Confused on Steam Play and Proton? Be sure to check out our guide.
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

NVIDIA have revealed the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti officially today, along with a release date of December 2 and it sounds like quite an awesome card.

Hitting performance levels (and above!) comparable to the RTX 2080 SUPER, which for the price is absolutely amazing at $399 / £369 which is far less than the 2080 SUPER. When it becomes available on December 2 this will be as custom boards including stock-clocked and factory overclocked models from various vendors as well as a Founders Edition direct from NVIDIA.

Want some specs? Here's a comparison between the models of the 3000 series:

    GEFORCE RTX
3090
GEFORCE RTX
3080
GEFORCE RTX
3070
GEFORCE RTX
3060 Ti
GPU Engine Specs: NVIDIA CUDA® Cores 10496 8704 5888 4864
  Boost Clock (GHz) 1.70 1.71 1.73 1.67
           
Memory Specs: Standard Memory Config 24 GB GDDR6X 10 GB GDDR6X 8 GB GDDR6 8 GB GDDR6
  Memory Interface Width 384-bit 320-bit 256-bit 256-bit
           
Technology Support: Ray Tracing Cores 2nd Generation 2nd Generation 2nd Generation 2nd Generation
  Tensor Cores 3rd Generation 3rd Generation 3rd Generation 3rd Generation
  NVIDIA Architecture Ampere Ampere Ampere Ampere
  PCI Express Gen 4 Yes Yes Yes Yes
  NVIDIA G-SYNC Yes Yes Yes Yes
  Vulkan RT API, OpenGL 4.6 Yes Yes Yes Yes
  HDMI 2.1 Yes Yes Yes Yes
  DisplayPort 1.4a Yes Yes Yes Yes
  NVIDIA Encoder 7th Generation 7th Generation 7th Generation 7th Generation
  NVIDIA Decoder 5th Generation 5th Generation 5th Generation 5th Generation
Display Support: Maximum Digital Resolution 7680x4320 7680x4320 7680x4320 7680x4320
  Standard Display Connectors HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a
  Multi Monitor 4 4 4 4
  HDCP 2.3 2.3 2.3 2.3
           
Founders Edition Card Dimensions: Length 12.3" (313 mm) 11.2" (285 mm) 9.5" (242 mm) 9.5" (242 mm)
  Width 5.4" (138 mm) 4.4" (112 mm) 4.4" (112 mm) 4.4" (112 mm)
  Slot 3-Slot 2-Slot 2-Slot 2-Slot
           
Founders Edition Thermal Power Specs: Maximum GPU Temperature (in C) 93 93 93 93
  Graphics Card Power (W) 350 320 220 200
  Required System Power (W) (2) 750 750 650 600
  Supplementary Power Connectors 2x PCIe 8-pin
(adapter to 1x 12-pin included)
2x PCIe 8-pin
(adapter to 1x 12-pin included)
1x PCIe 8-pin
(adapter to 1x 12-pin included)
1x PCIe 8-pin
(adapter to 1x 12-pin included)

As long as you're not going for 4K gaming, the GeForce RTS 3060 Ti seems like a winner, and would likely be exactly what I would be going for if I was going to be building a system. At 1440p and 1080p gaming, it seems ideal. NVIDIA drivers generally have good Linux support too, and we expect NVIDIA to have a fresh driver up either today or tomorrow to formally add support for it on Linux - like they always do with a new GPU release. We're never left waiting around. 

YouTube Thumbnail
YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view. View cookie preferences.
Accept Cookies & Show   Direct Link

Going by Phoronix benchmarks on Linux, it seems like performance winner. I get that technology moves on quickly but even so, it still slightly amazes me just how much performance and price has come along with cards like this.

The real question is: just how fast will stock vanish this time? It may be releasing on December 2, doesn't mean many people will actually be able to get one though like the last few new GPU release.

