If you mean variation within the same model (eg: 3060 ti), performance is generally equivalent for all brands. (EVGA XC Black, MSI Gaming X, Asus Rog Strix, etc…) Some are a little faster than others, some a little slower, but only by a little bit. Regardless of brand, a faster model card (eg: 3070) will always be faster, and a slower model will always be slower.
The pricing differences for various brands within a single model are based on other factors like heat and sound level. Whether or not that’s worth it to you is personal preference. But if all you care about is FPS, the model is all you need to worry about. The brand shouldn’t matter.
If you mean different models, like a 3070 versus a 3060 ti, it’s a pretty significant difference. Any better model will be noticeably faster.
There is a fairly significant drop off in performance for dollars at the high end. Between manufacturers, the chip itself are all made by Nvidia; the individual manufacturers essentially just add on the fan.
I thought I was going to have to buy a new GPU, PSU, CPU cooler, and maybe even MB. I’d been encountering a random sudden shutdown when gaming for just a few minutes. I suspected a power or a heating issue. Tested heavily for hours with OCCT and Furmark, but couldn’t reproduce the critical error; my machine took everything I threw at it like a champ, which was both encouraging and infuriating.
Did some research and turns out it’s just the Realtek audio driver conflicting with the Nvidia audio driver. I disabled Realtek and now my machine works just fine. Played Sniper Elite 5 for four hours without a problem.
I should replace the cooler anyways, it’s just got the stock Intel cooler on it. It’s one of the bigger newer ones and it works just fine, but I’d like to see a few less degrees in the CPU under load. Probably just going to get a Noctua NH-D15 that appears to be the best air cooler out there. People have repeatedly tried to sell me on AIO coolers, but I was always taught to NOT intentionally put liquid inside my computers. I’m just old school like that.
The same charts have “Whisper in a library” as 20-25 so I think the implication is more “breeze through the maples” than “gale forces tearing apart your leaf pile” I’d wonder if the meter on your phone is calibrated since I’d heard dB apps can be sketchy. In the end though, it’s about what level of noise you want regardless of what it says on the chart.
Modest differences, assuming you mean between an Asus 3060 TUF and an Asus 3060 Strix or an EVGA 3060 Black and an EVGA 3060 FTW3. Usually a slight factory overclock and nicer cooling solutions.
For example, the Asus 3060 TUF model has a base clock speed of 1852 Mhz and a boost speed of 1882. The Strix is 1882 & 1912 respectively so Asus’s Strix model runs as a default like the TUF does when boosting. To handle the extra heat from this, the more expensive model will have more heat pipes, more or better fans (though both Asus models have 3 fans in this case), a longer heat sink/more cooling fins, etc. Plus the extra RGB so people know you’re a gamer or other modest cosmetic changes.
Is it worth it for an extra $150? Probably not. If you really wanted to, you could just slightly overclock your TUF model instead. And base level fans/cooling are sufficient for most cards until you reach the high end of the stack (3080 or better for this gen Nvidia). So getting a 3060 Strix over a TUF is really paying for a very modest clock speed improvement that might be a couple frames per second while gaming. But, hey, maybe you want the RGB for your case aesthetics or maybe it was the only one on the shelf.
If you’re asking about price differences between an Asus 3060 and an EVGA 3060 and a Zotac 3060, etc there’s a few more legitimate differences (warranty, reputation) though, again, for low-mid range cards it probably doesn’t matter at all and, at the high end, it doesn’t matter much. As noted above, Nvidia makes the chips so everyone gets the same basic material and then it’s a question of board quality and cooling. Short of buying a mystery card off Ali Express, all the ‘name brand’ cards are fairly reputable. And it’s all fluid anyway – EVGA is considered a top tier brand but they had numerous issues with the 3000 series at first. People dismiss Zotac for being more “budget” but I know multiple people running Zotac cards without issue.
