Despite the release of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 40 or AMD Radeon RX 7000 series graphics cards, older generation graphics cards will still be on the market for some time, especially more affordable models like the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti or Radeon RX 6700 XT. Of course, $500 cards can hardly be called affordable products, but compared to the more expensive GeForce RTX 4080 or Radeon RX 7900 XTX, not to mention the GeForce RTX 4090, they look quite attractive. Such video cards will allow you to play with maximum graphics quality not only at Full HD resolution, but sometimes at Quad HD, but using rays for them will still be a non-trivial task. Let’s see if this is the case with the example of a GeForce RTX 3060 Ti video card with GDDR6X memory.
ASUS TUF-RTX3060TI-8GD6X-GAMING
Manufacturer ASUS Model and product page TUF-RTX3060TI-8GD6X-GAMING Core GA104 Process technology, nm 8 Number of stream processors 4864 Base frequency, MHz 1410 Boost Clock frequency, MHz 1665 (1695 OC Mode) Memory bus, bit 256 Memory type GDDR6X Memory frequency, MHz 19000 Memory size, GB 8 Supported DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) Interface PCI-E 4.0 (x16) Image output 3x DisplayPort 1.4a, 2x HDMI 2.1 Power consumption, W 225 Dimensions, mm 302 x 142 x 54 Weight, kg n/a d Average cost, UAH 23811
The video card comes in a large box with branded design, on the front side of which the device is depicted, and on the reverse side its characteristics and features are indicated.
The kit comes with documentation and a thank you card, nothing else.
The card is relatively large, at 30 cm long and almost 15 cm high, which matches the dimensions of past generation high-end adapters. Some of the new products in the TUF series have the same dimensions.
The design is slightly aggressive, like all ASUS GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards. The casing is stamped from brushed aluminum with a grayish anodized finish. The back plate is also made of aluminum.
There are three DisplayPort connectors and two HDMI connectors on the bracket; it also has slots for hot air outlet. The card takes up just over 2.5 slots.
On the inner end there are two threaded holes for accessories.
Active cooling of the video card is carried out by three 90 mm ASUS Axial-tech fans with nine blades connected by a ring and two ball bearings. They only start spinning after the GPU gets up to 50 degrees.
On the back of the plate, there are two holes that allow air from the rear fan to pass through.
The video card has two conventional 8-pin power connectors, which are located almost at the end of the adapter. Let me remind you that the usual TUF GeForce RTX 3060 has only one connector. The TUF series logo with RGB backlight is placed on the casing next to it.
Next to the connectors on the other side is the card’s BIOS switch, thanks to which you can select the Performance or quiet Quiet mode.
The radiator is very massive and consists of two sections of thin aluminum plates, one of which is pierced by three heat pipes, and the other by six. Copper plates are soldered at the locations of the chip and power elements. Contact with the GPU occurs through thermal paste, and with power elements through thick thermal pads.
The memory is cooled by a separate heatsink with a heat pipe in contact with the power elements. Part of the memory chips is cooled only by the plate, but through the thermal pad it contacts the main heatsink. The back plate also has thick thermal pads.
The PCB is oversized for a card of this caliber and is very similar to the TUF GeForce RTX 3070 board.
The card has a GA104-202-A1 chip with a relatively large crystal without a protective frame. GDDR6X memory is used, which, unlike conventional GDDR6, has increased frequencies. Eight Micron MT61K256M32JE-19G chips with a total capacity of 8 GB interact with the GPU via a 256-bit bus.
The number of power phases has 11 pieces, of which eight are reserved for the GPU. There are unsoldered elements. The card turned out to be a little “singing” in some modes, so turning on the sync mode will not hurt.
The GPU is a regular GeForce 3060 Ti and has 4864 shader processors, 152 texture units and 80 ROPs. It also has 36 RT cores and 152 tensor cores. It operates at 1410 MHz, but can be automatically accelerated to 1665 MHz (or 1695 MHz in OS mode after installing a proprietary application). The memory operates at a speed of 19 GT/s versus 14 GT/s using conventional GDDR6, which gives a memory bandwidth of 608 GB/s.
In real games, the GPU accelerated to 1770-1830 MHz in Cyberpunk 2077, up to 1830-1875 MHz in Total War: WARHAMMER III, or even 1890 MHz in Far Cry 6. The chip temperature reached 53-59 degrees, and the fan speed was at the level 1000–1400 rpm
In terms of maximum values, these indicators almost do not differ, the temperature of the chip was the same (Hot Spot 72 ° C), memory – 76 degrees.
Also, the card was overclocked by adding 150 MHz to the chip frequency, which allowed it to accelerate to 1815 MHz, and the memory was also accelerated to 21 GT / s. Power limit has been increased by 25%.
Thanks to this, in games, the GPU worked at a frequency from 2010 to 2040 MHz. Further overclocking of the chip had no effect on the result. Also, overclocking such a GeForce 3060 Ti memory does almost nothing.
The maximum indicators increased slightly, but not critically and by only two degrees (at 22 ° C indoors). But the power consumption has increased by 50 watts!
