The RTX 3060 is Nvidia’s latest 3000 series GPU. Even if it (ever…) comes into stock at $330 USD, it will struggle to match the groundbreaking 3060 Ti in terms of value for money. Nvidia’s new Ampere architecture, which supersedes Turing, offers both improved power efficiency and performance. The 3060 features 3,584 CUDA cores, 112 Tensor cores, it has a boost clock of 1.78 GHz, 12 GB of memory and a power draw of just 170 W. The 3060 offers similar performance to the previous generation’s 2060 Super at an 18% MSRP discount. Given the widespread issues AMD users are facing with 5000 series GPUs (blue/black screens etc.), AMD’s 6000 series GPU’s will have to see substantial price cuts and a huge marketing effort in order to gain any traction. Meanwhile PC gamers can look forward to an unparalleled gaming experience in class leading titles such as Cyberpunk 2077. At ultra settings, with ray tracing enabled, Cyberpunk 2077 redefines the boundaries of immersive gaming. It makes GTA5 look like Tetris in comparison. The combination of RTX+DLSS delivers stunning graphics that are several tiers higher than both AMD's best discrete GPUs and the upcoming consoles. In terms of real world performance, Nvidia’s 3000 series has more or less put AMD’s Radeon group in checkmate. Nonetheless, AMD’s marketers are capable of delivering elaborate BS albeit whilst struggling to keep a straight face. Their marketing infrastructure outsold Intel in the CPU market despite a 15% performance deficit. Without an appropriate social media marketing strategy, Nvidia will probably lose considerable market share, for all the wrong reasons. [Feb '21GPUPro]
Out of the box the reference 5700 XT has high burst speeds but under load it overheats and therefore drops frames to the extent that it is more or less unusable for demanding games like PUBG. In order to settle the card it was under volted by 120 mV and the maximum clock was lowered to 1,980 MHz (the stock BIOS and 19.9.1 driver defaulted the card to 2,030 MHz). The fan curve also had to be turned up to around 50% power at 75 degrees (which is a lot noisier than stock). After making these changes the card delivered far more consistent performance albeit with a reduced top speed and unacceptable (hair dryer) levels of noise. There were also incompatibilities with GTAV: enabling reflection MSAA resulted in very poor, almost matt, reflection fidelity (the same bug appeared on several Navi and Vega cards). The reference 5700 XT is great for beating cherry picked benchmarks, but it is not so great for playing games. Thousands of people, duped by sponsored marketing material, purchased the reference card expecting flagship performance, instead they got a shopping trolley with a V6 engine. It appears that the same marketing tactics were employed for the reference Vega 56 and 64 series of graphics cards which we will purchase for our gaming lab and generate effective Fps gaming metrics as soon as possible (results here). AMD appear to have very short term marketing strategists at the helm, they seem more concerned with this years bonuses than the longevity of the brand. [Jul '19GPUPro]
We calculate effective 3D speed which estimates gaming performance for the top 12 games. Effective speed is adjusted by current prices to yield value for money. Our figures are checked against thousands of individual user ratings. The customizable table below combines these factors to bring you the definitive list of top GPUs. [GPUPro]
Welcome to our freeware PC speed test tool. UserBenchmark will test your PC and compare the results to other users with the same components. You can quickly size up your PC, identify hardware problems and explore the best upgrades.