If you do buy one, NVIDIA are throwing in one whole year of GeForce NOW Founder membership too which is open to both new and existing GFN customers to sweeten the deal. With their plans to actually support Linux with GFN in the browser, that sounds good.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
11 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. You can also follow my personal adventures on Bluesky.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
All posts need to follow our rules. For users logged in: please hit the Report Flag icon on any post that breaks the rules or contains illegal / harmful content. Guest readers can email us for any issues.
75 comments
Page: 1/4»
  Go to:

Cybolic Dec 1, 2020
NVIDIA still doesn't support re-projection for use in VR, right?
yokem55 Dec 1, 2020
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
NVIDIA still doesn't support re-projection for use in VR, right?
From what I understand, they have the vulkan compute extensions for it, but not the low-latency, high priority driver path to make it actually usable.
slaapliedje Dec 1, 2020
NVIDIA still doesn't support re-projection for use in VR, right?
You know, what? I think AMD drivers do? And if that's the case, that'd explain why others were saying that Elite Dangerous runs fine on Linux (Not that I can run it in Linux until someone writes up a scripting engine equivalent of the Thrustmaster Warthog has in Windows, as I now use that rather heavily.)
kokoko3k Dec 1, 2020
Since i relegated nvidia to a mere on-demand graphic accelerator by using prime offloading (how many years we've had to wait for the driver to support an ancient feature? Can't remember), i started to enjoy:

  • A much snappier desktop environment (with a poor intel igp from my i5 Haswell!)

  • High resolution terminals even without grub and/or uefi

  • Kmsgrab working in ffmpeg

  • Glitchless resume from hibernation and suspend (texture corruption)

  • Glitchless vt switching (desktop corruption)

  • The ability to start multiple xorg sessions without having graphic corruption in the other one

  • Good power managment (not excellent, because the GTX always stays on, but certanly better than using the 1060 as the primary gpu, when it jumped to maximum power draw by just moving a window and stayed there for 30 seconds or more).

  • Reliable reporting of what display is connected

That said, even if this new green card seems well priced, I'm finally about to quit using nvidia by christmas for AMD.
YAY!

(edit, i just forgot how bad are nvidia drivers in memory managment, this is evident when you hit the limit by using proton!)


Last edited by kokoko3k on 1 December 2020 at 5:02 pm UTC
Cybolic Dec 1, 2020
NVIDIA still doesn't support re-projection for use in VR, right?
From what I understand, they have the vulkan compute extensions for it, but not the low-latency, high priority driver path to make it actually usable.

That's my understanding as well. Since I'm currently using a 1080 Ti and pretty happy with the general performance (though not the quirks), the only reason for me to upgrade is to fix the re-projection stutter I get in VR. If NVIDIA still hasn't "fixed" that under Linux though, there's not much point in a new card, no matter how good the bang-for-the-buck is - for me anyway.
poisond Dec 1, 2020
That said, even if this new green card seems well priced, I'm finally about to quit using nvidia by christmas for AMD.
YAY!

Good luck getting a 6800(XT)/30X0 by XMas without paying double the MSRP xD


Last edited by poisond on 1 December 2020 at 6:39 pm UTC
Mohandevir Dec 1, 2020
That said, even if this new green card seems well priced, I'm finally about to quit using nvidia by christmas for AMD.
YAY!

Good luck getting a 6800(XT)/30X0 by XMas without paying double the MSRP xD

Quite the same for all next gen GPU. Team Green's GPUs, in the RTX 30x0 series, are not easier to find or cheaper, atm.

Not sure it's going to be better with this one either. Better wait for January... Maybe.


Last edited by Mohandevir on 1 December 2020 at 7:07 pm UTC
slaapliedje Dec 1, 2020
There are few demanding AAA's on Linux. Most of my library works on my second hand 970 i bought for 180 € in 2016. When i will buy metro exodus i will let some graphic options down and maybe play it again if i get a better graphic card.

Borderlands 2 runs better at 720P but is kinda dead now and Alien Isolation too runs at 720P.

So i'll wait more.
Ha, I am the exact opposite, if I can't get playable frame rates at max resolution / settings, I will upgrade.
Granted with my monitor being 3840x1200@144hz, I may need to upgrade to either the 3080 or 6800 XT soon enough.
minfaer Dec 1, 2020
Seems interesting. How is Wayland support in the driver these days? GPU acceleration in XWayland available?

