The new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 with 8GB GDDR6X memory tested

Quite strangely, NVIDIA has recently updated its existing & popular RTX 3060 with 8GB GDDR6X memory alongside the RTX 3060 Ti as well. However, instead of a 12GB VRAM treatment that was in the original, this one around gets 1/3rd less memory but still if it would give better performance for the faster memory that would have been acceptable but it’s not.

The memory bus on this RTX 3060 8GB has been dropped from 192-bit to 128-bit which is not strange at all considering the drop in memory. This poses a serious drop in performance even though the memory is fast because these days high-end games tend to use more VRAM now it doesn’t matter much if it’s high speed or not unless it has a wider memory bus.

Apart from this change in GDDR6X memory, there is no change in the core specs of this GPU, housing up to 3584 CUDA cores and 170W TDP. Ironically, instead of having a model called RTX 3050 Ti just in between the RTX 3050 and RTX 3060, NVIDIA chose to reduce the performance of the already popular RTX 3060 for no reason.

Hardware Unboxed actually tested the GPU at both 1080p & 1440p and found there’s a huge performance gap between the original RTX 3060 12GB and this RTX 3060 8GB due to the bandwidth. You see a gap of up to 17% due to this at 1080p while it shortens at 1440p but there’s a noticeable performance difference because of the lesser bandwidth.

Now, this new model has already made its way into many countries like the US where the prices of the regular 12GB RTX 3060 are similar to that of the new as per Videocardz. On the other hand, as Hardware Unboxed said it’s again 100 AUD cheaper in Australia, so it’s very difficult for an average consumer to spot the difference.

On NVIDIA’s side, this price and launching a 2-year-old GPU with new memory that is too crippled at weird pricing makes no sense, instead, they could have launched this as an RTX 3050 Ti with competitive pricing to target more gamers. In India, as of now, we haven’t seen this RTX 3060 with 8GB GDDR6X memory hitting retail and there are huge stocks of normal RTX 3060 12GB including the OC ones, so, go get them before these stupid ones arrive.

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Buy the GPU from Amazon India: https://amzn.to/3P4BZGk