Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 vs 3080 vs 3070 vs 3060 Which GPU should you buy Tom's Guide Skip to main content Tom's Guide is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
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James Smith 3 minutes ago
Here's why you can trust us. Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 vs 3080 vs 3070 vs 3060 Which GPU should ...
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Oliver Taylor Member
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Here's why you can trust us. Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 vs 3080 vs 3070 vs 3060 Which GPU should you buy By Marshall Honorof Contributions from Roland Moore-Colyer published 16 September 2022 Find out which Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 GPU is right for your gaming PC (Image credit: Nvidia) Nearly two years after their debut, it's finally getting easer to track down graphics cards from Nvidia's GeForce RTX 30-series.
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Oliver Taylor 1 minutes ago
So you may now be chewing over which one to get.
There are plenty of variants of these GeF...
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William Brown 1 minutes ago
Notably, these include the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti and GeForce RTX 3080 Ti; both are just more powerful ...
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Mason Rodriguez Member
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So you may now be chewing over which one to get.
There are plenty of variants of these GeForce RTX 30 cards, but the main quartet, the GeForce RTX 3090, RTX 3080. RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 are the ones to consider closely when looking at the differences between model models.
So you'll want to read on to see how the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 vs 3080 vs 3070 vs 3060 all measure up, and which one is best for you.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 30-series GPUs lowdown
The easiest way to see how the Nvidia GeForce RTX 30-series cards compare to one another is simply to compare them all in a big chart. Some of this information comes directly from Nvidia (opens in new tab); some of it is from retail sources; some of it is from our own experiences with the cards.
Do bear in mind that since the launch of these cards there have been more powerful "Ti" versions added into the mix.
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Julia Zhang 4 minutes ago
Notably, these include the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti and GeForce RTX 3080 Ti; both are just more powerful ...
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Lily Watson Moderator
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Notably, these include the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti and GeForce RTX 3080 Ti; both are just more powerful and costly versions of their non-Ti counterparts. As such, the below recommendations still broadly apply.
Here's the information that we think everyday consumers will find most useful: Nvidia GeForce RTX 30-series GPUs
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 TiNvidia GeForce RTX 3070Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090Nvidia CUDA Cores3,5844,8645,8888,70410,496Boost Clock (GHz)1.781.671.731.711.70Memory Size12 GB8 GB8 GB10 GB24 GBMemory TypeGDDR6GDDR6GDDR6GDDR6XGDDR6XDimensions9.5 x 4.4 inches9.5 x 4.4 inches9.5 x 4.4 inches11.2 x 4.4 inches12.3 x 5.4 inchesPower Draw170W200W220W320W350WPrice$330$400$500$700$1,500 To help you make sense of some of the more obscure terms above:
Nvidia CUDA Cores refer to parallel data processing units within a GPU. They work similarly to how a CPU works in your computer.
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Elijah Patel 3 minutes ago
Generally speaking, the more CUDA Cores a GPU has, the more complex data it can churn through quickl...
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David Cohen 3 minutes ago
There's also a Base Clock stat, but Nvidia GPUs will draw extra resources while gaming, assumin...
Generally speaking, the more CUDA Cores a GPU has, the more complex data it can churn through quickly. Boost Clock refers to the maximum speed a GPU can achieve if it has the power available and is running cool enough.
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Natalie Lopez 1 minutes ago
There's also a Base Clock stat, but Nvidia GPUs will draw extra resources while gaming, assumin...
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Ella Rodriguez 17 minutes ago
In a nutshell, GDDR6X has more bandwidth than GDDR6 memory, and therefore (theoretically) has the ca...
There's also a Base Clock stat, but Nvidia GPUs will draw extra resources while gaming, assuming you have a powerful system that's not otherwise occupied. A higher Boost Clock speed generally means better performance, but it's dependent on a lot of other factors, including your individual PC's hardware. Memory Type is a subtle distinction.
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Elijah Patel 4 minutes ago
In a nutshell, GDDR6X has more bandwidth than GDDR6 memory, and therefore (theoretically) has the ca...
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Jack Thompson 1 minutes ago
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)
The good news is that for all of their differences, the five Nvidia...