If not, no thanks, wake me up when AMD 6700 is released...
kokoko3k Dec 1, 2020
That said, even if this new green card seems well priced, I'm finally about to quit using nvidia by christmas for AMD.
YAY!

Good luck getting a 6800(XT)/30X0 by XMas without paying double the MSRP xD
Who said 6800?
You said it!
Thanks, take your time, i've pm'ed you my address, no hurry ;)
Kimyrielle Dec 1, 2020
As long as you're not going for 4K gaming, the GeForce RTS 3060 Ti seems like a winner, and would likely be exactly what I would be going for if I was going to be building a system.

Is there still a reason to go for NVidia rather than AMD these days? I am shopping around for a new system too, but have basically ruled out NVidia, because AMD seems to be the much better deal these days, and getting rid of their proprietary driver rubbish is an added plus.
Shmerl Dec 2, 2020
I think there will be demanding games that will benefit from high end cards even on 2560x1440, not just on 4K. After some analysis, I'm planning to get RX 6800 XT to be able eventually to play Cyberpunk 2077 on high settings with 2560x1440.

Also note, that apparently vkd3d-proton performance with Nvidia is not good, unlike with AMD. Phoronix tests don't really cover vkd3d-proton and dxvk in general, meaning those benchmarks don't tell the real story you'll be experiencing if you are using Wine / Proton, which is potentially a big amount of games. This will become more and more critical if there will be more games using DX12, which unfortunately is the current trend.

The real issue now is availability. I suspect there won't be any new cards available until next year.

Is there still a reason to go for NVidia rather than AMD these days? I am shopping around for a new system too, but have basically ruled out NVidia, because AMD seems to be the much better deal these days, and getting rid of their proprietary driver rubbish is an added plus.

I don't think there is any reason to use it for gaming on Linux these days. The only ones who might have a strong reason to use Nvidia on Linux are those who are stuck with something that's using CUDA lock-in and can't easily migrate from it.


Last edited by Shmerl on 2 December 2020 at 4:45 am UTC
slaapliedje Dec 2, 2020
I think there will be demanding games that will benefit from high end cards even on 2560x1440, not just on 4K. After some analysis, I'm planning to get RX 6800 XT to be able eventually to play Cyberpunk 2077 on high settings with 2560x1440.

Also note, that apparently vkd3d-proton performance with Nvidia is not good, unlike with AMD. Phoronix tests don't really cover vkd3d-proton and dxvk in general, meaning those benchmarks don't tell the real story you'll be experiencing if you are using Wine / Proton, which is potentially a big amount of games. This will become more and more critical if there will be more games using DX12, which unfortunately is the current trend.

The real issue now is availability. I suspect there won't be any new cards available until next year.

Is there still a reason to go for NVidia rather than AMD these days? I am shopping around for a new system too, but have basically ruled out NVidia, because AMD seems to be the much better deal these days, and getting rid of their proprietary driver rubbish is an added plus.

I don't think there is any reason to use it for gaming on Linux these days. The only ones who might have a strong reason to use Nvidia on Linux are those who are stuck with something that's using CUDA lock-in and can't easily migrate from it.
I think I've decided I am going to attempt an AMD RX6800 XT as well. The big question is... where can you get one? :P
Shmerl Dec 2, 2020
I think I've decided I am going to attempt an AMD RX6800 XT as well. The big question is... where can you get one? :P

I'm waiting for Sapphire to release their Pulse model of RX 6800 XT. But I don't think it will be available anywhere until next year at least.
furaxhornyx Dec 2, 2020
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Is there still a reason to go for NVidia rather than AMD these days? I am shopping around for a new system too, but have basically ruled out NVidia, because AMD seems to be the much better deal these days, and getting rid of their proprietary driver rubbish is an added plus.

When looking on ProtonDB for some game compatibilities, I found that, when people mentionned graphical bugs/artifacts, most of the time they had an AMD GPU. People with similar spec, but on nVidia, usually did not encounter these issues.
Also, I think that there is an additional parameter to specifiy when using an AMD GPU for some games.

