Nvidia’s new RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 Ti GPUs may still be impossible to get your hands on right now, but if you’ve been thinking about upgrading your graphics card recently and are not sure which one to go for it is finally back in stock, then you are in the right place. To help you decide which graphics card is the right one for you, I have put together some handy standard graphics to show you exactly how it is put together in all the biggest and best computer games of today at 1080p, 1440p and 4K.
To test the RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 Ti, I paired it with an Intel Core i5-10600K processor and 16GB of Corsair Vengeance LED RAM, and put them head to head in my range of graphics standards and take an average frame rate of their own built-in benchmarking tools or of my own repeatable manual spelling tests. The games contain a mix of movies from the past few years: Shadow Of The Tomb Raider, Total War: Three Kingdoms, Final Fantasy XV, Monster Hunter: World, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, The Witcher 3, Metro Exodus and Cyberpunk 2077.
For this particular head-to-head, I used the Nvidia Founders Edition of the RTX 3060 Ti and Zotac’s GeForce RTX 3070 Twin Edge. These were the cards I used for my respective GPU reviews, and I used both cards at their standard clock speeds when it came in the box. As a result, they should be fairly representative of what their respective card categories are capable of. I should also note that these figures are based on their raw performance in each of these games, with all ray tracing and DLSS options out. Here’s how they went about it.
Nvidia RTX 3070 vs 3060 Ti: 1080p benchmarks
Start with their 1920 × 1080 performance, you can immediately see that both of these cards in this resolution are more than capable of playing games at maximum settings, and in the most demanding computer games of 2020, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Cyberpunk 2077, and at least 70 fps (or so approximately) to strike. more than 100 fps in the big games of 2018 and 2019.
In many cases, the RTX 3070 offers about 10-20fps improvement over the RTX 3060 Ti, although there are quite a few cases where the gap is much smaller. In Final Fantasy XV, for example, both cards achieved an identical average of 103 fps, while all the extra Nvidia settings were eliminated at this resolution. I should note that the RTX 3070 regained its lead of ten odd fps as soon as I turned on all the above effects, averaging 82 fps compared to the RTX 3060 Ti’s 73 fps, but what the standard’s highest settings of the game concerns, a multitude. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is also very close, averaging just 3 fps between each card.
Admittedly, this is due to my choice of processor as a problem with the RTX 3070’s performance per se. While my Intel Core i5-10600K is quite powerful compared to previous generations of Intel’s Core i5 chips, 1920 × 1080 is still a resolution in which your CPU can make a surprising difference to the overall performance of your computer. Due to the large amount of power available on current RTX cards, games are much more likely to be bound by the limitations of your CPU at this resolution than your GPU. As such, you’ll probably see better results from the RTX 3070 here with a faster CPU.
However, if you do not have a high refresh rate monitor, the difference between these two cards will be completely lost anyway. What’s more, I’m not sure if I could have seen the difference between 100 fps and 110 fps without the help of a frame rate counter, say those playing games at 1080p would probably be better off sticking with the RTX 3060 Ti instead of spending any money. extra on the RTX 3070.
Nvidia RTX 3070 vs 3060 Ti: 1440p benchmark
It is indeed only when we move up to 2560 × 1440 that the RTX 3070 is starting to make a clearer case for itself. Again, both cards with this resolution can play games at maximum settings, and in most cases, the RTX 3070 is ahead with a similar 10fps lead over the RTX 3060 Ti.
There are still a few instances where the gap narrows, mainly in more recent games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Cyberpunk 2077, but elsewhere the lead of RTX 3070 is much clearer. Again, it is unlikely that in the short term you will see a big difference between the two cards without the help of a high refresh rate monitor, because even the RTX 3060 Ti can reach a smooth average of 60 fps in even the most demanding games of today – and that includes Cyberpunk 2077 once you turn on Nvidia’s DLSS technology.
In the long run, however, the RTX 3070 is likely to offer more futures than the RTX 3060 Ti for ultra-quality enemies, especially when it comes to staying firmly above the 60 fps line. With games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Total War: Three Kingdoms pushing the RTX 3060 Ti at just under 60 fps at maximum settings, the numbers are likely to drop further as games gradually become more demanding. The extra horsepower that the RTX 3070 offers, on the other hand, will almost certainly make you play at 60fps at maximum settings for a while longer – though that’s pretty hard to say, as Valhalla still has its fair share falling below 60fps -point.
Of course, this does not mean that the RTX 3060 Ti will be completely shut down within a year or two. Indeed, if you are content to drop the settings to High at 1440p, the RTX 3060 Ti would still not be able to hit more than 60 fps for a long time. With averages of 86 fps in Total War: Three Kingdoms on High, as well as 68 fps in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and 81 fps in Metro Exodus, the RTX 3060 Ti still has more than enough horsepower left to play at 1440p for a few more years .
Nvidia RTX 3070 vs 3060 Ti: 4K benchmarks
However, if it plays games at 3840 × 2160 it’s more your suitcase, then the RTX 3070 is definitely the winner here. As you can see below, the RTX 3060 Ti performs a reasonable battle at 4K, hitting around 60 fps at Medium settings in almost all the major games of today (except of course Cyberpunk 2077). This is pretty good for a card of this caliber, especially if you think that just a few years ago you would have had to pay more than double what the RTX 3060 Ti currently costs to achieve the same kind of performance.
However, if it now only manages a smooth 60 fps on Medium, it probably won’t be long before you’re forced to drop things with the RTX 3060 Ti on Low, and no one wants to do that, right? At that point, you might as well go back to games on 2560 × 1440 with much nicer graphics.
The RTX 3070, on the other hand, is much better equipped to play games on 4K. Again, newer titles like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Cyberpunk 2077 still put the pressure on this resolution (although Cyberpunk 2077 at least has DLSS support to help push the frame rate slightly), but older games are right there around the 70fps mark. Increase the quality setting to High, and you’ll see very smooth 60 fps in many games – or higher if you enable DLSS support.
Of course, the RTX 3060 Ti also benefits from DLSS. In Shadow Of The Tomb Raider, it can indeed achieve an impressive average of 64 fps on Highest at 4K with DLSS enabled, as well as a very pleasant 62 fps on High in Final Fantasy XV. Monster Hunter: World’s DLSS support enables the RTX 3060 Ti to also push to High, averaging 73 fps. These are certainly impressive numbers, but unless the number of DLSS games grows significantly over the next few years, it is very likely that you will be playing games on Medium or Low, given the current performance capabilities in games with no DLSS support.
Nvidia RTX 3070 vs 3060 Ti: Conclusion
All in all, I reckon that unless you want to play games with maximum settings all the time, then the RTX 3060 Ti is definitely the card to go here. At £ 369 / $ 399 it’s a bit cheaper than the £ 469 / $ 499 RTX 3070 (or at least it should be once prices and stock levels return to normal), and you still get 60 fps + speeds at both 1080p and 1440p . in virtually all of the greatest computer games of today.
Unless you are particularly sensitive to the frame rate of over 60 fps, I’m not sure you’ll really see the difference between these two cards if you want to reach 80-100 fps. I certainly can not distinguish between these types of frame rates without the help of a frame rate, so you might as well save cash and spend the extra £ 100 / $ 100 on something else for your computer, such as a nice 1TB SSD.
The RTX 3070 is worth considering if you are going to play games on 4K, of course, and it would also be my best Nvidia recommendation to play games on ultra-wide game monitors as well. However, for those with standard 1080p or 1440p monitors, the RTX 3060 Ti offers more than enough performance here, and is likely to keep you going for many years to come.
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