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Joseph Kim Member
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In a nutshell, GDDR6X has more bandwidth than GDDR6 memory, and therefore (theoretically) has the capacity to run more demanding games at higher settings. Finally, Power Draw refers to how much power the GPU can draw, by itself, while operating under a full graphical load. Nvidia also has recommendations for how much overall power you'd need for a PC with each card installed, but we didn't include that data here, since picking a power supply is a whole separate topic.
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Audrey Mueller Member
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(Image credit: Tom's Guide)
The good news is that for all of their differences, the five Nvidia GeForce RTX 30-series GPUs compared here have a plethora of features in common. They all support 2nd-generation ray tracing; they all use the Nvidia Ampere architecture; they all make use of Nvidia DLSS (sort of an AI upscaler for games).
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Oliver Taylor 20 minutes ago
Nvidia FreeStyle, ShadowPlay, Highlights, G-Sync and GPU boost work on all of the 30-series cards. T...
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Liam Wilson Member
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Nvidia FreeStyle, ShadowPlay, Highlights, G-Sync and GPU boost work on all of the 30-series cards. They're all VR-ready, and HDMI 2.1-compatible.
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Sophie Martin 2 minutes ago
And, in theory, they can all support screen resolutions up to 8K. (What you'll be able to do in...
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Joseph Kim 2 minutes ago
In other words: While the horsepower varies considerably among the Nvidia 3060, 3060 Ti, 3070, 3080 ...
And, in theory, they can all support screen resolutions up to 8K. (What you'll be able to do in 8K will no doubt vary significantly between, say, the 3060 and the 3090, but the potential is there.) Finally, they all support up to four monitors, if you're really into productivity usage.
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Sebastian Silva 26 minutes ago
In other words: While the horsepower varies considerably among the Nvidia 3060, 3060 Ti, 3070, 3080 ...
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Ethan Thomas 19 minutes ago
For that price, you could very conceivably build a whole machine with one of the lower-end cards, an...
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Nathan Chen Member
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In other words: While the horsepower varies considerably among the Nvidia 3060, 3060 Ti, 3070, 3080 and 3090, they have a set of core capabilities in common. Which one you should get, then, depends mostly on how hard you intend to push your PC, and with which programs. (Image credit: Nvidia)
Nvidia GeForce RTX 30-series GPU recommendations 
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090
While the GeForce RTX 3090 has a lot of power, $1,500 is still a tremendous amount of money.
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Victoria Lopez 37 minutes ago
For that price, you could very conceivably build a whole machine with one of the lower-end cards, an...
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Brandon Kumar 22 minutes ago
Its GDDR6X memory gives it a significant leg up over the lower-end cards, as do its nearly 9,000 CUD...
For that price, you could very conceivably build a whole machine with one of the lower-end cards, and still have enough left over for games and peripherals.
Furthermore, the RTX 3090 is arguably geared more toward productivity users, with creative suite drivers and way more memory than most games need. It's a great card, and potentially quite future-proof. But unless you work in animation, it's probably not worth the cost of entry.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080
If you can afford it, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 is a pretty easy recommendation for high-end gaming systems in general.
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Harper Kim 22 minutes ago
Its GDDR6X memory gives it a significant leg up over the lower-end cards, as do its nearly 9,000 CUD...
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Evelyn Zhang 5 minutes ago
You'll also need a pretty high-end processor and lot of RAM to get the most out of it. But if y...
Its GDDR6X memory gives it a significant leg up over the lower-end cards, as do its nearly 9,000 CUDA cores. It's a very large card and draws a significant amount of power, so you'll have to be sure that your case and your power supply can support it.
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Luna Park Member
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You'll also need a pretty high-end processor and lot of RAM to get the most out of it. But if you have $2,000 or more to spend on a gaming PC, an RTX 3080 could be an integral part of it. Now, the more difficult part: Comparing the 3070, the 3060 Ti and the 3060.
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Thomas Anderson Member
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Naturally, the 3070 is the most powerful; the 3060 is the least powerful; the 3060 Ti is somewhere in the middle. Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070
I can say from personal experience that I built the Tom's Guide test rig with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070, and I'm extremely pleased with the way it runs games at QHD resolutions.
