GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X May Only Cost $10 More Than The Original

News
By Zhiye Liu
last updated

The third time's a charm

GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (Image credit: Nvidia)

The rumor about Nvidia giving the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti a refresh seems true. U.K. retailer Scan Computers (via VideoCardz) has listed Nvidia's unannounced GeForce RTX 3060 Ti with upgraded GDDR6X memory.

Nvidia launched the original GeForce RTX 3060 Ti in 2020, but the chipmaker would introduce a second variant earlier this year. The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti leveraged the GA104 silicon, whereas the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GA103, as its unofficial name implies, used the GA103 silicon. It was a die-swap on Nvidia's part since the  GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GA103 retained the exact specifications as the vanilla model. However, the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X flaunts a substantial upgrade in the memory subsystem.

The funny thing about the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X is that Nvidia U.K. doesn't list it on the company's website yet. Instead, the chipmaker still lists the regular GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. Adding the GA104-based graphics card to your basket changes to the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X. Apparently, Scan Computers is the retailer selling the new variant; however, it's not on the U.K. store's website either. But the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X appears in stock and allows you to checkout.

GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X Specifications*

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Graphics CardGeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6XGeForce RTX 3060 Ti GA103GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
ArchitectureGA104GA103GA104
Process TechnologySamsung 8NSamsung 8NSamsung 8N
Transistors (Billion)17.4?17.4
Die size (mm²)392.5496392.5
TPCs191919
SMs383838
GPCs555
GPU Cores4,8644,8644,864
Tensor Cores152152152
RT Cores383838
Base Clock (MHz)1,4101,4101,410
Boost Clock (MHz)1,6701,6651,665
VRAM Speed (Gbps)191414
VRAM8GB GDDR6X8GB GDDR68GB GDDR6
VRAM Bus Width256256256
ROPs808080
TMUs152152152
TFLOPs FP32 (Boost)16.216.216.2
Bandwidth (GBps)608448448
TDP (watts)?200200
Launch Date202220222020
Launch Price?$399 $399

*Specifications are unconfirmed.

Whether the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X utilizes the GA104 or GA103 silicon is unknown. The shopping basket shows the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X with a 1,410 MHz base clock and 1,670 MHz boost clock. The base clock is the same as the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti; however, the boost clock is 5 MHz higher. It's not a big deal since the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X's FP32 performance still maxes out at 16.2 TFLOPs.

The memory quota between the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti and GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X remains unchanged at 8GB. Both models still conform to a 256-bit memory bus. The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X features faster memory, though. The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti sports 14 Gbps GDDR6, while the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X has 19 Gbps GDDR6X. The extra firepower will push the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X's memory bandwidth to 608 GBps, a massive 36% uplift over the normal version.

(Image credit: Nvidia U.K.)

The GeForce RTX 3060 and GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GA103 adhere to a 200W TDP, but the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X model probably has a higher rating. GDDR6X consumes less power per transferred bit in comparison to GDDR6. Despite that, total power consumption is higher on GDDR6X because it operates at a faster frequency.

Nvidia U.K. lists the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X for £369, which translates to $409. It's even cheaper than some of the custom models. The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X only has a $10 higher price tag than the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti's $399 MSRP. It's good to see that the GDDR6X premium only raised the price by 3%.

It's funny to see Nvidia launch a third variant of the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti this late in the game. True, Intel recently launched the Arc A770, but we've already seen that the Arc Alchemist graphics card doesn't pose a threat to the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. Although the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti received a fat memory upgrade, it won't magically catch up to the GeForce RTX 3070 either because there's a 21% CUDA separation between the two, and not even GDDR6X memory can close that performance gap. Therefore, the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X is likely just Nvidia's way of dumping Ampere inventory. Now that the cryptocurrency mining fiasco is over, Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3060 series are starting to climb the Steam charts. What better way to keep the momentum than injecting another model into the market?

Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu
RAM Reviewer and News Editor

Zhiye Liu is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

See more GPUs News
16 Comments Comment from the forums
  • dk382
    This is not a store listing. The screenshot here is misleading because this is actually a capture of the shopping cart after you add a regular 3060 Ti FE to cart at Scan, and what we're seeing is a glitch in the checkout process that identifies the card as having GDDR6X. At every other step of the process, the card is identified as the regular 3060 Ti FE with normal GDDR6, including in the actual store listing (because that's what it is).
    As such, this price "leak" is actually just the price of the regular 3060 Ti FE and not any new model.
    Even if this WERE a price leak for an upcoming GDDR6X model, this is the price the 3060 Ti FE launched at in the UK, so it would represent no price movement up or down. I also really don't like doing a quick currency conversion and assuming that's what the US price would be, especially in this time of rapidly changing exchange rates.Just trying to combat misinformation, though it'll probably fall on deaf ears... To reiterate though, Scan has NOT listed a GDDR6X model like this article claims. That may be coming eventually, but it hasn't happened here. All this is is a visual glitch in the Scan shopping card that describes the regular GDDR6 version as having GDDR6X.
    Reply
  • Metal Messiah.
    +1 for the above comment/dk382. Couldn't have said it better myself ! It definitely appears to be a glitch at the checkout process, and shopping cart.
    Reply
  • thisisaname
    @dk382 great post and a shame I can only give you one vote.