Just my 2 cents though, I didn't go into full-fledged statistical analysis on that, it's just some kind of trend I noticed
poisond Dec 2, 2020
Also note, that apparently vkd3d-proton performance with Nvidia is not good, unlike with AMD. Phoronix tests don't really cover vkd3d-proton and dxvk in general, meaning those benchmarks don't tell the real story you'll be experiencing if you are using Wine / Proton, which is potentially a big amount of games. This will become more and more critical if there will be more games using DX12, which unfortunately is the current trend.

DXVK experience/performance is good on NVidia ;)

Phoronix did a few DXVK tests, maybe you missed them:
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=rx6800-more-performance&num=4
I have no idea how you come to the conclusion that NVidia performs worse for DXVK titles when all evidence points to the opposite.

I don't own any DX12 titles yet, but maybe you have some benchmarks to support your claims?

You can also consult https://www.protondb.com/stats by GPU (spoiler, NVidia does better)

Also there wasn't any hardware available that had comparable performance to NVidia until now so that statement is kind of silly since it was impossible get as good performance on AMD. I could say how bad the 5700XT experience was compared to a 1080TI ... but that would make as much sense as your claim.


The real issue now is availability. I suspect there won't be any new cards available until next year.
Yeah, by the time I've watched a review and read the phoronix article all 6800XTs were gone >.< Supply must've lasted mere seconds and no restock in my country since then.


Is there still a reason to go for NVidia rather than AMD these days? I am shopping around for a new system too, but have basically ruled out NVidia, because AMD seems to be the much better deal these days, and getting rid of their proprietary driver rubbish is an added plus.

I don't think there is any reason to use it for gaming on Linux these days. The only ones who might have a strong reason to use Nvidia on Linux are those who are stuck with something that's using CUDA lock-in and can't easily migrate from it.

NVENC for in home streaming, streaming and generally people who do a lot of video encoding. Because AMDs HW encoder is horrid in comparison (quality, performance)

Also couldn't get VR working on AMD without compiling a specific git mesa version. Even then it was a stuttery and unstable mess - for a card that was released over a year prior. Great experience ^^
3zekiel Dec 2, 2020
As long as you're not going for 4K gaming, the GeForce RTS 3060 Ti seems like a winner, and would likely be exactly what I would be going for if I was going to be building a system.

Is there still a reason to go for NVidia rather than AMD these days? I am shopping around for a new system too, but have basically ruled out NVidia, because AMD seems to be the much better deal these days, and getting rid of their proprietary driver rubbish is an added plus.

Ray tracing is coming, and it is to be expected that it will be ubiquitous real fast now. And you can check on gamer nexus bench for RT on 3060TI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9H2PfYDFok which will tell you why you should go nvidia from that point (for gaming at least)... And the more modern the game/RT implem, the worst it is. RT is coming to Linux too when you see all the moves around vulkan ray tracing etc. I don't know if dlss will come to linux/dxvk etc too, I certainly hope so (and I suspect from leaks dlss 3.0 is near and will bring dlss to most games...), and then this will be a massive burial.
As such, unless you plan to change card in 1 year, you should not look at raster performance, but at more interesting RT, and nvidia utterly dominates here, a 400€ card is better than the 700€ card for AMD. Also, AMD MSRP is a total lie, and even when they are in stock, I don't expect to see any card at less than 100€ more than msrp or not before a very long time, making it not much of a sweet deal in the end. At least nvidia has founder editions to control the price.
Also, whether we like it or not (I don't but well), CUDA is here to stay too... And CUDA is Nvidia. Now, the experience is certainly better than opencl overall, so I'm not gonna blame anyone for staying on CUDA/Nvidia either. Just it is a pain in the ass to setup sometimes... That is smthg I'd love for Nvidia to open source more the framework so we can use/install it more easily.

Now, AMD has open source driver, which is a big pro, and I wish Nvidia could finally open at least the kernel module. But without RT perf to back it, AMD cards will become expensive open source paperweights before long, and for compute, it lacks CUDA, so is basically non existant.


Last edited by 3zekiel on 2 December 2020 at 12:45 pm UTC
Cybolic Dec 2, 2020
[...] I have no idea how you come to the conclusion that NVidia performs worse for DXVK titles when all evidence points to the opposite.