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James Smith 13 minutes ago
I doubt it would be a 4K powerhouse, but I imagine it would clear 30 fps in most games easily. At $5...
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Elijah Patel Member
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I doubt it would be a 4K powerhouse, but I imagine it would clear 30 fps in most games easily. At $500, it's an expensive component, but quite a bit less than either the 3080 or the 3090.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
As stated above, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti offers 4,864 Nvidia CUDA cores and 8GB of GDDR6 memory.
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Hannah Kim 70 minutes ago
This sets it apart from both the RTX 3070 (5,888 CUDA cores, 8GB GDDR6 memory) and the RTX 3060 (3,5...
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Audrey Mueller 60 minutes ago
We'll have to see how it performs with QHD screens for ourselves, but we wouldn't count on...
This sets it apart from both the RTX 3070 (5,888 CUDA cores, 8GB GDDR6 memory) and the RTX 3060 (3,584 CUDA cores, 12GB GDDR6 memory). While the 3060 sports more memory, it's still generally not as powerful as the 3060 Ti. This card seems like a reasonable choice for mid-range machines that still want decent QHD performance,.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060
As the last powerful card among the RTX 30-series, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 seems like a safe bet for users who want 1080p resolution and decent frame rates.
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Sofia Garcia 7 minutes ago
We'll have to see how it performs with QHD screens for ourselves, but we wouldn't count on...
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Ava White 27 minutes ago
But since the other 30-series GPUs will gain this technology by the end of the month, the gap betwee...
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Harper Kim Member
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We'll have to see how it performs with QHD screens for ourselves, but we wouldn't count on high-end 4K performance. The 3060 also has a slight - albeit temporary - advantage over other GPUs, in that it supports Nvidia's resizable BAR technology. This allows for faster frame rates without much additional processing power.
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Jack Thompson 10 minutes ago
But since the other 30-series GPUs will gain this technology by the end of the month, the gap betwee...
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Marshall HonorofMarshall Honorof is a senior editor for Tom's Guide, overseeing the site's...
But since the other 30-series GPUs will gain this technology by the end of the month, the gap between the 3060 and its more expensive counterparts will widen again shortly. For now, it might be smart to choose among the 3070, 3060 Ti and 3060 primarily on the basis of price, understanding that the more you pay, the better your performance will be. Today's best HyperX Alloy Origins dealsRecommended Retail... (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)$69.99 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab)Reduced Price (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)$109.99 (opens in new tab)$69.99 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab)Reduced Price (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab)$109.99 (opens in new tab)$79.99 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab)Show More DealsWe check over 250 million products every day for the best prices
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Luna Park 14 minutes ago
Marshall HonorofMarshall Honorof is a senior editor for Tom's Guide, overseeing the site's...
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Oliver Taylor 5 minutes ago
After hours, you can find him practicing taekwondo or doing deep dives on classic sci-fi. W...
Marshall HonorofMarshall Honorof is a senior editor for Tom's Guide, overseeing the site's coverage of gaming hardware and software. He comes from a science writing background, having studied paleomammalogy, biological anthropology, and the history of science and technology.
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Andrew Wilson 45 minutes ago
After hours, you can find him practicing taekwondo or doing deep dives on classic sci-fi. W...
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Isabella Johnson Member
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After hours, you can find him practicing taekwondo or doing deep dives on classic sci-fi. With contributions fromRoland Moore-Colyer Topics Gaming See all comments (5) 5 Comments Comment from the forums vandamage clearly the one you should buy is whatever one you can find at msrp Reply DaveBalmer I appreciate you reviewing graphics cards that no one can reasonably get a hold of. I look forward to your next review about Ferrari's vs Lamborghini's because it's just as likely the people that can worry about which of these graphics cards they're going to buy also own those kinds of cars.
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Grace Liu 17 minutes ago
+1 Tom. Reply Happajay No 3050? Very elitist....
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Charlotte Lee 1 minutes ago
Only Nvidia options greater than $500 for GPU. Must feel good to buy a GPU for more than an Xbox ser...
