GeForce RTX 3060 vs RTX 3090

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Aggregate performance score

We've compared GeForce RTX 3090 and GeForce RTX 3060, covering specs and all relevant benchmarks.

RTX 3090
2020
24 GB GDDR6X, 350 Watt
69.35
+56.4%

RTX 3090 outperforms RTX 3060 by an impressive 56% based on our aggregate benchmark results.

Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in the ranking2483
Place by popularitynot in top-1004
Cost-effectiveness evaluation14.9270.83
Power efficiency13.5717.86
ArchitectureAmpere (2020−2024)Ampere (2020−2024)
GPU code nameGA102GA106
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Release date1 September 2020 (4 years ago)12 January 2021 (3 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$1,499 $329

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

RTX 3060 has 375% better value for money than RTX 3090.

Detailed specifications

General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores104963584
Core clock speed1395 MHz1320 MHz
Boost clock speed1695 MHz1777 MHz
Number of transistors28,300 million12,000 million
Manufacturing process technology8 nm8 nm
Power consumption (TDP)350 Watt170 Watt
Texture fill rate556.0199.0
Floating-point processing power35.58 TFLOPS12.74 TFLOPS
ROPs11248
TMUs328112
Tensor Cores328112
Ray Tracing Cores8228

Form factor & compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

InterfacePCIe 4.0 x16PCIe 4.0 x16
Length336 mm242 mm
Width3-slot2-slot
Supplementary power connectors1x 12-pin1x 12-pin

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory typeGDDR6XGDDR6
Maximum RAM amount24 GB12 GB
Memory bus width384 Bit192 Bit
Memory clock speed1219 MHz1875 MHz
Memory bandwidth936.2 GB/s360.0 GB/s
Shared memory--

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display Connectors1x HDMI, 3x DisplayPort1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a
HDMI++

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX12 Ultimate (12_2)12 Ultimate (12_2)
Shader Model6.56.7
OpenGL4.64.6
OpenCL2.03.0
Vulkan1.21.3
CUDA8.58.6

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark results comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.


Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

RTX 3090 69.35
+56.4%
RTX 3060 44.34

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

RTX 3090 26720
+56.4%
RTX 3060 17085

3DMark 11 Performance GPU

3DMark 11 is an obsolete DirectX 11 benchmark by Futuremark. It used four tests based on two scenes, one being few submarines exploring the submerged wreck of a sunken ship, the other is an abandoned temple deep in the jungle. All the tests are heavy with volumetric lighting and tessellation, and despite being done in 1280x720 resolution, are relatively taxing. Discontinued in January 2020, 3DMark 11 is now superseded by Time Spy.

RTX 3090 61518
+117%
RTX 3060 28375

3DMark Vantage Performance

3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.

RTX 3090 124350
+56%
RTX 3060 79706

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics

Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests displaying a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.

RTX 3090 47241
+121%
RTX 3060 21379

3DMark Cloud Gate GPU

Cloud Gate is an outdated DirectX 11 feature level 10 benchmark that was used for home PCs and basic notebooks. It displays a few scenes of some weird space teleportation device launching spaceships into unknown, using fixed resolution of 1280x720. Just like Ice Storm benchmark, it has been discontinued in January 2020 and replaced by 3DMark Night Raid.

RTX 3090 231612
+91.8%
RTX 3060 120745

GeekBench 5 OpenCL

Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses OpenCL API by Khronos Group.

RTX 3090 191323
+117%
RTX 3060 88251

3DMark Ice Storm GPU

Ice Storm Graphics is an obsolete benchmark, part of 3DMark suite. Ice Storm was used to measure entry level laptops and Windows-based tablets performance. It utilizes DirectX 11 feature level 9 to display a battle between two space fleets near a frozen planet in 1280x720 resolution. Discontinued in January 2020, it is now superseded by 3DMark Night Raid.

RTX 3090 779348
+44.9%
RTX 3060 537787

GeekBench 5 Vulkan

Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses Vulkan API by AMD & Khronos Group.

RTX 3090 178421
+98.4%
RTX 3060 89918

GeekBench 5 CUDA

Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses CUDA API by NVIDIA.

RTX 3090 238123
+141%
RTX 3060 98715

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 maya-04

RTX 3090 300
+71.4%
RTX 3060 175

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 sw-03

RTX 3090 105
+56.2%
RTX 3060 67

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 snx-02

RTX 3090 16
+86.4%
RTX 3060 9

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 catia-04

RTX 3090 170
+128%
RTX 3060 75

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 creo-01

RTX 3090 93
+86.2%
RTX 3060 50

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 mediacal-01

RTX 3090 86
+111%
RTX 3060 41

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 showcase-01

RTX 3090 262
+130%
RTX 3060 114

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 energy-01

RTX 3090 26
+156%
RTX 3060 10

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 3dsmax-05

RTX 3090 368
+83.1%
RTX 3060 201

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular games across different resolutions:

