3GB (the 3GB having a narrower bus this time). It's pretty common for nVidia actually and wildly inconsistent which card will take the preformance hit.

 

[Stardude82]

It would have been been great if Ray Tracing benchmarks were also included, even if only couple of them, to drive home the point that how utterly useless Ray tracing is for lower segment.

Tom's ran a RX 6700 review with a suit of RT games. The 3050 was about 40.5/31 at medium settings averaging 6 titles at 1080p. Very playable, even before DLSS. The 6600 series does better than you think as well.

 

[Stardude82]

As someone who only buys Radeons, stories like this make me laugh because it demonstrates to me just how low nVidia's opinion is of their customers' intelligence.

I can't say that I blame them though because no matter what they do, people still buy their products. If nVidia's customers don't care enough about themselves to prevent nVidia giving them (as the British would say) "A right buggering!", why should nVidia give a damn about their customers?

This and the RX 6500 XT says both AMD and nVidia are large corporations whose every action is designed to optimize profits. Intel Arc isn't exactly a great value for gamers either.

 

[Avro Arrow]

This and the RX 6500 XT says both AMD and nVidia are large corporations whose every action is designed to optimize profits.

False equivalency. AMD has never been willing to go as far as nVidia in that regard.

Intel Arc isn't exactly a great value for gamers either.

Nothing is a good value when it doesn't work.

 

[Lounds]

This and the RX 6500 XT says both AMD and nVidia are large corporations whose every action is designed to optimize profits. Intel Arc isn't exactly a great value for gamers either.

The RX6500 XT isn't a bad product, just terrible pricing. The 8GB 3060 is just misleading, it should be called something else like 3060LE or 3050ti even.

 

[Avro Arrow]

The RX6500 XT isn't a bad product, just terrible pricing. The 8GB 3060 is just misleading, it should be called something else like 3060LE or 3050ti even.

That's true. If someone just buys it for general use, it's fine. As you say though, it's far too expensive for what it is. OTOH, if only AMD had put PCI-Express x8 instead of x4, it would've been so much better a product, regardless of price.

 

[HardReset]

That's true. If someone just buys it for general use, it's fine. As you say though, it's far too expensive for what it is. OTOH, if only AMD had put PCI-Express x8 instead of x4, it would've been so much better a product, regardless of price.

No. Once again I must remind that 6500XT is very small and cheap Mobile GPU. Putting PCIe x8 for small and cheap Mobile GPU would have made it much worse for it's intended usage.

 

[Avro Arrow]

No. Once again I must remind that 6500XT is very small and cheap Mobile GPU. Putting PCIe x8 for small and cheap Mobile GPU would have made it much worse for it's intended usage.

Why? Since when is having more bandwidth a bad thing?

 

[HardReset]

Why? Since when is having more bandwidth a bad thing?

When it wastes die area? More cost and less availabilty for almost nothing since APU's it was meant to be paired with supported PCIe 4.0 anyway.

 

[lripplinger]

Shouldn't they offer this "3060" as an OEM only card instead? Or at least name it the RTX3060 LE.

 

[Lounds]

That's true. If someone just buys it for general use, it's fine. As you say though, it's far too expensive for what it is. OTOH, if only AMD had put PCI-Express x8 instead of x4, it would've been so much better a product, regardless of price.

Yeah it might have actually beat the RX 5500 XT lol. Still it punches above it's weight. I fully expect AMD to sell them for years at $100, it will effectively be the entry card for them like the RX 570 was for a while. X4 graphics cards shouldn't even be considered. It'll be interesting if they have a replacement planned in for form of Navi 34 but I doubt they will.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Shouldn't they offer this "3060" as an OEM only card instead? Or at least name it the RTX3060 LE.

I honestly think that a more appropriate name would be "RTX 3050 Ti".

 

[Avro Arrow]

When it wastes die area? More cost and less availabilty for almost nothing since APU's it was meant to be paired with supported PCIe 4.0 anyway.

Well, the problem in this case is that, as Steve pointed out, the card suffers considerably with PCI-Express 3.0 motherboards.

Preventing terrible reviews which result in low sales and a bad brand image is NEVER a waste of die area, especially when AMD's I/O silicon is made on an older (thus cheaper) process node.

The I/O silicon should have been modified for x8. Steve and Tim would both agree. Note that I'm only talking about modding the original mobile GPU for use on a discrete desktop video card. In craptops, the x4 is fine because it won't encounter an older version of PCI-e. If the card had been x8, it would've sold damn well.