    A quick search "3060 Ti FE launch price in UK"
    The RTX 3060 line, in either of its configurations, impresses based upon its price-to-performance ratio, especially when considering that the RTX 3060 carries a $329 / £300 price tag and the RTX 3060 Ti has an MSRP of $399 and an RRP of £369

    Even if this was true I see no reason why the price has to rise I'm betting that the price of GDDR6X is now lower than the price of GDDR6 at launch given that this was nearly two years ago.

    Edit Spelling.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    Imagine the irony here if a new 3060Ti variant ends up having more VRAM bandwidth than what Nvidia wants to push as the GTX4080/12GB. It would be embarrassing if a 3060Ti-G6X ends up beating the 4080/12GB in bandwidth-intensive scenarios.
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    No more embarrassing than nVidia having two RTX 4080s with vastly different specs.
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    Alvar Miles Udell said:
    No more embarrassing than nVidia having two RTX 4080s with vastly different specs.
    That's because the cheaper one was likely intended to be the 4060 Ti or 4070 until the marketing department decided that they could sell it for more if they called it a 4080. : P

    Really though, the 4080 12GB's graphics chip is similar in size to the one used in the 3050 and 3060 (Non-Ti), and less than half the size of the one used in the 3080. Even if the process node is more expensive per wafer, the markup on those things has to be huge, and I can't really see much reason for the massive price increases over the 30-series, aside from Nvidia grasping at maintaining previous crypto-shortage price levels.

    And the performance of the 4080 12GB isn't even that good. Judging by Nvidia's own charts, it provides maybe 10-15% more rasterized performance over the $700 3080 in most games, for a nearly 30% higher MSRP. Sure, raytracing performance appears to have improved significantly in games that utilize it, and there will likely be big gains in some other titles as well, but it's been 2 years since those cards came out, and one would expect larger performance gains across the board, especially considering the 30% higher price. Maybe if the 4080 16GB were $900, that might be considered a reasonable price-hike, but this is a completely different card utilizing a different graphics chip that was clearly meant to target a more "mid-range" price level.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    cryoburner said:
    Really though, the 4080 12GB's graphics chip is similar in size to the one used in the 3050 and 3060 (Non-Ti), and less than half the size of the one used in the 3080. Even if the process node is more expensive per wafer, the markup on those things has to be huge, and I can't really see much reason for the massive price increases over the 30-series, aside from Nvidia grasping at maintaining previous crypto-shortage price levels.
    The 30-series was fabbed at Samsung on 8nm, the 40-series is fabbed at TSMC on a semi-custom 5nm process. Between Samsung being a discount fab and 8nm being an older process than TSMC's 5nm, Ada wafers should be far more expensive than Ampere. IIRC, Samsung raised its fab prices only ~7% vs ~25% for TSMC over the last two years, that is another factor making 40-series chips more expensive per sqmm.

    Between the TSMC premium, the ~20% rate hikes delta between TSMC and Samsung, and 5nm vs 8nm, Ada wafers likely cost 60+% more than Ampere.

    As I've said over a year ago, it is highly unusual for AMD and Nvidia to go full-size on a new process right off the bat. Usually, they "grow" into a new process over 2-3 generations that bump performance up 30-60% at a time. This time around, they designed their new stuff to cater to the crypto miners' infinite wallets and may get a sick burn out of it now that ETH has gone PoS.
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    InvalidError said:
    Between the TSMC premium, the ~20% rate hikes delta between TSMC and Samsung, and 5nm vs 8nm, Ada wafers likely cost 60+% more than Ampere.
    But again, the chip is less than half the size of the one used in the 3080, so they can likely get twice the number of GPUs out of a single wafer.

    If they could put a similar-sized graphics chip in the 3050 and 3060, cards positioned at $250 and $330 MSRPs, then a ~60% increase in chip cost isn't going to drive the price up to $900. Even comparing it to the currently somewhat higher prices of those cards, I don't see much reason why the 4080 12GB couldn't have been positioned as a 4070 in the $500 to $600 range.

    Likewise, the entirely different chip found in the 4080 16GB is smaller than the one used in the 3060 Ti and 3070, cards with $400 and $500 MSRPs, so a 60% increase in chip manufacturing cost wouldn't account for it being priced at $1200. Even accounting for it having double the VRAM, I don't see much reason why it couldn't have been positioned as the $900 card.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    cryoburner said:
    Even accounting for it having double the VRAM, I don't see much reason why it couldn't have been positioned as the $900 card.
    The reason is simple: duopoly. Since there is almost no meaningful competition (70+% of people still buy Nvidia GPUs despite costing $100-200 more than AMD's for a given amount of raster performance), Nvidia gets to charge whatever it wants up to the point where enough people quit buying to hurt its net income.
    Reply
  • HWOC
    InvalidError said:
    Imagine the irony here if a new 3060Ti variant ends up having more VRAM bandwidth than what Nvidia wants to push as the GTX4080/12GB. It would be embarrassing if a 3060Ti-G6X ends up beating the 4080/12GB in bandwidth-intensive scenarios.
    In real terms the 4080 would probably have faster memory access because the cache architecture is very different on the new cards, and much larger.
    Reply