It’s been quite a while since NVIDIA announced the RTX 3060 and with the price finally going down a little since the GPU shortage started, gamers can finally get their hands on the RTX 30 series graphics card after the long wait, hopefully. With that being said, we’ll be taking a look at another RTX 3060 in this review, and this time, it’s the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3060 OC Edition. Now it’s pretty obvious that it’s not going to overtake the RTX 3060 anytime soon when it comes to performance but we’ll be comparing it against a base RTX 3060 to see what kind of performance we can expect from the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3060 OC Edition.
Specifications
GPU | GeForce RTX 3060 | ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3060 OC Edition |
CUDA Cores | 3584 | 3584 |
Tensor Cores | 112 | 112 |
RT Cores | 28 | 28 |
ROPs | 48 | 48 |
GPU Boost Clock | 1777 MHz | 1882 MHz |
Memory Data Rate | 15 Gbps | 15 Gbps |
Total Video Memory Size | 12GB GDDR6 | 12GB GDDR6 |
Memory Interface | 192-bit | 192-bit |
Memory Bandwidth | 360 GB/s | 360 GB/s |
TDP | 170W | 170W |
Recommended PSU | 550W | 750W |
Power Connectors | – | 1 x PCIe 8-pin |
Unboxing
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While we’re not going to talk much about the packaging, I’d still say that the packaging is pretty well done, much to be expected from ASUS. At the front of the box, you’ll find the basic information such as the 12GB worth of VRAM the card has, the ‘OC Edition’ label that indicates the card is factory overclocked to deliver a slightly higher boost clock, etc.
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Design-wise, the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3060 OC Edition looks pretty much similar to the rest of the RTX 30 series ROG Strix cards, same looking triple-fan cooler except that it’s shorter in length. Compared to the renders from the marketing materials on their official website that is overly RGB-fied, the actual card itself is actually very decent.
A closer look shows that the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3060 OC Edition here is equipped with triple axial fans, which the middle fan spinning in an alternate direction to deliver better coverage on the heatsink and improve the overall cooling performance. The card will take up roughly 3 slots on your PCIe expansion slots but since it’s not colossal to begin with, it’ll fit in most standard PC cases without any issue.
For the power requirement, the recommended power supply as stated on the official product page is at a surprising 750W but the card will run just fine on a decent 650W power supply. Unlike the RTX 30 series Founders Edition cards that come with the new but unconventional 12-pin PCIe power socket, the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3060 OC Edition is still equipped with the more common 8-pin PCIe power socket that many of us are familiar with.
It’s 2021 and I don’t think you’ll find any RTX 3060 that comes without a metal backplate, especially for a ROG Strix card. Although it’s not made the same or similar to the higher-end RTX 30 series ROG Strix cards, the design overall is still considered decent.
A cutout can be found at the near end of the backplate, which helps to channel the hot hair to be exhausted through the rear cooling fan, similar to the cooling design on the Founders Edition cards. You’ll also find a dip switch located next to the PCIe socket to toggle between Performance and Quiet mode, depending on your preference.
For the display output, the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3060 OC Edition comes with a total of 3 x DisplayPort and 2 X HDMI. It’s good to see that ASUS actually included an extra HDMI this time, a really good inclusion I’d say, especially for users who use monitors with HDMI ports mostly.
Test System Setup
For our games benchmark test, we’ve selected a number of AAA titles to run at its highest possible settings using the following setup under an ambient temperature of 31°C:
CPU | Intel Core i9-10900K |
Motherboard | ASUS ROG Maximus XII Apex |
Memory | TEAMGROUP T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB DDR4 @3600MHz |
Graphics Card | ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3060 OC Edition |
Power Supply | Cooler Master V1200 Platinum |
Primary Storage | Kingston NV1 PCIe NVMe SSD 1TB |
Secondary Storage | WD Black 6TB |
CPU Cooler | Cooler MasterLiquid Master ML360R RGB |
Chassis | Streacom Open Benchtable BC1 |
Operating System | Windows 10 64bit |
Games Benchmark (DX12)
Starting off with the raster performance, 4K gaming is definitely out of the question for both the RTX 3060 and it’s not recommended unless you’re willing to go as far as to sacrifice most of the graphics just for the sake of gaming on 4K. 1080P is pretty much a piece of cake for the RTX 3060 and you can even play on 1440P with reasonable graphics, depending on how demanding the title is.
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Games Benchmark (DXR)
For the ray tracing performance, 1080P is pretty much the highest I would recommend for the RTX 3060. If you’re really pushing it for 1440P, you might be able to pull through with games that have DLSS 2.0 implemented, but 4K is definitely out of the question. Things might be a little different in the future if more game developers are willing to adopt DLSS for their upcoming games, especially DLSS 2.0 which offers a lot more flexibility on the presets as compared to the first-gen DLSS.
Thermals & Power Draw
We have both the ROG Strix RTX 3060 OC Edition and Manli RTX 3060 gone through the same tests with FurMark stress test and long hours gaming session test t
FurMark Load Test | Gaming Load Test | |
ROG Strix RTX 3060 OC Edition | 58ºC | 56ºC |
Manli RTX 3060 | 68ºC | 68ºC |
As for the power draw, we’ve noticed that the ROG Strix RTX 3060 OC Edition is drawing a total of 158W during FurMark stress test, slightly higher than the 140W that the Manli RTX 3060 is drawing throughout the same set of tests.
Final Thoughts
Performance-wise, the ROG Strix RTX 3060 OC Edition is an excellent card for 1080P gaming and a reasonable entry option for 1440P gaming. The ray-tracing performance isn’t as impressive as the RTX 3070 at least but you’ll still be able to enjoy a decent gaming experience in both 1080P and 1440P for newer titles that come with DLSS 2.0 that take advantage of the RT and Tensor cores to give you a reasonable performance boost in game.
The cooling performance great and it’s surprisingly quiet even when the card is on full load for a long period of time. Toggling between Performance and Quiet mode doesn’t really affect the performance much. As the highest load temperature recorded for Quiet mode is around 60ºC range, I’d recommend going for Quiet mode if you’re aiming to keep the noise level as low as possible.
Will I recommend the ROG Strix RTX 3060 OC Edition? Well, probably, if the price is deemed reasonable in the near future. The retail price of the ROG Strix RTX 3060 OC Edition is still ultra-expensive at this point, so if you’re not in a rush for an upgrade, I’d recommend waiting for just a little longer to see if the GPU price is indeed going down as most tech media claimed.