I don't own any DX12 titles yet, but maybe you have some benchmarks to support your claims? [...]
I can't link to benchmarks, but I can point you at user YoRHa-2B - who actually works on DXVK - and their comments regarding NVIDIA, such as:
"On Nvidia though? Complete dogshit. Horizon Zero Dawn runs significantly slower on a 1080 Ti than it does on my RX 480 (...)"
and
"(vkd3d) has some cursed workarounds for Nvidia driver/hardware limitations to improve stability"
I'll let you look around for yourself for a bigger picture, but the impression I get as well, is that NVIDIA's drivers have issues with DXVK that don't exist with AMD.

You can also consult https://www.protondb.com/stats by GPU (spoiler, NVidia does better)
By 6% for Platinum ratings and 1% for Silver and Bronze. With the disparity between the amount of AMD and NVIDIA user, that's pretty much within noise ratio.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled flame-war :P


Last edited by Cybolic on 2 December 2020 at 3:07 pm UTC
x_wing Dec 2, 2020
Ray tracing is coming, and it is to be expected that it will be ubiquitous real fast now. And you can check on gamer nexus bench for RT on 3060TI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9H2PfYDFok which will tell you why you should go nvidia from that point (for gaming at least)... And the more modern the game/RT implem, the worst it is. RT is coming to Linux too when you see all the moves around vulkan ray tracing etc. I don't know if dlss will come to linux/dxvk etc too, I certainly hope so (and I suspect from leaks dlss 3.0 is near and will bring dlss to most games...), and then this will be a massive burial.
As such, unless you plan to change card in 1 year, you should not look at raster performance, but at more interesting RT, and nvidia utterly dominates here, a 400€ card is better than the 700€ card for AMD. Also, AMD MSRP is a total lie, and even when they are in stock, I don't expect to see any card at less than 100€ more than msrp or not before a very long time, making it not much of a sweet deal in the end. At least nvidia has founder editions to control the price.

RT won't be the standard until you have RT capable hardware in all your GPU tiers. Either way, we are on Linux and to the date you can only play two games on Linux with RT (AFAIK). And the DLSS situation is just worst (and lets keep away future "improvements" predictions). From a Linux gaming experience, you should definitely take a look on the raster performance as this are the only benchs you can get on our platform. In the end, DLSS and RT are gimmick features for Linux.

Also, whether we like it or not (I don't but well), CUDA is here to stay too... And CUDA is Nvidia. Now, the experience is certainly better than opencl overall, so I'm not gonna blame anyone for staying on CUDA/Nvidia either. Just it is a pain in the ass to setup sometimes... That is smthg I'd love for Nvidia to open source more the framework so we can use/install it more easily.

As you implies, CUDA is just important for a minority of the gaming market, just like VR capabilities are.
minfaer Dec 2, 2020
Ray tracing is coming, and it is to be expected that it will be ubiquitous real fast now.

But will it come before 2018 aka Wayland in production use? Oh, wait, it's already 2020! Using a 27' 4k screen, I already depend on it in production for fractional scaling.

AMD cards will become expensive open source paperweights before long
Until they do not offer acceleration in XWayland, NVidias cards are 'expensive closed source' paperweights for Games right NOW for me. Ofc, your situation can be different (so this is not to answer Kimyrielle's original question about there being any use, but rather to comment the fallacies in reply to it).

Even putting OSS ideals aside, what I see is NVidias driver stack more and more failing to enable a modern Linux desktop experience, not for being badly implemented, but for being at odds with the Linux model architecturally. Just look at the EGLStreams mess. If they want to address these problems, this would require NVidia to rewrite large parts of their driver in a way more compatible with Linux's model, and therefore lose the advatages they get from sharing large parts of the codebase with Windows.

They were the best on the market in the early 2010s, but AMD has integrated much better into the Linux ecosystem and is now offering the superior driver situation for general desktop use and Intel always had a good practice for Linux drivers and upstreaming graphics stuff. I'm looking forward to them joining the dGPU market.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.