GeForce RTX 3060 vs GTX 1080
VS
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060
GA106
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
GP104
We compared two discrete desktop gaming GPUs: the GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB with 28 pipelines and 3584 shaders against the 4 years and 9 months older GTX 1080 8 GB that utilizes 20 pipelines and 2560 shaders. Here you will find complete details about specs, efficiency, performance tests, and more.
Review
Gaming
Performance in DirectX, OpenCL, and Vulkan games
Workstation
Perf. in 3D modeling, video editing and rendering apps
AI/ML
Capabilities for machine learning and AI-related tasks
Energy Efficiency
Power consumption efficiency in different scenarios
NanoReview Final Score
Overall video card score
Value for money (Beta)
Key differences
Reasons to consider the GeForce RTX 3060
- Performs better (up to 24%) in 3DMark Steel Nomad Lite
- Manufactured using a more efficient 8 nm process technology
- 43% higher maximum theoretical performance (12.7 vs 8.9 TFLOPS)
- Shows 22% higher average frame rate in modern games at QHD resolution – 60 vs 49 FPS
- Ray-tracing support with 28 dedicated RT cores
Gaming Performance
Frame rate comparison across popular AAA titles at different resolutionsGames
| Forza Horizon 5 | 112 68 60 39 |
103 60 50 33 |
| The Witcher 3 | 122 100 74 39 |
106 84 60 31 |
| Counter-Strike 2 | 181 137 99 48 |
160 114 85 38 |
| Far Cry 6 | 95 85 67 37 |
85 75 56 29 |
| Hogwarts Legacy | 65 57 40 18 |
58 48 32 18 |
| CoD: Modern Warfare III | 80 74 53 31 |
71 62 43 27 |
| Ghost of Tsushima | 62 50 37 20 |
55 42 31 18 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 68 64 38 16 |
56 53 31 14 |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 109 98 70 36 |
95 83 57 30 |
| 1080p High | 99 | 88 |
| 1080p Ultra | 81 | 69 |
| 1440p Ultra | 60 | 49 |
| 4K Ultra | 32 | 26 |
| Margin of Error | Low | Low |
Benchmarks
Graphics cards’ performance in recent benchmarking apps3D Mark
Steel Nomad Lite Score
| Time Spy | 8754 | 7592 |
| Solar Bay | 41158 | 19994 |
| Port Royal | 5145 | 1676 |
| Fire Strike | 22304 | 22750 |
| Wild Life Extreme | 17728 | 15147 |
| Night Raid | 97159 | 82345 |
GeekBench 6 OpenCL
GB6 Compute Score
| Background Blur | 149.6 img/sec | 152.4 img/sec |
| Face Detection | 91 img/sec | 71.6 img/sec |
| Horizon Detection | 4.07 Gpixels/sec | 2.73 Gpixels/sec |
| Edge Detection | 5.58 Gpixels/sec | 4.15 Gpixels/sec |
| Gaussian Blur | 3.92 Gpixels/sec | 5.03 Gpixels/sec |
| Feature Matching | 1.01 Gpixels/sec | 0.32 Gpixels/sec |
| Stereo Matching | 372.9 Gpixels/sec | 238.9 Gpixels/sec |
| Particle Physics | 12226.3 FPS | 6716.4 FPS |
| API | OpenCL | OpenCL |
Cinebench 2024 GPU
Cinebench 2024 GPU
Passmark Graphics
G3D Mark Score
| G2D Mark | 965 | 889 |
| DirectX 11 | 127 FPS | 125 FPS |
| DirectX 12 | 68 FPS | 55 FPS |
| GPU Compute | 8231 Ops/s | 7627 Ops/s |
Blender
Blender GPU
Recent User Tests
GeForce RTX 3060
| Date | Benchmark | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 📘 2025-12-07 (tach) | Cinebench 2024 | 7952 |
GeForce GTX 1080
No benchmark results yet
Artificial Intelligence Tests
Performance in machine learning and artificial intelligence tasksGeekBench 6 ML
GB6 ML Single Precision
GB6 ML Half Precision
GB6 ML Quantized
| Image Classification (SP) | 6645 | 2591 |
| Image Segmentation (HP) | 15338 | 5497 |
| Image Super Resolution (Q) | 14283 | 11914 |
| Face Detection (HP) | 28862 | 9841 |
| Pose Estimation (Q) | 61313 | 53922 |
| Text Classification (SP) | 2463 | 1732 |
| Machine Translation (HP) | 3793 | 2662 |
| Object Detection (SP) | 7712 | 3255 |
| Depth Estimation (Q) | 25461 | 16431 |
| Style Transfer (SP) | 123233 | 112226 |
| Framework | ONNX | ONNX |
| Backend | DirectML | DirectML |
Specifications
Technical specifications of GeForce RTX 3060 and GTX 1080General
| Vendor | Nvidia | Nvidia |
| Build | Discrete | Discrete |
| Released | January 12, 2021 | May 27, 2016 |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $329 | $599 |
| Case | Desktop | Desktop |
| Purpose | Gaming | Gaming |
| Segment | Mid-range | High-end |
| Architecture | Ampere | Pascal |
| GPU Codename | GA106 | GP104 |
| Rival Equivalent | - Radeon RX 6700 XT | - Radeon RX 5600 XT |
| Successor | - GeForce RTX 5060 | - GeForce RTX 5080 |
| Recommended CPU | - Intel Core i5 12600K or above | - Intel Core i7 7700K or above |
Desktop GPU rating (57th and 71st place)
Graphics Processing Unit
| Base Clock | 1320 MHz | 1607 MHz |
| Boost Clock | 1777 MHz | 1733 MHz |
| Shading Units | 3584 | 2560 |
| Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) | 112 | 160 |
| Render Output Units (ROPs) | 48 | 64 |
| Compute Units (Pipelines) | 28 | 20 |
| Tensor Cores | 112 | No |
| Ray-tracing Cores | 28 | No |
| L1 Cache | 128KB per cluster | 48KB per cluster |
| L2 Cache | 3MB shared | 2MB shared |
| Instructions Per Cycle | 2 IPC | 2 IPC |
Raw Performance
| Pixel Fill Rate | 85 GPixel/s | 111 GPixel/s |
| Texture Fill Rate | 199 GTexel/s | 277 GTexel/s |
FLOPS (FP32)
Physical
| Interface | PCIe 4.0 x16 | PCIe 3.0 x16 |
| TGP | 170 W | 180 W |
| Manufacturing | Samsung | TSMC |
| Fabrication Process | 8 nm | 16 nm |
| Die Size | 276 mm² | 314 mm² |
| Transistor Count | 12 billion | 7 billion |
| Transistor Density | 43.48 MTr/mm² | 22.29 MTr/mm² |
Memory
| Memory Type | GDDR6 | GDDR5X |
| Memory Size | 12 GB | 8 GB |
| Memory Clock | 1875 MHz | 1251 MHz |
| Effective Memory Speed | 15000 Mbps | 10000 Mbps |
| Bus | 192-bit | 256-bit |
| ECC | No | No |
Memory Bandwidth
API
| DirectX | 12 | 12 |
| Vulkan | 1.3 | 1.3 |
| OpenGL | 4.6 | 4.6 |
| OpenCL | 3.0 | 3.0 |
| CUDA | 8.6 | 6.1 |
| Ray Tracing | Yes | No |
| DLSS | DLSS 2 | No |
| DisplayPort | 1.4a | 1.4a |
Cast your vote
Total votes: 54