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Nvidia has launched its GeForce RTX 40 series (Ada) graphics cards, but the chipmaker isn’t ready to say goodbye to Ampere just yet. Similarly, Nvidia has not officially announced his GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X, but Asus has just confirmed the existence of his new Ampere SKU.
The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X is part of a rumored update that includes models such as the GeForce RTX 3060 GDDR6X, GeForce RTX 3060 8GB and GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GA102. The update suggests that Nvidia may have amassed too many amp dies and is looking for ways to get rid of them. So the next contender for best graphics card might not be Ada, but Nvidia’s Ampere family.
The TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8G GDDR6X and TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition 8G GDDR6X graphics cards have been added to the Asus website, as first noticed by VideoCardz. The later variant has an overclock built in from the factory. The normal GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition increases to 1,665 MHz, the same boost clock as the basic version. But the Asus graphics cards offer an overclocking setting that raises the clock speed to 1,695 MHz. The OC edition, on the other hand, features a 1785MHz OC boost clock in addition to the default boost clock of 1775MHz.
Improved boost clock speeds help the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X deliver higher performance than the vanilla version. The real star of the show, however, is the move from 14 Gbps GDDR6 memory to 19 Gbps GDDR6X memory. Even though the memory capacity and 256-bit interface remain the same, GDDR6X memory increases the memory throughput of Ampere graphics cards.
The TDP of Asus’ GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X custom graphics card is regrettably not listed. It is currently unknown how much GDDR6X memory will impact the graphics card’s TDP. The new model appears to use more power, per Asus’ design.
The standard GeForce RTX 3060 Ti offers up to 448 GBps of memory bandwidth, while the GDDR6X variant offers up to 608 GBps. The new SKU represents a 36% improvement.In a previous leak (opens in new tab), the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X outperformed the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti by up to 10%. It remains to be seen if the higher memory bandwidth will yield any noticeable improvement in real-world gaming.
Only one 8-pin PCIe power connector is used by the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition 8GB GDDR6 graphics card. The TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition 8G GDDR6X, in comparison, comes with two 8-pin PCIe power connectors from Asus. Since the boost clock on both graphics cards is identical, clock speed is not the cause of the increased power needs. Instead, it is based on the type of memory.