Final words and conclusion
Final words
Palit made a bit of a bold move sending us a value edition card (over a premium model) for a change. And realistically, if this card sits at that founder edition price, or perhaps a few tenners below it, then I see very little wrong with it. GeForce RTX 3060 Ti FE edition sits at the 399 USD marker, and we can only hope that prices will 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 just under 70 degrees C, and that's fine. Acoustics wise sure, this is not premium level silence; you can hear the card at a normal level. No worries there either. Coil whine was hard to detect.
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 229 Watt (power always fluctuates as much as your frame times and FPS). Averaged out, the card sits at 203 Watt under gaming load, in idle 16 watts. We're fine with all values.
Coil whine
The Dual OC exhibits 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 the MSRP for the Dual OC, but knowing Palit, this product will sit on top of that price, perhaps even a bit under it. 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, slide op that power limiter. More power budget allows the GPU to do what it likes to do the best, go fast. Combined with the tweaks mention on the OC page, you'll sit in the realm of 2000~2100 Mhz on the boost frequency. Remember that values differ per workload and thus the game title. Also, 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 PALIT card's result was pretty impressive, 16 Gbps on that memory, a turbo in the 2050~2100 Mhz domain. Coming from FE, we're roughly 7% faster after manual tweaking.
Conclusion
There's a product and a product placement for everything. This round, PALIT figured, hey, let's send Guru3D the value board. And I am happy they did that, as you can stare yourself blind at the premium products, often 100 USD more expensive. But the reality is that founder edition price, or hop[efully a tenner or two lower you can purchase something like this. Yes, it has a plastic shell and just two fans. But acoustics stay at normal levels; your temps are fine as well. The performance is a teeny weenie tiny bit higher than reference, yet with a manual tweak, we still got 7% extra performance out of it. We think there's little wrong with that, and for you as a consumer, it is imperative to have choices as graphics cards have gotten more than expensive enough already. At the 399 USD, you can purchase a product that performs at RTX 2080 SUPER performance levels. The 8GB I am fine with as well; I mean, it's the sweet spot in the new mid-range, albeit I find it hard to call it that, as it is high-end performance with added benefits like DLSS and Hybrid Raytracing support. Aesthetic design-wise, it might not be a top pick, but it certainly comes recommended and approved by Guru3D. Let's hope there will be some good availability, though, as that is the main concern these days.
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