Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Review: Should You Buy One? Can You?

3060Ti is definitely the pick of the litter of these Nvidia cards. Looking at it within 10 percent of a 2080Ti at 1440p after a few driver updates, to me that is impressive.

Get a good one and overclock it and you have performance that was considered top end 6 months ago. Just a shame nobody can buy them.

Normally I might talk about MSRP and think the 3060 just needed to be a bit lower, but that exercise is entirely pointless in current market circumstances.
 
The prices even with suggested MSRP, seem to have moved a segment above plus 10% to 15% extra.
Performance is almost in the ballpark of 2060 super with 10% added boost.
Costs almost same and more than 2070 super at launch.

I don't know what they are smoking at Nvidia, but this is not going to be the new budget king like 1060 6 GB still is; and even 2060 at launch was priced much higher than 1060, seems like for each generational increase in performance there is substantial increase in price too. They can keep moving the goal post, but it will not translate into worldwide success they think it should have.
People have already suffered under COVID-19 and are cash strapped, there is no covid relief cheque in any of the Third World countries unlike the USA or Japan. Many people I know including self have their income reduced by 25%-50% depending on sector employed.
Sure the market may recover collectively, but individually it's a long walk alone.

Hence, paying more than 2070 super in price for almost same Rasterisation performance, albeit more in terms of ray tracing, is not a good deal. Even for people with 1060 GB, I'd say just wait this mining spike out and then see what falls to the floor, with AMD stock improving in later months there can be hope for decent price to performance ratio for a GPU.
 
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You shouldn't buy anything lower than the 3080 for a desktop.

You shouldn't buy anything lower than a 3070 for a laptop.

But right now, you barely have a choice so anything goes.
 
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The prices even with suggested MSRP, seem to have moved a segment above plus 10% to 15% extra.
Performance is almost in the ballpark of 2060 super with 10% added boost.
Costs almost same and more than 2070 super at launch.

I don't know what they are smoking at Nvidia, but this is not going to be the new budget king like 1060 6 GB still is; and even 2060 at launch was priced much higher than 1060, seems like for each generational increase in performance there is substantial increase in price too. They can keep moving the goal post, but it will not translate into worldwide success they think it should have.
People have already suffered under COVID-19 and are cash strapped, there is no covid relief cheque is in any of the Third World countries unlike the USA or Japan. Many people I know including self have their income reduced by 25%-50% depending on sector employed.
Sure the market may recover collectively, but individually it's a long walk alone.

Hence, paying more than 2070 super in price for almost same Rasterisation performance, albeit more in terms of ray tracing, is not a good deal. Even for people with 1060 GB, I'd say just wait this mining spike out and then see what falls to the floor, with AMD stock improving in later months there can be hope for decent price to performance ratio for a GPU.
I'm curious how much of a roll the "chip shortage" is actually playing. The fabs recently put out their production numbers and they are by no means small numbers. Secondary chips I can understand, but primary chips used in graphics cards or CPUs do not seem be short supply. I don't see sales numbers but we can get waffer production numbers from the fabs. Samsung, TSMC and Intel are all cranking them out like there is no tomorrow. Maybe they aren't all 5nm but Intel has already shown us they have their 14nm down.....
 
The prices even with suggested MSRP, seem to have moved a segment above plus 10% to 15% extra.
Performance is almost in the ballpark of 2060 super with 10% added boost.
Costs almost same and more than 2070 super at launch.

I don't know what they are smoking at Nvidia, but this is not going to be the new budget king like 1060 6 GB still is; and even 2060 at launch was priced much higher than 1060, seems like for each generational increase in performance there is substantial increase in price too. They can keep moving the goal post, but it will not translate into worldwide success they think it should have.
People have already suffered under COVID-19 and are cash strapped, there is no covid relief cheque in any of the Third World countries unlike the USA or Japan. Many people I know including self have their income reduced by 25%-50% depending on sector employed.
Sure the market may recover collectively, but individually it's a long walk alone.

Hence, paying more than 2070 super in price for almost same Rasterisation performance, albeit more in terms of ray tracing, is not a good deal. Even for people with 1060 GB, I'd say just wait this mining spike out and then see what falls to the floor, with AMD stock improving in later months there can be hope for decent price to performance ratio for a GPU.
You got a point, but these cards are not priced for gamers. Both GPU manufacturers are pricing for scalpers and miners. This is their market for the time being. Gaming is a secondary use for GPUs.
 
