Gigabyte RTX 3060 OC 12G Review

Nvidia recently introduced a new model of the GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card, which is the direct successor to the most popular gaming graphics cards in the mainstream class. Once a GeForce GTX 1060 then a GeForce GTX 2060 and now an Ampere GeForce RTX 3060 Model.

This graphics card is interesting because of two facts, for the first time among GeForce mid-range models it brings as much as 12GB of video memory and the second thing is, it comes limited in terms of mining capabilities to easily find its way to the target group of gamers who want to play and try-finally those Ray Tracing effects.

Not to be confused, this model replaces the ordinary RTX 2060 6GB and not the 2060 Super, whose successor is the more powerful and expensive RTX 3060Ti. The GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card uses a brand new graphics processor GA-106, which has 3584 CUDA cores or 87% more than the mentioned GTX 2060 model. This suggests to you the level of performance you can expect if you have decided to replace the graphics card right now.

The arsenal is powered by 112 3rd generation Tensor cores and 28 2nd generation ray-tracing cores, with the CPU communicating via a 16 generation 4 PCI Express bus. It is equipped with a 12 GB GDDR 6 at 7500Mhz, which exchanges data with a graphics processor via a 192Bit bus.

In addition to being the first of its kind with 12GB of memory, this card also differs in that it is currently the only GeForce model to use the Resizable BAR Option. This allows the CPU to access the full amount of video memory.

If you were wondering why so much memory card that is not intended for 4K resolution? The truth is that newer games that take place on large open maps and that use high-definition textures consume a huge amount of video memory.

Titles like Red Dead Redemption 2, Call Of Duty Black Ops Cold War, Horizon Zero Dawn, and the like consume significantly over 8GB of memory. And that requirement increases as you raise the resolution, so let's say 2560x1440 resolution, memory usage goes up to 11GB. And all this, of course, has an impact on performance, so in the mentored titles GeForce RTX3060 has left behind even the GeForce RTX 2060 Super, and in some situations, it is a step towards the GeForce RTX 2070 model.

So more memory on graphics cards is a requirement of the new generation of games.

It is the model that perhaps best represents this mainstream class of gaming models, the Gigabyte RTX 3060 Gaming OC 12G. In addition to all the facts presented so far, the Gigabyte RTX 3060 OC 12G is characterized by its cooling system with 3 fans from which the central rotation in the opposite direction breaks the turbulence and prevents the formation of pockets of warm air between the fins of this cooler.

The result of efficient cooling is high operating frequencies during gaming. The declared turbo frequency is 1837Mhz, but our map during the tests went significantly beyond that, maintaining a pace of even 1960Mhz during intensive gaming tests. A typical fan operating mode in these situations is about 1650 to 1800 rpm when the GPU temperature does not exceed 65C.

Noise is almost imperceptible at some 28 to 30 decibels, and only at some points does the graphics know to speed up fans over 2,000 rpm just to dissipate the accumulated heat in moments of intense GPU load.

The GeForce RTX 3060 is powered by one 8-pin connector and consumes a maximum of 165W during gaming.

GeForce RTX 3060 has the ability to hardware decode Open Source and a single video format that is increasingly in use primarily on YouTube channels for 4K and 8K clips. It is a demanding format with which even the powerful Ryzen 9 and Intel i9 processors have serious problems in terms of ensuring smooth playback. Switching that job to a graphics processor is the right move.

Performance

When it comes to performance, the GeForce RTX 3060 is significantly faster than the aforementioned GTX 1060 model in games such as Battlefield V and FarCry 5, where the advantage is exactly double, ie it delivers 100% higher FPS.

When comparing in the new Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War title, the GTX 1060 in normal mode can't even approach the RTX 3060 model since the rendering of light effects grows in that mode, delivering only 70% of the RTX 3060 model's performance in Ray Tracing display with maximum detail.