Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti - Ampere becomes even smaller and still shows its claws | Page 14

Game performance

In the following result overviews, I have cumulated the average FPS of all cards and in all games and then calculated and compared this in percentage terms. I have tested a total of 10 games and in QHD-HD there is still a lot going on, we must never forget that this is not cherry picking, but that in every situation there are games in the selection that can easily break through the fair weather front. In any case, the GeForce RTX 2080 Super, which was targeted as a goal, has been clearly put in its place.

If you look at the percentages now, then we end up with a lead of 7 to 12 percent of the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti FE in front of the GeForce RTX 2080 Super, with DXR it’s even 12 percent, depending on the resolutions. The gap to the GeForce RTX 3070 FE is significant, however. This renders 12 percent faster in Full HD, with DXR and then 16 percent faster in WQHD.

In summary: This card is a safe bank, especially at lower resolutions up to WQHD, because even if the gap to the GeForce RTX 3070 turns out a bit clearer than expected. But is it enough to achieve the desired playability despite the memory expansion of 8GB still good. In some situations, you will have to loosen the odd quality controller in WQHD, but only if you need extremely high FPS numbers. Those who have also looked at the page with the variances will also see that there is often enough an acceptable and round image course, especially up to WQHD. The FPS or percentiles are still much too coarse intervals to be able to reproduce this very subjective impression well. Only in higher resolutions does it get a bit tighter, but NVIDIA only advertises the card up to 1440p. But it’s currently sufficient for that loosely.

Application Performance and Studio

A total of 17 benchmarks and many hours later one can almost raise more approval in this area than it was already the case with the GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3090, since the card almost always acts faster than any Turing card, especially in the designated studio applications, and still remains affordable. Whenever FP32 calculations are involved and you think you are getting a little bit closer to the pension every time you render, the RTX 3060 Ti FE is a small and nasty spoilsport for Turing, Pascal and the Radeons, just like the GeForce RTX 3070 FE.

Partly, even a Quadro-RTX 6000 with 24 GB memory is almost reached, which of course you’ll gladly take along in suitable applications. NvEnc has been making life easier since Turing, but if all the postprocessing filters get a good run now, you can be happy with the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (FE). With Decode and Encode for many 4K clips in the time line anyway. Constant 24 FPS are not to be sneezed at, the competitor unfortunately (still) has the disadvantage.

And because we were just talking about moving images, the new amp cards support AV1 natively in the decoder (Intel’s Xe will probably do the same). But why AV1? The codec is up to 50% more efficient than H.264, which means you only need half the Internet bandwidth to transmit the same quality – including HDR and even 10-bit encoding. This could be up to 8K – theoretically. Unfortunately, even among cable providers, the practice of Germany looks rather meagre. But the beginnings have been made and somehow the will counts, even if I miss the 8K-TV.

In summary: Yes, you can work quite fast and efficiently with the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, because often enough it is still over the top. So the non-gamers only will be happy, because the gel pouch is noticeably relieved. Because no matter whether Octane, Arnold or Blender – this is where the action really gets down to business. With OptiX, the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti also mutates into a biting tool. Always provided that the application supports the features. Which of course also applies to video editing and all those workstation or CAD applications that do not require certified and optimized drivers for sprinting. In general, the RTX 3060 Ti does not cut a bad figure.

GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition

The Founders Edition is relatively small, cuddly, quiet and thanks to the 20 watts less also cooler than the GeForce RTX 3070 FE. It is also better than its predecessor in the form of the GeForce RTX 2080 Super and that at a significantly lower price. Whether the announced EIA of 399 will leave this card on the shelves for a long time is, however, a big question mark. Optically and haptically the part is really appealing, well, except for the one-armed pantograph with the half-sided 12-pin connector. This disturbs the really great look after the installation quite a bit. The cooler lives up to its name and it’s reassuring to know that it can do both: cooler AND even quieter than the GeForce RTX 3070 FE. Of course it’s not. There is no more to write to the currently smallest Ampere-FE without

Conclusion and final remark

In general, the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is successful all around, because it is faster than a GeForce RTX 2080 Super, costs significantly less than its counterpart at that time and has become significantly more efficient. For a final assessment, including that of the market positioning, one will, however, have to wait for the launch of the new Radeon RX 6700 XT. I already wrote that NVIDIA’s feature set ranges from the usual RTX components such as raytracing and DLSS 2.0, to various RTX software (video, voice) for the end user, to the entire studio and workstation applications.

Especially in the semi-professional areas AMD is currently rather at a disadvantage and you will have to wait and see what will be launched in the future besides the new hardware. So everyone will have to set their own premises and ask themselves what value which feature and use case really has (or not) for them. A review can’t take this decision away from anyone, it’s up to each person to decide for themselves. I repeat myself, also with regard to the text on the RTX 3070? The cards are so similar in their orientation that you can hardly think of anything else.

The MSRP of EUR 399 is certainly an incentive, but there is initial information on board partner cards that they are likely to be considerably more expensive. A circulated MSRP of 470 or 500 USD for cards from MSI or Asus is a somewhat harder announcement, unfortunately. In principle, however, it would also straighten the FE loosely, because it has no faults. If it should really be available. I prefer not to make any predictions.

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