Zotac RTX 3060 Graphics Card: For The Performance-Hungry Budget Gamer

Nvidia just unveiled its entry-level RTX enabled GPU -- the RTX3060. This GPU is expected to replace the existing RTX 2060 while offering ray-tracing capabilities at a slightly affordable price point.

Zotac

We got our hands on the Zotac RTX 3060 for a few days and I tested this out on my humble machine powered by an Intel Core i5 6600K, with 32GB of RAM.

Indiatimes

While the setup surely is a bit dated for testing a graphics card, most buyers who are planning on getting this GPU might have a similarly dated system, so this also gives those buyers a clearer perspective on how the games would look on their system.

One Good Looker

I got my hands on the White Edition of Zotac 3060AMP which has an all matte-white finish. The GPU is quite compact, despite its dual-fan nature (with two 100mm fans) at just about 231.9mm. This is a dual-slot card so it doesn¡¯t require much room.

Moreover, it also gets a metal backplate too, but unlike the Zotac 3090 Trinity the logo at the back doesn't light up. The GPU does have white LEDs that show the Zotac branding to the sides.

Zotac

What I truly despised is the recessed plug for 2x8 pin connectors. While it's great that it is deep inside a cavity that hides cables nicely, it can be a pain to plug in if your 6+2 connector doesn¡¯t stay together. But overall, it¡¯s a fine-looking card.

Under the hood

The Nvidia RTX 3060 is running on a 192-bit memory bus with a boost clock of 1867MHz and a memory clock speed of 15Gbps. You have 12GB of GDDR6 memory as well as 3584 CUDA cores. It connects via a PCI Ex 4.0x16 slot. This is a DirectX 12 Ultimate compatible GPU.

Zotac

The GPU consumes 170W power and comes with a recommendation for 600W+ power supplies. It draws power from two 8-pin connectors. You do get a dual 6-pin to 8-pin connector. For connectivity, you get three DisplayPort 1.4a which support up to 7680x4320 at 60Hz and one HDMI 2.1 that supports up to 7680x4329 at 60Hz.

Performance

My testing involved running a few synthetic benchmarks as well as playing a few high-fidelity games on full-HD resolution.

First I ran a series of benchmarks on Futuremark's 3DMark 11. On FireStrike Extreme, the GPU fared decently with a score of 7752. On SkyDiver, the GPU scored 22,461, which again is a decent score.

Indiatimes

The dual fan setup managed to keep the card really cool and quiet throughout the gaming experience. One fan was responsible for sucking air in while the other pushed the hot air out. Even under hours of immense gaming loads, the cards didn¡¯t get uncomfortably hot and loud.

Forza Horizon on RTX 3060

Forza Horizon isn¡¯t a very demanding title as its crazy good optimisation enables it to run beautifully even on dated, budget GPUs like RX570 or GTX 1050Ti.

Forza Horizon 4

And with RTX 3060, the game ran even more smoothly. On the highest possible settings, the game was able to deliver 60fps throughout without any glitches or jitters.

Control on RTX 3060

Control was one of the few titles from 2019 that truly made the most of ray tracing through its aesthetics and storytelling, so it was obvious this game had to be on this list. With settings maxed out and DLSS disabled, the game offered between 45 to 50 fps with medium ray-tracing enabled.

Control

However, with DLSS (Nvidia¡¯s AI-based super sampling) enabled and medium ray tracing settings, the game was running between 86-90 fps with ease, making the game a lot more playable.

Cyberpunk 2077 on RTX 3060

Now, Cyberpunk 2077 surely was the biggest letdown of 2020, and even after several months since the game¡¯s launch the game still has a ton of bugs and optimising needed. But I was still curious to know how this card fared.

Cyberpunk 2077

With ray tracing on medium and very high settings, the card delivered around 36-40fps. With DLSS enabled and ray tracing on medium, the game delivered 45-50fps.

Valorant on RTX 3060

If there is one game that has piqued the interest of competitive gamers last year, it¡¯s Valorant. The FPS shooter definitely has a strong fanbase. RTX 3060 was able to deliver frame rates ranging from 190 to 240fps with ease, with all settings maxed out.

Valorant

Moreover, RTX 3060 also comes with NVIDIA Reflex: Low Latency Technology that optimizes and measures system latency in competitive games. The list for these games includes Fortnite, Valorant, Call of Duty: Cold War and even Destiny 2. I didn't notice a major impact while my brief playing session with the card though.

Medium on RTX 3060

Medium is one of the newest thriller games that arrived on Windows and Xbox.

Medium

And just like Forza, this game too is optimised really well. On the highest settings possible, with ray tracing, the game ran at 95-110fps without a glitch.

Assassins Creed: Valhalla on RTX 3060

Another crazy resource-heavy game, Assassin's Creed: Valhalla delivered an average of 45-50 fps on very high settings, according to the game¡¯s benchmarks.

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla

However, bringing the settings down to High brought the frame rate to a playable 55-60fps and the game looked just as good.

Hitman III on RTX 3060

Hitman is a game that looks splendid but doesn¡¯t stress your hardware while doing so.

Hitman III

With all settings maxed out, the GPU was able to deliver 60-65fps easily on Ultra settings, and it looked bloody beautiful with real-time reflections and crazy levels of detail throughout mission areas.

Should you buy Zotac RTX 3060?

This is a very difficult question to answer, considering mass shortages of GPUs have skyrocketed their prices in India to an extent where PC gaming feels extremely unfeasible.

If I were to eliminate that specific component and stick just to the performance of the 3060, the GPU offers a considerable upgrade from the GTX 1060, even the RTX 2060, for no-holds-barred gaming at full-HD resolution.

Zotac

Additionally, in case you have a system like mine, I¡¯d suggest you first aim to upgrade the CPU as newer games are getting more CPU intensive and the five-year-old Intel CPUs can¡¯t keep up the way you¡¯d want them to.

At a price tag of Rs 41,119 (for the Zotac 3060 White AMP edition), it surely is an expensive buy, but its performance surely speaks for itself. However, if the market in future gets better with stocks and an RTX 3060Ti is selling at its designated price (not overpriced like today), consider purchasing the latter as it will offer better performance for a longer period of time.