GeForce RTX 3060 vs RTX 2080
VS
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060
GA106
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080
TU104
We compared two discrete desktop gaming GPUs: the GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB with 28 pipelines and 3584 shaders against the 2 years and 4 months older RTX RTX 2080 8 GB that utilizes 46 pipelines and 2944 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
- Manufactured using a more efficient 8 nm process technology
- 26% higher maximum theoretical performance (12.7 vs 10.1 TFLOPS)
- Includes 4 GB more video memory
Reasons to consider the GeForce RTX 2080
- Performs better (up to 21%) in 3DMark Steel Nomad Lite
- Shows 20% higher average frame rate in modern games at QHD resolution – 72 vs 60 FPS
- Features 256 more tensor cores for effective ML and AI workloads
- Achieves 30% more points in the GeekBench 6 Compute test (118K vs 91K)
- Has 24% higher memory bandwidth: 448 vs 360 GB/s
Gaming Performance
Frame rate comparison across popular AAA titles at different resolutionsGames
| Forza Horizon 5 | 112 68 60 39 |
127 80 71 48 |
| The Witcher 3 | 122 100 74 39 |
144 117 87 47 |
| Counter-Strike 2 | 181 137 99 48 |
213 162 116 62 |
| Far Cry 6 | 95 85 67 37 |
112 97 76 43 |
| Hogwarts Legacy | 65 57 40 18 |
80 65 52 25 |
| CoD: Modern Warfare III | 80 74 53 31 |
97 91 67 42 |
| Ghost of Tsushima | 62 50 37 20 |
78 63 46 27 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 68 64 38 16 |
86 78 47 21 |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 109 98 70 36 |
129 122 89 45 |
| 1080p High | 99 | 118 |
| 1080p Ultra | 81 | 97 |
| 1440p Ultra | 60 | 72 |
| 4K Ultra | 32 | 40 |
| Margin of Error | Low | Low |
Benchmarks
Graphics cards’ performance in recent benchmarking apps3D Mark
Steel Nomad Lite Score
| Time Spy | 8754 | 11077 |
| Solar Bay | 41158 | 49851 |
| Port Royal | 5145 | 6460 |
| Fire Strike | 22304 | 27672 |
| Wild Life Extreme | 17728 | 22307 |
| Night Raid | 97159 | 100912 |
GeekBench 6 OpenCL
GB6 Compute Score
| Background Blur | 149.6 img/sec | 191.8 img/sec |
| Face Detection | 91 img/sec | 115.9 img/sec |
| Horizon Detection | 4.07 Gpixels/sec | 4.74 Gpixels/sec |
| Edge Detection | 5.58 Gpixels/sec | 6.2 Gpixels/sec |
| Gaussian Blur | 3.92 Gpixels/sec | 6.56 Gpixels/sec |
| Feature Matching | 1.01 Gpixels/sec | 1.3 Gpixels/sec |
| Stereo Matching | 372.9 Gpixels/sec | 499.7 Gpixels/sec |
| Particle Physics | 12226.3 FPS | 15858.8 FPS |
| API | OpenCL | OpenCL |
Cinebench 2024 GPU
Cinebench 2024 GPU
Passmark Graphics
G3D Mark Score
| G2D Mark | 965 | 897 |
| DirectX 11 | 127 FPS | 160 FPS |
| DirectX 12 | 68 FPS | 71 FPS |
| GPU Compute | 8231 Ops/s | 7719 Ops/s |
Blender
Blender GPU
Recent User Tests
GeForce RTX 3060
| Date | Benchmark | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 📘 2025-12-07 (tach) | Cinebench 2024 | 7952 |
GeForce RTX 2080
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 | 7122 |
| Image Segmentation (HP) | 15338 | 17897 |
| Image Super Resolution (Q) | 14283 | 16120 |
| Face Detection (HP) | 28862 | 34245 |
| Pose Estimation (Q) | 61313 | 69601 |
| Text Classification (SP) | 2463 | 2181 |
| Machine Translation (HP) | 3793 | 4328 |
| Object Detection (SP) | 7712 | 8748 |
| Depth Estimation (Q) | 25461 | 28373 |
| Style Transfer (SP) | 123233 | 154510 |
| Framework | ONNX | ONNX |
| Backend | DirectML | DirectML |
Specifications
Technical specifications of GeForce RTX 3060 and RTX 2080General
| Vendor | Nvidia | Nvidia |
| Build | Discrete | Discrete |
| Released | January 12, 2021 | September 20, 2018 |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $329 | $699 |
| Case | Desktop | Desktop |
| Purpose | Gaming | Gaming |
| Segment | Mid-range | High-end |
| Architecture | Ampere | Turing |
| GPU Codename | GA106 | TU104 |
| Rival Equivalent | - Radeon RX 6700 XT | - |
| Successor | - GeForce RTX 5060 | - GeForce RTX 5080 |
| Recommended CPU | - Intel Core i5 12600K or above | - AMD Ryzen 9 9900X or above |
Desktop GPU rating (58th and 51st place)
Graphics Processing Unit
| Base Clock | 1320 MHz | 1515 MHz |
| Boost Clock | 1777 MHz | 1710 MHz |
| Shading Units | 3584 | 2944 |
| Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) | 112 | 184 |
| Render Output Units (ROPs) | 48 | 64 |
| Compute Units (Pipelines) | 28 | 46 |
| Tensor Cores | 112 | 368 |
| Ray-tracing Cores | 28 | 46 |
| L1 Cache | 128KB per cluster | 64KB per cluster |
| L2 Cache | 3MB shared | 4MB shared |
| Instructions Per Cycle | 2 IPC | 2 IPC |
Raw Performance
| Pixel Fill Rate | 85 GPixel/s | 109 GPixel/s |
| Texture Fill Rate | 199 GTexel/s | 315 GTexel/s |
FLOPS (FP32)
Physical
| Interface | PCIe 4.0 x16 | PCIe 3.0 x16 |
| TGP | 170 W | 215 W |
| Manufacturing | Samsung | TSMC |
| Fabrication Process | 8 nm | 12 nm |
| Die Size | 276 mm² | 545 mm² |
| Transistor Count | 12 billion | 13 billion |
| Transistor Density | 43.48 MTr/mm² | 23.85 MTr/mm² |
Memory
| Memory Type | GDDR6 | GDDR6 |
| Memory Size | 12 GB | 8 GB |
| Memory Clock | 1875 MHz | 1750 MHz |
| Effective Memory Speed | 15000 Mbps | 14000 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 | 7.5 |
| Ray Tracing | Yes | Yes |
| DLSS | DLSS 2 | DLSS 2 |
| DisplayPort | 1.4a | 1.4a |
Cast your vote
Total votes: 45
