The funny thing is that it's supposedly using faster RAM - according to Videocardz 16 Gbps vs 14 for the Ti, so bandwidth should not be that much lower. Read 17 Gbps for the 3060 on another source.
It's similar to last gen cards vs their Super refresh - what they want to give consumers vs what they feel they need to give in the face of competition (although competition is higly theoretical right now).I find it bizarre too but super/ultra variants are coming with more ram. Yes, there are rumors of a 3060 "ultra"Maybe they anticipated a shortage of ram during ampere launch and had to cut corners, or had to cut the costs initially? Not sure
I tried buying 3060 Ti and I am glad that I couldn't get it because it looks silly now. This is no doubt consquence of AMD going strong with 16GB and likely 12 GB with 6700. I think that Nvdia has no choice but to release these cards with more RAM as TI/Super and 3060 Ultra? It will be a mess.
But isn't it better to release the products with more ram from the get go? Having to design and produce different SKUs makes it more expensive and harder to manage?
It’s not misleading at all. Try running ray tracing in games on a card without dedicated RT hardware. It won’t be playable.
I believe it's because it only has GDDR6 memory.
Sure is and I‘m positive AIB aren‘t too happy but it‘s still rather early in the game, so it‘s better to make changes now than to wait and risk losing market share (more likely in the mid range and below).
Unfortunately, most MBs that are not the current gen do not support resizable BAR, even most of the Z series. I hope that MB manufacturers release bios updates to support the feature, but I seriously doubt they'll do that.I'm not sure if the RAM chips are any cheaper (isn't it the same 32-bit GDDR6 module, only 6 of them for 192 and 8 for 256 bit), but the circuit board can definitely be less complex, which saves a bit of costs (though not a game-changing amount).
On the other hand, resizable bar can be a benefactor of a larger VRAM on board, how much tmore FPS it gives, is very game dependent though (as tested here recently).
I think NV just didn't want to bring a 6GB board to the market after the AMD launch, and they also didn't want to change the layout much (192-bit PCB and all that), so the easiest option is to double up on the chips (resulting 12 GB; 8 or 10 would have been difficult, requiring severe PCB changes). Just a hunch
GPUs just cost more than they used to. Everyone has had to make an adjustment. The costs of consoles has gone up $100 from the previous generation as well, even though both manufacturers offer a lower cost option. If Nvidia releases a 3050 and 3050 Ti, they will likely be $229 and $279 respectively. Of course there is always the chance they release a GTX 2660, but its doubtful at this point.
27$% faster at 1080p maybe where games are CPU bound, but at 1440p with RTX on and max details where RAM use starts going over 8GB with latest and future games it will likely be much closer, more like 15% and possibly even less. So I guess it all depends on what monitor you have. But I agree this makes the entire RTX 30 lineup a mess.
Of course they are - only 1 company makes GDDR6X.