Only Nvidia options greater than $500 for GPU. Must feel good to buy a GPU for more than an Xbox series X. Well that's what I got and Xbox series X.
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Luna Park 62 minutes ago
I recently bought a Nvidia 1080 GTX for $200 that was a "factory second" and brand new For...
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Andrew Wilson Member
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I recently bought a Nvidia 1080 GTX for $200 that was a "factory second" and brand new For a hobby small for factor ITX build with a 4790K forth gen i7. It runs stuff better than a current 3050. No quite as good as a 3060, but for 200 versus 500 dollars.
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Sofia Garcia 1 minutes ago
Maybe write stuff less for rich kids Reply Happajay Happajay said:No 3050? Very elitist....
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Grace Liu 86 minutes ago
Only Nvidia options greater than $500 for GPU. Must feel good to buy a GPU for more than an Xbox ser...
Only Nvidia options greater than $500 for GPU. Must feel good to buy a GPU for more than an Xbox series X.
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Sophie Martin 18 minutes ago
Well that's what I got and Xbox series X. I recently bought a Nvidia 1080 GTX for $200 that was...
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Isaac Schmidt 4 minutes ago
It runs stuff better than a current 3050. No quite as good as a 3060, but for 200 versus 500 dollars...
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Evelyn Zhang Member
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Well that's what I got and Xbox series X. I recently bought a Nvidia 1080 GTX for $200 that was a "factory second" and brand new For a hobby small for factor ITX build with a 4790K forth gen i7.
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Lucas Martinez 45 minutes ago
It runs stuff better than a current 3050. No quite as good as a 3060, but for 200 versus 500 dollars...
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Dylan Patel Member
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It runs stuff better than a current 3050. No quite as good as a 3060, but for 200 versus 500 dollars. Maybe write stuff less for rich kidsIn fact built the whole pc with case for less than a 3060 card alone Reply Wolfshadw Happajay said:No 3050?
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Oliver Taylor 11 minutes ago
Very elitist. Only Nvidia options greater than $500 for GPU....
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James Smith Moderator
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Very elitist. Only Nvidia options greater than $500 for GPU.
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Evelyn Zhang 9 minutes ago
Must feel good to buy a GPU for more than an Xbox series X. Well that's what I got and Xbox ser...
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Henry Schmidt 58 minutes ago
I recently bought a Nvidia 1080 GTX for $200 that was a "factory second" and brand new For...
Must feel good to buy a GPU for more than an Xbox series X. Well that's what I got and Xbox series X.
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Scarlett Brown 25 minutes ago
I recently bought a Nvidia 1080 GTX for $200 that was a "factory second" and brand new For...
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Thomas Anderson Member
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Monday, 28 April 2025
I recently bought a Nvidia 1080 GTX for $200 that was a "factory second" and brand new For a hobby small for factor ITX build with a 4790K forth gen i7. It runs stuff better than a current 3050. No quite as good as a 3060, but for 200 versus 500 dollars.
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Grace Liu 33 minutes ago
Maybe write stuff less for rich kidsNeed to remember that the original article was written nine mont...
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Liam Wilson Member
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Maybe write stuff less for rich kidsNeed to remember that the original article was written nine months (3/6/21) before the RTX 3050 was released. TG Editorial doesn't always include the most up to date info when re-releasing an article. -Wolf sends Reply View All 5 Comments MOST READMOST SHARED1Rick and Morty season 6 episode 6 release date and time - How to watch online tonight, channel and more2House of the Dragon episode 8 release date and time - how to watch online tonight3MLB Playoffs live stream 2022: How to watch Wild Card baseball online right now4Nvidia RTX 4090 leak points to killer performance and plenty of stock5I just tested the AirPods Pro 2 for workouts - and I was surprised1Daily Quordle #258 - answers and hints for Sunday, October 92The best luxury mattress in 20223Rick and Morty season 6 episode 6 release date and time - How to watch online tonight, channel and more4House of the Dragon episode 8 release date and time - how to watch online tonight5MLB Playoffs live stream 2022: How to watch Wild Card baseball online right now