ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Video Card Review
TUF Gaming Geforce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition
The custom NVIDIA Geforce RTX 3060 Ti cards from board partners go on sale tomorrow (12/02/2020) and we wanted to show you one of the new ASUS models that will be available. ASUS actually has five new 3060 Ti models coming to market under the ROG Strix, TUF Gaming, ASUS Dual, ASUS Dual MINI and ASUS KO GeForce RTX 3060 Ti product lines. Pricing for these cards start at $429 and go up to $499 depending on the model that you are wanting to get. The ASUS Dual MINI doesn’t have a price yet as it won’t be ready for tomorrow and will be launching at a later date.
| Part Number | MSRP |
| OG-STRIX-RTX3060TI-O8G-GAMING | $ 499.99 |
| TUF-RTX3060TI-O8G-GAMING | $ 459.99 |
| KO-RTX3060TI-O8G-GAMING | $ 449.99 |
| DUAL-RTX3060TI-O8G-MINI | No ETA or $ |
| DUAL-RTX3060TI-O8G | $ 429.99 |
ASUS sent us the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti model that is sold under part number TUF-RTX3060TI-O8G-GAMING and will retail for $459.99. This card is factory overclocked to 1755 MHz on the boost clock straight out of the box, which is 90MHz higher than the boost clock of the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition card. For those that want to go a bit higher they can install the ASUS GPU Tweak II utility and change the card from ‘gaming mode’ to ‘OC mode’ to increase the boost clock to 1785 MHz!
ASUS packaging has been top notch for years and that trend continues with the RTX 3060 Ti series cards. You have full color packaging with all the key features of the card listed on the front and back. It clearly states that this model has 8GB of GDDR6 memory, is an OC edition model and has LED lighting that works with ASUS AURA SYNC software.
Inside the box you’ll discover that the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti comes in a plastic bag and then the card has protective film over the front and back to protect it from scratches while being installed. We actually missed it while we were taking pictures, but under the foam insert was a TUF certificate of Reliability, Speedsetup manual and an ASUS Collection card for this model.
Once you remove the ASUS TUF-RTX3060TI-O8G-GAMING card from the box you’ll quickly see it is a 2.7 slot card that stands 5.63-inches in height and 11.81-inches in length. This is longer than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition model, so be sure to do a quick check and make sure it will fit in your case before you order one.
To get an idea of just how large this card is here is the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti next to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition card.
Three axial-tech dual ball bearing fans were used with the GPU cooler on the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti graphics card. Fan rotation has been optimized for reduced turbulence as the outer fans spin one direction and center fans spins opposite. ASUS went with a stop mode (0dB) on this card that brings all three fans to a halt at low temperatures (below 55C).
ASUS went with a full coverage metal backplate (aluminum) on this card and it looks great. near the end of the protective metal backplate is a hole and this is used to help vent and to prevent heat buildup.
ASUS went with four SP-CAPs (POSCAP) on the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. ASUS went with military-grade capacitors and other TUF components to enhance the durability of this card.
Looking down at the top edge of the card you can see a single 8-pin PCIe power connector and just above the TUF Gaming text is a backlit TUF logo that you can control the lighting of. ASUS recommends a 750W or greater power supply for this model.
On the back of the card you’ll also find a BIOS switch that changes between Performance Mode and Quiet Mode. It comes in Performance Mode and that is obviously what we are going to be testing with in this review. Quiet mode runs the fans at slower speeds and the GPU temperature will be higher as a result. This will also likely impact clock speeds at some point.
Here is a look up from the bottom of the card and you can make out the heat pipes and cooling fin arrays really well from this angle. You can also see that ASUS uses thermal pads to help transfer heat between the GDDR6 memory ICs and their GPU cooler baseplate.
Build quality on our card was good, but we did notice that one of the GDDR6 thermal pads was slightly off and left one of the GDDR6 memory chips more exposed than covered.
Looking at the end of the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti card you can see the end of some of the cards heat pipes!
ASUS switched up the display outputs on the GeForce RTX 3070 TUF Gaming a bit and many people will be happy with what they have done. Most GeForce 3060 Ti cards have three DisplayPort 1.4a connections and a single HDMI 2.1 port. ASUS went with three DisplayPort 1.4a connections and two HDMI 2.1 ports! So, if you want a card with two full sized HDMI outputs be sure to put this one on your short list.
Notice that the backplate is stamped as being made from Stainless Steel 304. ASUS picked to use Stainless Steel for the I/O bracket as it is stronger and helps protect the ports better.
Let’s move along to the test system and get to the benchmarks!