ASUS has decided to give the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti its TUF treatment, revisiting about every performance and design aspect the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti FE featured on launch date.
TUF Gaming RTX 3060 Ti quick Specs:
| Type | Specifications |
|---|---|
| CUDA Cores | 4864 |
| Clocks | 1750 MHz – 1780 MHz (OC) |
| Standard Memory Config | 8 GB GDDR6 |
| Tensor Cores | 3rd Generation |
| Digital Resolution | 7680×4320 |
| Maximum GPU Temperature | 93 C |
| MSRP | 470 USD* |
- unseen performances on a xx60 series
- Double CUDA Core count from the RTX 2060 Super
- Awesome cooling block
- DUAL-BIOS switch
- Engineering ( VRM and Re-enforced capacitors).
- Temps are amazingly good
- Stop-fan below 55c.
- No Stock since launch date
- MSRP prices are rarely reflected by sellers
The Card
The TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti comes with a significantly larger cooling block than Nvidia’s Founder’s edition. It is also thicker filling 2.7 slots, which is what most recent cards tends to fill.
It has 5 display outputs:
– x3 DP 1.4a ( scales up-to 8K@60 FPS)
– x2 HDMI 2.1 (scales up to 8K@120 FPS)
Under the hood
It is powered by a GA104-200, a 8nm written dies, featuring 17,400 million transistors organized 4,864 CUDA cores, 152 Tensor cores for our AI DLSS abilities, and 38 Ray tracing cores, noticeably less than available on its predecessor.
But don’t be fooled by the lower core count, These are 3rd gen Tensor Cores, which is twice more powerful than its previous iteration.
We have more than twice the amount of CUDA cores than on its predecessor. Actually, 1800 more cores than the RTX 2080 which did cost about twice the RTX 3060 Ti does today.
The VRM
yes, I try to keep it serious when ASUS says anything is military graded… cause obviously, in a military conflict situation, throwing this card at your adversary will probably cause serious damage.
More seriously, it means that these capacitors were re-enforced, and can last about twice its competition at a bout 5000 hours life-span.
Powerful, and durable, exactly what ASUS had to do to provide this card with strong a foundation, a massive engineering Kudos to ASUS for this!
Energy Consumption
Therefore I would recommend no more than a 600 Watt PSU for any builds which will run the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060Ti at its core.
And that is a definite budget plus!
Cooling
But where the TUF RTX 3060ti also shines, is in its really well-designed cooling abilities.
We have this beautiful large and 2.7-slot tall fin stack.
Fed by 4 large-diameter copper pipes, it does an impeccable job at radiating most of our GPU heat away.
In addition, it is dressed by 3 90mm 0db fans, which thanks to its dual ball bearings can last up to a whooping 60 000 hours each, twice more than our usual sleeve bearing.
Cooling results are, well, pretty much impressive if not top of its class.
The GPU remained at about 65-70c all along the stress test, which is equally impressive.
It is simply that cool!
The combinations of a massive fin block, with these 3 really efficient fans gives us one, if not the, coolest card on the market for that type of temps.
A quieter Card
The fans stop spinning when GPU temperatures fall below 55 degrees Celsius, allowing a quiet desktop whilst doing non-GPU intensive tasks.
Game Performamce
In game performances, cause that is what truly matters.
Cyberpunk, at Ultra RAY Tracing, and well, ultra-everything else, was more than playable at 1080, but started to show some faiblesse at 4k.
Still it is incredibly performant, and surpasses what a 800 dollars card like the GeForce RTX2080 used to allow!
Same story with Watch Dog: Legion and Call Of Duty : Cold War, where I saw frame rates going above 75 in ultra 1k, and still pretty much playable at 4k, though I had to reduce setting to high instead of ultra.
3DMark
3DMark gave me a score of 11,264 (again surpassing its much more expensive GeForce RTX2080 sibling) , and confirmed my temperature finding, which again are ridiculously good!
The TUF gaming GeForce RTX 3060Ti is a PCIe 4.0 card. The Ampere powered cards are Nvidia first time implementation of that standard, which doubles our PCIe lane bandwidth.
Software
First I’ll note the presence of a DUAL BIOS switch which is rare enough on even expensive video cards. it will allow you to go for either performance or Quiet mode with the flick of a switch.
Obviously the card is fully supported by ASUS now very well known GPU TWEAK II which gives a more detailed customization ability to your card.
Conclusion
At about 470 USD, the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, is an absolute gaming must, especially for Ray Traced 1440p resolution.
It simply redefines what that price-segment could deliver before, by doubling its performance metrics. It straight up equals or out-performs a 800-1000 dollars such as the GeForce RTX 2080 .
ASUS really did an amazing job with its cooling solution, and gave us a Truly premium, well designed gaming card at an acceptable price point!
*The only problem here is, as the rest of NVIDIA 3000 series, they are extremely hard to find, and pricing varies from MSRP to double that (at time of this article).
Assuming that future readers will have more favorable stock and will be able to purchase at MSRP pricing:
For budget conscience hardcore gamers, well, the 3060ti is a dream come true, allowing a gaming experience, never seen before on a sub-thousand dollar build!