RTX 3060 vs RTX 2060 SUPER vs RTX 2070 Comparison & Benchmarks

GeForce RTX 3060 is a mainstream mid-range graphics card in the RTX 30 series from Nvidia. The card sits below the RTX 3060 Ti which is one of the best value high-end graphics cards in the market, along with the Radeon RX 6800 from AMD. RTX 3060 officially replaces the RTX 2060 SUPER and the RTX 2060 graphics cards. However, the card also competes against the RTX 2070 which is one segment above the RTX 2060 SUPER. As RTX 3060 is an RTX 30 series card, it does come with almost all the features present in the higher-end RTX 30 series graphics cards that include RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3070, RTX 3080, and RTX 3090. So, if you want to find out how a mainstream RTX 30 series card compares against its older siblings (RTX 2070, RTX 2060 SUPER) then here I am going to compare it with them taking into account all the important parameters, to help you make the right decision that whether you should buy it or not.

RTX 3060 vs RTX 2060 SUPER vs RTX 2070

Below is the comparison between RTX 3060, RTX 2060 SUPER, and RTX 2070 graphics cards based on their specifications, performance, pricing, power consumption, and features.

GPU Architecture

RTX 2060 SUPER and RTX 2070 are RTX 20 series graphics cards built on the Turing GPU architecture on a 12nm fabrication process. Both the cards use the TU106 GPU chip but in a different configuration as the RTX 2060 SUPER has some cores locked. RTX 2060 SUPER comes with 2176 CUDA Cores, 34 RT Cores, and 272 Tensor Cores while RTX 2070 has got 2304 CUDA Cores, 26 RT Cores, and 288 Tensor Cores. On the other hand, RTX 3060 is built on the Ampere GPU architecture on a smaller 8nm fabrication process from Samsung. The card uses the GA106 GPU chip and comes with 3584 CUDA Cores, 28 RT Cores, and 112 Tensor Cores. It should be noted that RTX 3060 comes with 2nd generation RT cores and 3rd generation Tensor cores while the RTX 2060 SUPER and RTX 2070 have the first generation RT cores and second-generation Tensor Cores.

Video Memory [VRAM]

Here, the card with the maximum video memory is the RTX 3060. It comes with 12GB GDDR6 memory running at 15Gbps and has an interface of 192-bit, delivering a memory bandwidth of 360 GB/s. On the other hand, both RTX 2060 SUPER and RTX 2070 come with 8GB GDDR6 memory running at 14Gbps but have a higher memory bandwidth of 448 GB/s because of a wider memory bus of 256-bit. So, if we talk about video memory taking into account all the factors then RTX 3060 has a considerable edge even though its memory bandwidth is on the lower side compared to the RTX 2060 SUPER and RTX 2070.

Features

All these are VR Ready graphics cards and support DirectX 12, OpenGL 4.6, Vulkan, G-Sync/FreeSync, and RTX IO. Moreover, all of them support Real-Time Ray Tracing and Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS). The RTX 3060 supports DLSS 2.0 which delivers slightly better performance than DLSS 1.0, supported by the RTX 20 series graphics cards. None of these graphics cards support SLI which means you cannot use two or more of these cards in a multi-GPU configuration for increased performance in select applications and games.

The features that are new and exclusive to the RTX 3060 include HDMI 2.1 (supports 8K30, 4K144, Dynamic HDR, and resolutions up to 10K), 5^th generation Nvidia Decoder and AV1 codec support (a royalty-free and highly efficient codec that can reduce the bandwidth by high stream resolution video by up to 50% compared to H.264) and ResizableBAR support that enables the CPU to access all of the video memory of graphics card at once or concurrently to increase the FPS or performance in games. RTX 3060 also features an anti-crypto algorithm, built into its firmware or VBIOS to discourage and prevent this GPU from being used in mining cryptocurrencies. The crypto-limiter anti-crypto algorithm will cut the mining hash-rate in half if the card is being detected to be used for mining cryptocurrencies.

Gaming Performance

Here are the gaming benchmarks of these cards at 1080p and 1440p resolution.

1080p Benchmarks

1440p Benchmarks

In the above gaming benchmarks, you can see that RTX 3060 beats RTX 2060 SUPER comfortably in all the games and is up to 4% faster on average. RTX 3060 also beats RTX 2070 in almost all the games and has a decent lead in some games at both 1080p and 1440p resolutions. Here I have not listed the benchmarks for RTX 2060 but RTX 3060 is up to 17% faster than RTX 2060 which I think is a significant achievement.

Power Consumption

When it comes to power consumption then RTX 3060 has a lower power figure of 170W, followed by 175W for RTX 2060 SUPER. The card with the highest power consumption here is RTX 2070 with 185W.

Pricing and Availability

The official MSRP of RTX 3060 is $329 which is the lowest here if we only compare the launch date MSRP prices. At the launch, the base MSRP of RTX 2060 SUPER was $399 and for RTX 2070, it was $499 for the reference or Founders edition. As RTX 3060 is a newer card, so its availability is a matter of concern, and is difficult to find in stock. The custom AIB models of all these three cards do cost more and you can check the current prices of them from the links given below.

Check RTX 3060 Price on Amazon

Check RTX 2060 SUPER Price on Amazon

Check RTX 2070 Price on Amazon

RTX 3060 vs RTX 2060 SUPER vs RTX 2070 Specifications

See also:

• RX 6600 XT vs RTX 3060 vs RTX 3060 Ti Comparison
• RTX 3060 Ti vs RTX 2080 SUPER vs RX 5700 XT Comparison

Final Thoughts

RTX 3060 is a card that offers good performance for the price it sells. However, it does fall behind its bigger brother RTX 3060 Ti in terms of price-to-performance ratio. It does not mean that RTX 3060 is overpriced but I think if it had been under 300 dollars then it would be a wonderful proposition. RTX 3060 is faster than both RTX 2060 SUPER and RTX 2070 and it also comes with an extra 4GB VRAM that can prove useful for some latest AAA titles that may require more video memory to work with even at 1080p and 1440p resolutions. To sum it up, I think RTX 3060 is a decent product and will appeal to most mainstream gamers. However, the card only makes sense when you can find it at a price close to its MSRP, otherwise, it is better to look for other options that you can find cheaper.