And if you’re wondering where the performance/money line peaks, it’s somewhere in the x060-x070 lines for Nvidia. My past two machines have had an 860M and a 1070 mobile (they were both Sager laptops). Even for the laptop versions I was always very impressed with them. Have a 1080 in my current desktop machine but when I upgrade it will be to a 3070 or 3070 ti if I can find one for a good price. Actually prices are in my range right now, I just don’t have the money . I’ll probably just wait until the 4070s drop later this year and try to get one of those.
The biggest strike against Zotac for me is that they released the only 3060 ti without fan stop. That one decision will scare me off the brand likely for the rest of my life.
I don’t think it’s really that far off. (And I meant a very small amount of wind just rustling around, not blowing it apart.) There’s a ton of background noise anywhere in public, even a library. 20 decibels sounds about right to me. Hell, there’s a ton of background noise in my house when nothing’s happening. You have to deliberately try to make things very quiet to actually read low decibel levels.
As I whisper aloud right now the phone measure jumps around wildly from mid teens up to 40, with the most frequently appearing narrow range being from 18 to 22. Same numbers but more consistent if I do the ‘pss pss pss’ like calling a cat. (My TV is 10 ft away; me whispering measures the same or louder because the phone is in my hand.)
The way I calibrated my phone app was I waited for one of those super quiet times – middle of the night, no cars, no weather, no appliances in the house running, etc… – and then got inside my car in the garage with all the doors closed and windows up. Not running, obviously. If I stayed absolutely still and held my breath, the app would finally read 0 more often than any other number.
Note that I’m in a suburb with the nearest neighbor several hundred yards away, with lots of trees in between. For anyone in high density housing I’d expect the noise level to never get lower than around 20 dB. So in fairness, my issue is a ‘world’s tiniest violin’ kind of thing.
Agreed, though I saw an interesting take on the 3060 ti. As prices continue to crater down toward actual MSRP across the board, one YouTuber warned that 3060 ti prices probably won’t drop as much. Reason being that it’s a 3070 card that failed tolerances so is sold as a 3060 ti. (I think that’s what ti actually means: It was manufactured to be the next higher tier card but due to minor manufacturing defects it just missed the cut.)
He said manufacturing processes have matured enough that the failure rate is probably getting low, which may keep supply low and thus prices higher for the 3060 ti, at least compared to other cards in the general range.
Sort of. The process is called “binning” where the actual GPU chip gets tested and sorted depending on how well it performs. The 3070 and 3060Ti both use the GA-104 die but not all chips “come out” the same (colloquially known as the “silicon lottery”). Better performing ones get put into 3070s, worse performing ones get put into 3060Ti cards. However, it’s not just that as the 3060Ti also gets fewer CUDA cores, Tenser cores, Ray-Tracing cores and other stuff to reflect the diminished capabilities of that specific processor. So the 3060Ti is a distinctly different card than the 3070 even if the heart of it is a GA-104 produced chip.
Binning works the other way as well. The 3070Ti is also a GA-104 chip, not a GA-102 variant like the 3080 is. The 3070Ti is using 3070 chips that performed exceptionally well, not “inferior” 3080 chips.
I have no idea what will happen with 3060Ti pricing but I don’t think the suggestion you made/heard is out of whack. As a generation gets older, production gets better. There’s a reason why the 3090Ti came out last – it took time to get good enough at making the chips that you’d have a stockpile of ones suitable for the 3090Ti. Likewise, there’s a reason why the 3060Ti and 3070 launched together with the 3060Ti making use of lower binned 3070 chips. I don’t know if it’s true that better production will mean a lack of 3060Ti chips (versus saving them for pricier 3070s) but the notion has merit on the surface.
I fired it up today just to check and make sure I can’t handle the noise. At first I couldn’t hear anything, but then I realized that was the faint traffic sounds from the street drowning it out. Once there was a lull on the street I could hear it again. So obviously it’s not loud, but being audible at all is much too loud for me.
Also it’s not necessarily a bad sound, but it’s way higher pitched than the ultra low bequiet fans. (They are low enough frequency to drive you literally insane!) The MSI fans, when I can hear them, have a low frequency that pairs well with the bequiet fans, though in fairness I almost never hear the case fans because the 1050 TI bottleneck leaves the 10400 running at like 60% max*. The higher pitched EVGA fans clash horribly with them.
