NVIDIA announced its GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB graphics card back at CES 2021 and is all set to debut later this month. The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, unlike the existing GeForce RTX 30 products, is going to make use of a brand new Ampere GPU known as the GA106.
NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB Graphics Card's GPU Pictured, The Ampere GA106
Leaked by Videocardz, the GA106 GPU will be the latest addition to the Ampere gaming lineup of GPUs. We have already seen two other GPUs in action in the gaming segment which include the GA102 and the GA104 while the GA100 is positioned towards the HPC and AI segment, exclusively.
One interesting thing to note here is that the particular Ampere GPU SKU is GA106-400 and not the GA106-300 which is what NVIDIA will actually be using for its GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB graphics card & the reason mentioned by the source is that this particular chip was featured on an early ES card before NVIDIA went back to the drawing board and decided to use the cut-down GA106-300 die on the GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card. The GA106-400 GPU SKU features a total of 3840 CUDA cores while the GA106-300 GPU SKU features 3584 CUDA cores. The package size of the GA106 chip is the same as the GA104 GPU while the die itself is much smaller.
It is estimated that the GA106 GPU measures at around 276mm2 which is even smaller than the TU116 GPU which measured at 284mm2. So overall, you're getting much more horsepower in a much smaller die area than before. The TU116 GPU also lacked raytracing hardware and that was only enabled on the TU106 GPU which measured at 445mm2 which is larger than the GA104 GPU.
Other than that, the PCB can be seen making use of the Samsung K4ZAF3258M-HC16 memory modules. These modules are clocked at 16 Gbps and since they are running across a 192-bit bus interface, we will be looking at a cumulative bandwidth of 384 GB/s. Each module also features 2 GB of VRAM capacity and since there are 6 modules in total, the RTX 3060 will feature 12 GB of GDDR6 memory capacity.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series 'Ampere' Graphics Card Specifications:
| Graphics Card Name | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU Name | Ampere GA106-300 | Ampere GA104-200 | Ampere GA104-300 | Ampere GA102-200 | Ampere GA102-300 |
| Process Node | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm |
| Die Size | TBC | 395.2mm2 | 395.2mm2 | 628.4mm2 | 628.4mm2 |
| Transistors | TBC | 17.4 Billion | 17.4 Billion | 28 Billion | 28 Billion |
| CUDA Cores | 3584 | 4864 | 5888 | 8704 | 10496 |
| TMUs / ROPs | 112 / 64 | 152 / 80 | 184 / 96 | 272 / 96 | 328 / 112 |
| Tensor / RT Cores | 112 / 28 | 152 / 38 | 184 / 46 | 272 / 68 | 328 / 82 |
| Base Clock | 1320 MHz | 1410 MHz | 1500 MHz | 1440 MHz | 1400 MHz |
| Boost Clock | 1780 MHz | 1665 MHz | 1730 MHz | 1710 MHz | 1700 MHz |
| FP32 Compute | 13 TFLOPs | 16 TFLOPs | 20 TFLOPs | 30 TFLOPs | 36 TFLOPs |
| RT TFLOPs | 25 TFLOPs | 32 TFLOPs | 40 TFLOPs | 58 TFLOPs | 69 TFLOPs |
| Tensor-TOPs | 101 TOPs | 192 TOPs | 163 TOPs | 238 TOPs | 285 TOPs |
| Memory Capacity | 12 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 | 10 GB GDDR6X | 24 GB GDDR6X |
| Memory Bus | 192-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 320-bit | 384-bit |
| Memory Speed | 16 Gbps | 14 Gbps | 14 Gbps | 19 Gbps | 19.5 Gbps |
| Bandwidth | 384 Gbps | 448 Gbps | 448 Gbps | 760 Gbps | 936 Gbps |
| TGP | 170W | 175W | 220W | 320W | 350W |
| Price (MSRP / FE) | $329 US | $399 US | $499 US | $699 US | $1499 US |
| Launch (Availability) | 25th February 2021 | 2nd December 2020 | 29th October 2020 | 17th September 2020 | 24th September 2020 |
Overall, it will be interesting to see where the final performance of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB graphics card lands. It will cost $329 US and is expected to be as fast as the GeForce RTX 2080 with a much lower power draw and better ray-tracing capabilities.
