Observing the price , RTX 3060 ti can be just recommended for budget PC builders who want to play games with Ray tracing tensor cores obviously at lower prices. So I went ahead and did my research, Here’s what I found
1. Comparison[key features]
| RTX 3060 ti | RTX 3070 |
| Boost clock- 1665MHz | Boost clock-1725MHz |
| CUDA Cores- 4,864 | CUDA Cores- 5,888 |
| Tensor Cores- 152[3rd gen] | Tensor Cores-184[2nd gen] |
| RT Cores- 38[2nd gen] | RT Cores-46[1st gen] |
| Memory type-8Gb GDDR6 | Memory type-8GB GDDR6 |
| Rated Power-200W PSU | Rated Power-650W PSU |
| Memory interface-256 bit | Memory interface-256bit |
| Memory bandwidth-488Gbps | Memory bandwidth-498Gbps |
| ROPs-80 | ROPs-96 |
| Boost clock-1,665GHz | Boost clock-1,725GHz |
2. Benchmark Test
| Games tested | RTX 3060 ti | RTX 3070 |
| Assassins creed Odyssey | Average fps-62 | Average fps-71 |
| Battlefield 5 | Average fps-67 | Average fps-74 |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | Average fps-58 | Average fps-64 |
| Red Dead redemption 2 | Average fps-78 | Average fps-87 |
| Metro exodus | Average fps-83 | Average fps-109 |
But choosing between RTX 3060 ti and 3070 really depends on whether you are considering to build a gaming PC from scratch or just upgrading from previous generation to current one’s especially if you are targeting Ray tracing. The performance of the GPU varies system to system
The RTX 3070 has an upper hand of 16 to 17% of refresh rate
● CONDITIONS
3. Upgrading your GPU
Now that you already have a gaming PC and don’t have any reason to worry about the insanely big budget ,thinking of how much of your budget should you be spending on the upgrading PC parts , and can focus on only one thing at a time.In this case buying a suitable GPU capable of maximising your gaming performance will be sensible , therefore I’d say that adding a 100 bucks more in your budget for RTX 3070 is absolutely worth it.
Future proofing: Overtime, gaming with RTX tensor cores will become the new normal although it will take some time for the transition because making games Ray tracing compatible won’t come cheap for the small gaming studios, hence we can’t surely predict that when raytracing would go fully mainstream.
On the other hand RTX 3070 provides much faster and better performance as high as 16 to 18% more than 3060 ti based on the results shown above by testing various games with respective GPUs, So future proofing your gaming rig with the latest card will serve you well in the long term , because I don’t think that 40 series of nvidia will come out anytime soon but even if it does then you will be on the safe side with 3070 GPU(if you choose to buy) will be useful and do needn’t worry about whether it supports all upcoming games.
If by any means you aren’t ready to spend 100 bucks for 3070 then going for 3060 ti won’t be sin only if your aim is only to enjoy gaming with raytracing for a cut down budget of 3070. You still can enjoy great performance with just excluding the 18% increased refresh rate.
On the other side GTX owners will face problem a year after as more and more gaming studios start making their games RTX compatible.
4. Best time to upgrade
Now that you have decided to build your own PC considering you are trying build it on moderate budget choosing between 3060 ti and 3070 may affect the amount of money you spend on other parts of the the pc
If you don’t care about the 16 to 18% increase of fps and you want a perfect budget RTX GPU then definitely go for the RTX 3060 ti.
Use the above mentioned conditions as a benchmarks for deciding the best GPU.
5. Conclusion
Both of these GPUs will serve you well in the long run especially the 3070 , so it again it all comes to your budget the more you spend the best you get in every situation. The performance differences between both GPUs are merely noticeable.
Personally I would prefer a 3060 ti from a budget point of view and the value it gives me, considering I won’t change change the GPU for at least 2-3 years
