Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 benchmarks just leaked — and it’s good and bad news

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 benchmarks just leaked — and it'southward skilful and bad news

(Image credit: Nvidia)

The first Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 benchmark results are trickling in alee of its February 25 launch. And while the mid-range graphics card impresses in some tests, its performance in others suggests you lot might exist better off saving for the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti instead.

VideoCardz first posted results from the famously GPU-stressing Ashes of the Singularity (AotS) criterion test, in which the $329 GeForce RTX 3060 edged past the RTX 2070: a high-terminate card from Nvidia'southward previous generation. All the same, VideoCardz also posted a set of synthetic benchmark tests that showed the new GPU only keeping pace with the old GeForce RTX 2060 Super, with the RTX 2070 ahead and other RTX thirty-series cards well in front.

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To an extent this isn't surprising: the RTX 3060 will be the cheapest and least powerful of the RTX xxx-series when it goes on sale tomorrow. And its credible performance in AotS should be encouraging to anyone hoping to upgrade from an older graphics card.

The $399 RTX 3060 Ti does markedly improve, averaging 84 frames per 2d to the RTX 3060's 69 fps. Merely the latter is however a step up from the RTX 2070, which averaged 63 fps in the same test.

Past dissimilarity, the synthetic benchmarks, which include mutual GPU benchmarking tests like Fire Strike Extreme and Superposition, evidence the RTX 3060 struggling somewhat. Its boilerplate performance across all half dozen tests is 1% lower than the RTX 2060 Super, a card it arguably replaces, and it's three% lower than the old RTX 2070. The RTX 3060 Ti too beats its cheaper sibling past 39% on average.

If yous're angling for a GPU upgrade, you might besides wait another day or two for more than independent benchmark results to come out. Especially for the actual games you desire to play, as opposed to synthetic benchmarks. Even so, it's a mixed showing for the RTX 3060 so far.

Withal, new graphics cards tend to get a performance heave after their release with new driver support and software optimizations. Then it's worth taking these benchmarks with a pinch of salt as they could exist based on early RTX 3060 samples without the latest drivers.

Of course, benchmark comparisons mean picayune if you lot can't buy the cards themselves. Every bit anyone who's tried to find where to purchase the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti will know, there'due south a major GPU stock shortage going on, and it's been affecting the unabridged RTX 30-serial for months.

The RTX 3060 might at least face lower demand from digital currency miners, every bit Nvidia has intentionally express the GPU'southward mining effectiveness in a bid to get more stock into the easily of regular gamers. Only the carte is already falling victim to profiteering resellers, including one who's been selling three RTX 3060 cards for around $1,080 each.

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James is currently Hardware Editor at Stone Paper Shotgun, just earlier that was Audio Editor at Tom'due south Guide, where he covered headphones, speakers, soundbars and anything else that intentionally makes racket. A PC enthusiast, he too wrote computing and gaming news for TG, usually relating to how hard information technology is to find graphics carte du jour stock.