Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 and RTX 3070 both have great performance, All two target the sweet spot, but they’re built for very different gamers.which one should you pick?
Recently the RTX 3070 price has fallen from thousand plus USD but still, it is expensive. You can find the cheapest models at 619 USD, however, if you get one that comes in stock then it might be cheaper than 619 USD.
The RTX 3060 also used to be way expensive. Although its price has fallen a little but is still moderately expensive. You can get the cheapest models around 400 USD. You can occasionally buy it below 400 USD but less than 380 USD is almost impossible.
Let’s compare the lowest prices of RTX 3070 (620 USD) to RTX 3060 (400 USD). If you want to buy it right now that means you are going to pay 55 percent extra. But at the same time, you will also get a lot less VRAM. The RTX 3070 only has 8 gigabytes of VRAM and that is concerning to a lot of people. While the RTX 3060 comes in with 12 gigabytes and costs less, isn’t it better to buy?
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COMPARISON AND PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS:
Well, let’s do a thorough in-depth head-to-head comparison of all sorts of stuff. We’ll look at ray tracing. We will look at 1080p, 1440p, and even 4K. We’re not just going to throw all these at ultra-settings and call it a day. We’re going to adjust settings to target reasonable frame rates including using DLSS on both cards.
In other words, we’re not just suggesting you buy an increased percent to performance. A lot of people think of this because this is what a lot of GPU reviews suggest. You look at those reviews and conclude that this much frame rate is for this much money and that’s true. However, in reality, what more important is to adjust the graphics settings. So we have taken both things into account. But also you need to know how much you have to adjust the settings to get your desired frame rates? Well, let’s jump into the benchmark.
1. Cyberpunk 2077 at variety of settings:
i. At 1080p:
Starting with Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p at its maximum settings without any ray tracing. We have used Cyberpunk as a stress test because it is still one of the most graphically demanding games. You will see that the 3060 dips below 60 FPS and remember that this is even without using ray tracing. Whereas, the 3070 can maintain not only above 60 FPS but overall a high refresh rate experience at these settings.
If you’re looking at temperature differences and things like that, keep in mind that the RTX 3060 is a bit overkill on the cooling although there is a difference in power draw between these two GPUs. This is certainly something to think about especially if you’re upgrading on a power supply that may be a stretch. However, we can see a significantly better performance there on the 3070.
Now at 1080p, what if you try to do some ray tracing? On the RTX 3070 testing at native resolution without DLSS, you will see that with ray-traced reflections you can mostly stay above 60 FPS but there might be some dips. Whereas trying to use ray tracing at the ultra-setting is a bit of a disaster.
On the RTX 3060, even just doing ray-traced reflections dips way below 60 FPS. Whereas, using DLSS quality can mostly make up for that and could be a setting you’d want to use. However, DLSS at 1080p is not something we would suggest you use because it causes an increase in aliasing. At lower resolutions DLSS is certainly not just free performance, there’s a negative trade-off in the image quality.
ii. At 1440p:
Now let’s take a look at 1440p. In demanding scenes like a bar, the 3070 dips below 60 FPS. The RTX 3060 does the same, even at the high settings. Now as we get out of a more demanding area then it gets a little bit easier on both GPUs. We believe that the 3070 could be used for the ultra settings. Remember that the ultra settings in this game are more demanding than most modern games. As you get into console generations where they’re not going to offer backward compatibility with older generations, we think that these types of more demanding ultra-settings will be more common.
Now, what if you increase your frame rate using some different techniques? What if you use DLSS quality at the ultra-settings on 3060? Or what if you just turn down the high settings? You’ll see that at 1440p DLSS quality looks close enough to native and that is a very reasonable choice. It’s not quite the big drawback that it was at 1080p. Although the 3060 is doing quite well, we suggest you use the native resolution at high settings on the 3070.
What if you try to use some ray tracing? Well, even the ray tracing low settings will bring the 3070 down to a frame rate that won’t please you. Even though the ray tracing low settings don’t add much to the image. So we suggest you use DLSS quality. You will get a great image with the RTX 3060 at the native 1440p medium settings.
iii. At 4K:
Now let’s talk about 4K? Some people might think the RTX 3060 has 12 gigabytes of VRAM, so does that help it out? On the 3070, if you’re turning down settings to get good frame rates then you’re also controlling your VRAM usage. Using DLSS at balance is rendering at a lower resolution which helps control the VRAM usage.