Full HD198
+58.4%
125
−58.4%
1440p129
+65.4%
78
−65.4%
4K86
+72%
50
−72%

Cost per frame, $

1080p7.572.63
1440p11.624.22
4K17.436.58

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077 207
+162%
79
−162%

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 159
+71%
90−95
−71%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 114
+11.8%
102
−11.8%
Battlefield 5 220−230
+56.3%
140−150
−56.3%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 110−120
+33.7%
85−90
−33.7%
Cyberpunk 2077 176
+126%
78
−126%
Far Cry 5 110−120
+25.8%
90−95
−25.8%
Far Cry New Dawn 160−170
+56.5%
100−110
−56.5%
Forza Horizon 4 230−240
+17.2%
200−210
−17.2%
Hitman 3 117
−2.6%
120
+2.6%
Horizon Zero Dawn 250−260
+41.3%
170−180
−41.3%
Metro Exodus 144
+5.9%
130−140
−5.9%
Red Dead Redemption 2 130
+31.3%
95−100
−31.3%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 290−300
+75.9%
160−170
−75.9%
Watch Dogs: Legion 200
+48.1%
130−140
−48.1%

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 247
+166%
90−95
−166%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 105
+23.5%
85
−23.5%
Battlefield 5 220−230
+56.3%
140−150
−56.3%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 110−120
+33.7%
85−90
−33.7%
Cyberpunk 2077 151
+101%
75
−101%
Far Cry 5 110−120
+25.8%
90−95
−25.8%
Far Cry New Dawn 160−170
+56.5%
100−110
−56.5%
Forza Horizon 4 230−240
+17.2%
200−210
−17.2%
Hitman 3 117
+0.9%
116
−0.9%
Horizon Zero Dawn 250−260
+41.3%
170−180
−41.3%
Metro Exodus 144
+5.9%
130−140
−5.9%
Red Dead Redemption 2 120−130
+23.2%
95−100
−23.2%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 402
+123%
180
−123%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 140−150
+63.7%
90−95
−63.7%
Watch Dogs: Legion 199
+47.4%
130−140
−47.4%

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 108
+16.1%
90−95
−16.1%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 91
+21.3%
75
−21.3%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 110−120
+33.7%
85−90
−33.7%
Cyberpunk 2077 134
+109%
64
−109%
Far Cry 5 110−120
+25.8%
90−95
−25.8%
Forza Horizon 4 217
+6.9%
200−210
−6.9%
Hitman 3 116
+14.9%
101
−14.9%
Horizon Zero Dawn 295
+108%
142
−108%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 351
+128%
154
−128%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 181
+148%
73
−148%
Watch Dogs: Legion 107
+81.4%
59
−81.4%

Full HD
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2 129
+30.3%
95−100
−30.3%

1440p
High Preset

Battlefield 5 160−170
+89.7%
85−90
−89.7%
Far Cry New Dawn 110−120
+61.8%
65−70
−61.8%

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 93
+89.8%
45−50
−89.8%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 79
+31.7%
60
−31.7%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 80−85
+55.8%
50−55
−55.8%
Cyberpunk 2077 93
+138%
39
−138%
Far Cry 5 80−85
+58.8%
50−55
−58.8%
Forza Horizon 4 270−280
+12.4%
240−250
−12.4%
Hitman 3 115
+69.1%
68
−69.1%
Horizon Zero Dawn 233
+120%
106
−120%
Metro Exodus 139
+56.2%
89
−56.2%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 266
+131%
115
−131%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 152
+127%
65−70
−127%
Watch Dogs: Legion 203
−1%
200−210
+1%

1440p
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2 127
+67.1%
75−80
−67.1%

4K
High Preset

Battlefield 5 85−90
+93.3%
45−50
−93.3%
Far Cry New Dawn 65−70
+81.6%
35−40
−81.6%
Hitman 3 83
+84.4%
45
−84.4%
Horizon Zero Dawn 220−230
+15.9%
190−200
−15.9%
Metro Exodus 141
+139%
55−60
−139%
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 153
+143%
63
−143%

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 70
+126%
30−35
−126%
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 57
+50%
38
−50%
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 50−55
+75.9%
27−30
−75.9%
Cyberpunk 2077 46
+156%
18
−156%
Far Cry 5 50−55
+85.2%
27−30
−85.2%
Forza Horizon 4 153
+143%
60−65
−143%
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 159
+137%
67
−137%
Watch Dogs: Legion 60
+122%
27
−122%

4K
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2 111
+178%
40−45
−178%

This is how RTX 3090 and RTX 3060 compete in popular games:

  • RTX 3090 is 58% faster in 1080p
  • RTX 3090 is 65% faster in 1440p
  • RTX 3090 is 72% faster in 4K

Here's the range of performance differences observed across popular games:

  • in Red Dead Redemption 2, with 4K resolution and the Epic Preset, the RTX 3090 is 178% faster.
  • in Hitman 3, with 1080p resolution and the Medium Preset, the RTX 3060 is 3% faster.

All in all, in popular games:

  • RTX 3090 is ahead in 70 tests (97%)
  • RTX 3060 is ahead in 2 tests (3%)

Pros & cons summary


Performance score 69.35 44.34
Recency 1 September 2020 12 January 2021
Maximum RAM amount 24 GB 12 GB
Power consumption (TDP) 350 Watt 170 Watt

RTX 3090 has a 56.4% higher aggregate performance score, and a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount.

RTX 3060, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 4 months, and 105.9% lower power consumption.

The GeForce RTX 3090 is our recommended choice as it beats the GeForce RTX 3060 in performance tests.


Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

Vote for your favorite

Do you think we are right or mistaken in our choice? Vote by clicking "Like" button near your favorite graphics card.


NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090
GeForce RTX 3090
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060
GeForce RTX 3060

Comparisons with similar GPUs

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Community ratings

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