Final words and conclusion
Final words
KFA2/GALAX has sent out its value proposition graphics card, not a premium model. Realistically, if this card sits at that founder edition price and performance. The card is clocked a notch faster, but tweaking wise there's no leech left to OC on the power limiter. For that, you'd need to purchase the OC model, probably a tenner or two more expensive. This GeForce RTX 3060 Ti card thus sits at the 399 USD marker, and we can only hope that prices won't be any higher, as that would be a tough sell, with the NVIDIA Founder edition being so good already. This is a product that I like as it offers proper performance at WQHD levels for us common folk. Not just that, you'll have the added benefit of playing some games with hybrid raytracing, as well as the fact that NVIDIA has Tensor cores onboard, offering more perf at complex workloads with DLSS.
Performance
I've mentioned this in a couple of other reviews as well; ultimately, everything and anything it's all about gaming price, performance, and, of course, rendering quality. The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is a product that meets all these factors suitably; while we do feel the RTX 3070 offers oomph for money, the RTX 3060 Ti simply more reachable for a bigger crowd with a more normalized wallet. This card can still run games at 4K but not with raytracing for sure; it will serve you well at WQHD and Full HD. The easy comparative product would be RTX 2080 SUPER and often even close to that RTX 2080 Ti. And that's not a bad spot to be game performance-wise.
Cooling & noise levels
You've seen the FLIR images; it's not even lighting up. Temps under stress load sits at 65~70 degrees C, and that's fine. Acoustics wise this was also a respectable card loudest card we tested thus far. You'll hit 36 under gaming load, which is excellent, really.
Energy
As you have been able to see, we're switching our energy measurements based on PCAT. It's far more precise. This card peaks at 226 Watt (power always fluctuates as much as your frame times and FPS). Averaged out, the card sits at 206 Watt under gaming load, in idle 15 watts. We're fine with all values, there also really close to reference.
Coil whine
The exhibits only minor amounts of coil squeal, very little, and it's hard to hear. In a closed chassis, that noise would fade away in the background. Graphics cards all make this in some form, especially at high framerates; this can be perceived.
Pricing
NVIDIA is pricing the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti at USD 399. We have not yet received a final MSRP for the KFA2 EX, but knowing GALAX, this product will cost a similar amount of money. But with a predicted low availability, it's hard to really make a solid statement here of prices inflate due to e-tailers hiking up prices.
Tweaking
The graphics card has a tempered factory tweak but can be pushed a little further manually. You'll reach 16 Gbps on the memory, perhaps a +100 to +150 on the boost frequency. Important is the power limiter. However, on this non-OC model, it's locked, and that does restrict results. Combined with the tweaks mention on the OC page, you'll sit in the realm of 2000~2100 MHz on the boost frequency; however, as soon as you run out of power budget, that clock frequency goes down automatically. For our tweak to be called valid, it needs to pass four games in a full benchmark run at Ultra HD to be called stable. This card's end result was okay, 16 Gbps on that memory, a turbo in the ~2000Mhz domain. It's still 5% additional performance overall.
Conclusion
We cannot complain about the KFA2 EX at all. You get what you pay for, and that's close to reference performance with rather quiet cooling and a nice looking product that battles the RTX 2080 SUPER. Please be aware, this being a non-OC model does restrict you on that power limiter. Outfitted with 8GB, we feel it is a good balance in performance versus framebuffer. The looks are good as well, nothing super premium but certainly nice. We do hope to see a sales price of 399 USD once it reaches in good quantity in detail. That last bit, however, remains a bit of a question mark. But as a product, we can certainly approve it.
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- Hilbert, LOAD"*",8,1.