Does anyone have real statistics on miners? We know the GPU makers are pumping the cards out. Has there been clear proof of a huge increase in real miner purchases? Is the data good enough and readily available? Can we monitor this for when it falters on its inevitable return to 'normal'?
 
Was looking at some stores that had the cards in stock for a few minutes after launch and starting price was €549 (I.e. there were even more expensive models).

Sadly but not unsurprisingly the cards still sold out.

Even at the imagined MSRP, I find this card to be completely worthless. Raster is below the 5700XT and too far from the 3060Ti which at MSRP would still be the sweet spot.

Yes, there is DLSS and RT but looking at the results, you get borderline playable results even if you sacrifice quality and in my book, that‘s not even a bonus feature. Not as worthless as RT on the 2060 but close.
 
Does anyone have real statistics on miners? We know the GPU makers are pumping the cards out. Has there been clear proof of a huge increase in real miner purchases? Is the data good enough and readily available? Can we monitor this for when it falters on its inevitable return to 'normal'?

I agree. I find the miner and scalper explanations very questionable. Where are the investigative journalists doing the in-depth articles on these shortages? By the way, scalping does not cause shortages. It's the other way around, shortages cause scalpers. Also, scalping doesn't artificially increase prices. It's the other way around, artificially low prices will cause scalping.

It's like the mysterious bullet shortage in the US. A standard firearm takes far more machinery and time to produce than a score of bullets. You can buy a firearm, but somehow they can't make a few bullets to go with it? Even though the demand is astronomical? During WW1 and WW2, the arms industry ramped up in the blink of an eye, they had no problem making hundreds of millions of rounds. And that was with ancient hand-operated machines. No CNC.

All of this is blamed on supply line disruptions caused by Covid. It's funny how Covid is a giant monkey wrench that conveniently cripples industry, lowers CO2 emissions, lowers birth rates, limits travel, and will probably usher in draconian government control of your private lives. It does all of these things that the global elite have wanted for years.
 
There is a saying in journalism that if the headline asks a question, the answer is always "No"
 
Nvidia is making hay at the moment - no matter how much consumers scream - if the 4060 comes in cheap and in good supply - we will buy them up.
But NVidia need to be careful ( and also AMD to a lessor extent ( AMD probably doesn't make lots on Console GPUs ) - If PS5 and the new XBOX can be pumped out in goodly numbers - that's a maybe a large bunch of folks moving away from PC gaming - who were planning to build new PC or upgrade - the 3060 will sell for a little less than a PS5 - why bother .
Most of us here are other - well cashed up - but for an 19 year old - they have to choose car, phone and a gaming device - XBOX or PC- makes sense to get the console - - how long do you lose him from PC gaming?
 
The 3060 feels like it should be replacing the 1660 series given the nice performance boost realized by the rest of the 30 series. It would be about 30% faster than the $279 1660 Ti. I guess if you look at it that way, you are paying $50.00 more for DLSS and RT capabilities. I guess you could talk yourself into the 3060 being a bargain if you try. But, if GPUs were available and I was in the market, I'd opt for the 3060 Ti in a heartbeat. $70 isn't that much when you consider how much better a GPU you are getting.
 
If there were ever a ridiculously depressing review of a video card, this is it!

And the icing on the cake (well, after the pathetic price and the pitiful performance)? eBay, that's being used now almost as a pricing bible!!
 
You shouldn't buy anything lower than the 3080 for a desktop.

You shouldn't buy anything lower than a 3070 for a laptop.

But right now, you barely have a choice so anything goes.
Spending more than $200 on a GPU is almost pointless unless you're using it to make money, given how few worthwhile new games there are. And I say this as someone who got a 5600XT last year.
 
I feel this review kind of concludes that Ampere itself is not a very efficient architecture, and the issue is compounded by Samsung's 10nm (which they advertised as 8nm). I recall when RTX 3090/3080 was released late last year, there were some speculations that games are not able to fully utilize the CUDA cores, and there is legroom for improvement. Fast forward to the RTX 3060, despite the substantial increase in CUDA cores, it fails to substantially outperform the RTX 2060 Super or even the non Super version in pure rasterization cases. Power consumption is high and I suspect its due to the higher clockspeed. Ampere chips produced by Samsung seems to work best at around 1.9 GHz. Once it goes beyond, the power requirement goes up quite substantially.

Overall, I feel Nvidia probably cut a little too deep in terms of specs. For example, while the RT cores are faster than previous gen, there are substantially less RT cores. I believe the Tensor cores also got gimped.
 
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