2. Horizon Zero Dawn at variety of settings:
Let’s take a look at Horizon Zero Dawn. This is a fairly easy game to run compared to a lot of the newer graphically demanding titles. This was originally a PS4 game. Now with the ultra settings, it goes beyond what the PS4 was able to deliver.
i. At 1080p and 1440p:
Both RTX 3060 and 3070 deliver good frame rates at 1440p, whereas at 1080p they both keep crashing. The question is how well the RTX 3060 can perform at 1440p? Especially when you get into a city with more character models? Well, it delivers extremely well at 1440p. The game itself looks pretty good despite its PS4 roots.
ii. At 4K:
Now playing at 4K, this game does feature DLSS. The VRAM usage on the RTX 3060 goes way beyond the 8-gigabyte limit. However, it doesn’t mean that it needed it, but could just be the allocation. Since we know that the RTX 3060 has 12 gigabytes of VRAM available. So most games just fill some of that space for smooth performance, even if it’s not necessary. The 3070 does better at 4K Native Ultra than the 3060 at 4K Ultra with DLSS at its quality setting.
3. Forza Horizon 5 at variety of settings:
i. At 1080p and 1440p:
Forza Horizon 5, one of the breathtaking racing game performances is great at 1080p. That’s why we have focused on 1440p. This game features an extreme setting. However, we will look at ultra-setting because it is the most reasonable setting to use. Both cards can deliver a solid performance at 1440p. This doesn’t appear to be one of the games that push the VRAM limit on the RTX 3070.
Interestingly, this game on AMD GPUs resizable bar or the AMD version Smart Access Memory offers a huge performance boost. But NVIDIA hasn’t yet whitelisted that in this game. The RTX 3060 at the ultra-settings dips below 60 FPS. That’s why have to turn down settings a little bit. This game doesn’t feature DLSS.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
So what does all that extra money buy you with the 3070 while both GPUs did a good job at 1080p? If your target resolution is 1080p, the 3070 is going to be able to max games out at 1080p. Possibly not max out ray tracing without using DLSS but max think games out at 1080p for a long time to come.
Using RTX 3060, in games like Cyberpunk, you will see some dips below 60 FPS in more demanding scenes even without using ray tracing. However, it can handle 1080p just fine. In less graphically demanding titles, it has a high refresh rate 1080p experience even without turning down the settings. It’s just you’re buying a lot more longevity and ray tracing performance on the RTX 3070.
At 1440p both cards struggle with ray tracing. Even the 3070 with light ray tracing settings and DLSS on top of that to reach good frame rates. The ray-tracing low setting also gives some trouble to the 3070 at 1440p. Remember that ray tracing increases the VRAM usage. In many situations, the VRAM at least allocation on the 3070 can reach around the 8-gigabyte limit. So that’s the main issue rather than thinking about the longevity of your card. You can always turn down settings and even use DLSS and games that support it, to decrease that VRAM usage.
Now the RTX 3060 doesn’t have that 8-gigabyte limit issue. It has the 12-gigabytes of VRAM but that doesn’t help it perform at those heavy settings at 1440p. It doesn’t have the horsepower to keep up with the kinds of things that its VRAM buffer could support. So in that sense, it’s almost a little bit of wasted money for straight-up gaming unless you’re in certain situations. For example, some people install certain mods or in certain games, they can take advantage of the 12-gigabytes VRAM. The history of GPUs shows that having more VRAM has never hurt the longevity of the GPU. So it’s certainly a good thing to have more than you need.
None of the GPUs is a top choice at 4K. Going up to like an RTX 3080 12 gigabyte would make a lot more sense at 4K. Although both GPUs can deliver 4K gaming, the question is at what settings reductions? The 3070 can keep higher settings and uses less aggressive DLSS to maintain a 60 FPS 4K experience. Whereas the 3060 usually involves both going down to something like medium settings as well as using fairly aggressive DLSS.
So do you get a lot more performance for your money with the 3070? Yes, you do. Should you be super concerned about the 8 gigabytes of VRAM? No, not really in the sense that it’s going to just cripple your 3070 and you can’t use it in the future. But you should be concerned about the 8 gigabytes because you will have to turn some settings down.
DOES SPENDING THE EXTRA MONEY WORTH IT?
Do you think it’s worth spending the extra money to buy the 3070 over the 3060? Well, if you’re just trying to play games at 1080p, the 3060 is plenty. Are you choosing NVIDIA and stuck with 3060 or 3070? We suggest that at 1080p to play some games, the 3060 gets the job done for a lot less money. The 3070 would of course buy you a lot more longevity.
At 1440p, getting a more powerful GPU than 3060 does make sense but only if you can afford it. Thus at 1440p, the 3070 makes a lot more sense, although you will have to turn down the settings because of the 8-gigabytes of VRAM. For 4K, we would push you to consider a higher-end GPU.
CONCLUSION:
Conclusively, at 1440p the RTX 3070 is certainly the better choice than the RTX 3060, despite the lower VRAM capacity.