The real issue is it just sounds weak to me, like my old computer. Even though it’s twice as fast it makes the computer feel old and creaky to me.
It’s a good card. I’d kind of rather sell it to somebody for the price I paid because it’s such a good price, as opposed to just returning it to Newegg. I’m not even 100% sure I can return it to Newegg since I peeled the plastic off of it. Maybe.
Any posters here interested? PM me if so. No lurkers, please. I paid $276 total, and would be happy to sell it to someone for that. (EVGA XC Black 3050, barely used.)
I’m assuming people today don’t use physical signs like bulletin boards or fliers to sell stuff locally. Where would I go to try and sell this online to someone in my town?
*I wish it were possible to tie the case fans to the GPU instead of the CPU directly in the BIOS. Alas, you have to use software to do it, and I remember trying that and finding it kludgy and unpleasant. So my case fans are tied to my underworked CPU, and since that rarely warms up they always stay around 35% (~350 RPM).
Real power computers sound like a jet turbine to cool those overclocked i9-12900k and dual 3090Tis in SLI. Embrace the noise
I’d try to return first if you can (without eating an RMA charge) since you’ll probably have a hard time finding someone to buy a “used” card at cost. Otherwise I’ve had the best luck with Facebook Marketplace, worse luck with Offerup (lot of flakes who just ghost you) and basically no luck with Craigslist for computer sales. Anecdotal, of course.
No, nvidia is inconsistent on this point and this generation is different. Traditionally, “TI” meant some sort of mid-cycle refresh where they made an improved version of the cards with a new refined design and they were usually 10-20% faster than their equivalent non-Ti editions. But this time around Nvidia released the 3060ti before even the 3060, which does not make sense for their traditional naming scheme. The 3060ti is an oddball.
It’s very common to separate computing parts where a lower model becomes a higher model that had a flaw in the manufacturing. Components like CPUs and GPUs are often designed with many semi-independent clusters of processing units so that if there is a flaw in the silicon wafer, the flaw can be isolated to just shutting off that cluster rather than the entire chip being a waste. x70 nvidia chips are often/usually x80 chips that had one cluster shut off due to a flaw with no “TI” labelling involved.
It was my cost, but you can’t buy it for that right now. I got it from Newegg, where it is currently listed at $349. The cheapest 3050 on Newegg right now is a Gigabyte Eagle for $330. The cheapest on pcpartpicker is EVGA XC black just like mine, but costs $319 plus tax.
Looks like the automated refund/exchange feature on the website will only let you return it if it’s damaged or defective in some way. “Dissatisfaction” is a selectable reason, but then that says “No refund, only exchange”, but then when picking exchange, the only selectable reasons are if it’s damaged or defective. Looks like I’m stuck with it.
On the plus side I swapped my old quiet card back in and all is right with the world again. Other than being out a few hundred bucks, of course.
EDIT: Checking again, let me clarify. If you don’t check the box that says “Is the item unopened in the original manufacturer’s packaging?” then you can’t request a return unless it doesn’t work. Which is annoying; how would I know I’m dissatisfied without opening the box and trying it out?
It looks like my video card is dying. It’s mostly working, but occasionally “freezes” and crashes whatever game is using it. Driver is up to date, I’ve thoroughly removed any dust, and checked the seating and cables. My thinking that it’s time for replacement (welcome any diagnosis tips).
Checking records, it’s from … 2014, a GTX 770. Yeah, I think I can justify to myself that it’s time for a refresh. I’ll see what Tom’s Hardware has to say and look through New Egg for prices. Any recommendation updates since those posted earlier?
I’d wonder if the meter on your phone is calibrated since I’d heard dB apps can be sketchy. In the end though, it’s about what level of noise you want regardless of what it says on the chart.
. I’ll probably just wait until the 4070s drop later this year and try to get one of those.