GeForce RTX 3060 vs GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB, which uses a 8 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 1260 MHz. The GDDR6X memory is set to run at a speed of 1188 MHz on this specific model. It features 8960 SPUs along with 280 Texture Address Units and 112 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce RTX 3060		170 Watts
GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		350 Watts
	Difference: 180 Watts (106%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB should be a lot faster than the GeForce RTX 3060 in general. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		934298 MB/sec
GeForce RTX 3060		368640 MB/sec
	Difference: 565658 (153%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB will be much (approximately 139%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce RTX 3060. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		352800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce RTX 3060		147840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 204960 (139%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		141120 Mpixels/sec
GeForce RTX 3060		63360 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 77760 (123%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.