Nvidia GeForce RTX 3000 series presented: Which is the right graphics card for you?
A ADVICE from Andreas Rossmann 
on February 03, 2021, 15:00 p.m. | 1 comment
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3000 series was released in September, but it is not yet complete. Some cards are still to come and the availability of the existing ones can only be rumored after 4 months. In this guide, however, I would like to explain to you which models are available and how they differ from one another.
The first of the three cards, the RTX 3080, was released on September 17, 2020 and was completely sold out after a few moments. The same fate met the 3090 and 3070 - also no longer available immediately after the launch. Another card was presented on December 02nd: It bears the name RTX 3060-Ti and its smaller brother, the RTX 3060, is due to follow at the end of February. But what are the differences?
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RTX 3090: The flagship for 1.500 euros
The RTX 3090 is currently proving to be the fastest graphics card from Nvidia.
It has over 10.000 CUDA cores, achieves a boost clock of 1,7 GHz and offers 24 GB of GDDR6X graphics memory to stay ahead even in 8K gaming. According to the user benchmark, it is around 15 Procents faster in "Real World Speed" than the 3080 and by a full 31 Procent faster than the predecessor RTX 2080-Ti.
Image: Nvidia
RTX 3080: The upper class gaming
The second most powerful model in the RTX 3000 series shouldn't be intimidated by the monster 3090. It halves the price of the 3090 and is the golden gaming upper class at 700 euros. The RTX 3080 has over 8.000 CUDA cores and has a slightly higher boost clock of 1,71 GHz compared to the 3090. The memory capacity has been dropped to 10 GB GDDR6X. Nevertheless, she should only be there at 15 p.m Procent (Real World Speed) slower than the 3090, which is twice as expensive. Compared to the RTX 2080-Ti, it is around 7 Procent (Game EFps) faster and in the "Real World Speed" area by a full 15 Procent.
By the way, Game EFps means Effective Frames pro Second. This unit doesn't just rely on the average number of images pro second, but also calculates the frame drops.
Image: Nvidia
RTX 3070: The "cheap" predecessor
The high-performance RTX 3070 from Nvidia should annoy RTX 2080 Ti and 2080 super buyers. It has almost the same performance as its 1.000 euro predecessor, i.e. the 2080-Ti, and costs only half. The RTX 3070 has 5.800 CUDA processing units and has one of the highest boost clock frequencies (1,73 GHz) in the family. Furthermore, the memory drops to 8 GB. Only the GDDR6 memory is installed.
She holds on bravely, but loses by 11 Procent on the Game EFps against the RTX 3080. Compared to the 2080-Super, the 3070 is around 10 Procent (Real World Speed) faster. The 3070 is almost on par with the 2080-Ti - it only lags a maximum of 4 Procent (Game EFps) after.
Image: Nvidia
RTX 3060-Ti: price-performance winner
The 3060-Ti is aimed at the middle class. It tries to convince with an attractive price, which is only 100 euros below the RTX 3070. A price of 400 euros is particularly attractive for those who want to buy a used GTX 1080-Ti (the upper class from 2017).
The CUDA processing units drop to 4864 and the boost clock also drops a little - to 1,67 GHz. The memory type is identical to the 3070 (8GB GDDR6). The performance of the 3060-Ti is almost on par with the 1080-Ti (Real World Speed). Its big brother, the RTX 3070, is only 7 short Procent (Game EFps). She should only be around 4 Procent (Real World Speed) slower than the 2080 super card. For comparison purposes: the predecessor card 2060-Super is almost 40 Procent slower than the 2080-Super - and is the same price as the 3060-Ti.
Image: computerbase.de
RTX 3060: Coming soon
The RTX 3060, which will be released in February, should undercut the Ti brother by 80 euros and is therefore even more attractive at 320 euros. But is it worth the savings or should you save on the Ti version?
According to Nvidia, the RTX 3060 should lose some CUDA processing units, so that it only has 3584 units. However, the boost clock increases to 1,78GHz. She wants to show off with her 12 GB GDDR6. Why the card will have more memory than the 3080 and 3070 is because the width of the memory interface is reduced from 256-bit (all higher RTX cards have) to 192-bit.
Actual performance has only been determined by Nvidia at the moment and is shown in the following three graphs.
The 3060 is around 30 Procent slower than the Ti series. (Image: Nvidia)
Buy Nvidia GeForce RTX 3000 series
If you are hoping to buy the next-gen under the following three links, I will unfortunately have to partially disappoint you. The 3080 is currently hardly or not at all available. The other two are buzzing around on different pages for a good 200 to 400 euros more. Try your luck here: case king, notebooksbilliger and Nvidia.
Userbenchmark and Nvidia
the 3090 is ONLY available in the FE from nvidia for the specified 1500 €! all other models from third party manufacturers are currently priced from 1800-2500 €!
does it make sense to write purchase advice for items that are currently not available anywhere?