Best Value Nvidia RTX Graphics Cards in 2021

Building PCs is my hobby, and getting to share what I know about the process makes it even more exciting.

The Nvidia GeForce RTX series has been available for a couple of years already, but it seems that it still has a few market shares from the PC gaming community. A large population of the community still prefer AMD’s RX 570/580 and Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1650/1660 series over the Nvidia RTX series. It is argued that the price-performance ratio of these graphics cards is significantly better than the Nvidia RTX series.

However, with the release of Nvidia’s Ampere-based GeForce RTX 3000 series, a few of the GeForce RTX graphics cards are slowly climbing the price-performance charts. In fact, two of the RTX video cards have already reached the Top 15 Price-Performance GPUs. These best value RTX graphics cards are the GeForce RTX 2060 Super and 2021's GeForce RTX 3060 Ti.

GeForce RTX 2060 Super

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super, currently priced at $399, is the best value graphics card you can buy from Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 2000 series. It is based on Nvidia’s Turing architecture which boasts a boost clock of 1650 MH, framebuffer of 8 GB GDDR6 and Memory Speed of 14 Gbps. Although it was released in 2019, it is still very capable of running the latest triple AAA games at decent FPS, even on 1440p and 4K resolutions.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is the best value graphics card from Nvidia’s RTX 3000 series. It's currently priced at $399, but the stock shortage of the 3060 Ti and the scalper’s hoarding will surely affect the pricing of the 3060 Ti in the market. Despite being priced at the same price as the RTX 2060 Super, its specs are undeniably an improvement to the 2060 Super. The RTX 3060 Ti is based on the Ampere Architecture which is better compared to the RTX 2000 series’ Turing Architecture. It has a boost clock speed of 1670 MHz and has a memory of 8 GB GDDR6. It can support a maximum resolution of 7680 x 4320 so you can surely guarantee that it will provide excellent FPS at 1440p and 4K resolutions.

RTX 2060 Super vs. RTX 3060 Ti

Considering that the RTX 3060 Ti supports Nvidia’s latest architecture, the RTX 3060 Ti has better specs as compared to the RTX 2060 Super. Both RTX Graphics Cards have the same 8 GB GDDR6 Memory and both support Ray Tracing Technology. But the RTX 3060 Ti has a faster clock speed and has more CUDA Cores than the RTX 2060 Super. This easily makes the RTX 3060 Ti a better graphics card than the RTX 2060 Super. However, just knowing the stats isn't enough. It’s always best to test out these cards through benchmarks. Let’s see how these two cards perform.

PC Specs for Benchmarking the RTX Graphics Cards

To make sure we can perfectly benchmark the performance of these RTX Graphics Cards, we will be using the setup above.

It is ideal that the PC used for benchmarking will not limit the performance of the RTX graphics card due to PC bottlenecking. Thus, we have decided to use this setup to make sure we are able to get the maximum performance of the graphics cards.

Benchmarking the Best Value RTX Graphics Cards

We will be testing out each of the graphics cards in two types of games. First, will run games that are not capable of supporting Ray Tracing. And next, we will run games that are capable of supporting Ray Tracing. Don't worry, though All of these games are GPU intensive so it won't really matter if we're going to benchmark each of the graphics cards with a Ray Tracing or Non-Ray Tracing capable game.

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Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

Let’s start the benchmark with the latest video game from the Assassin’s Creed Series, the Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. This AAA game tests each of the graphics card’s limits. For this benchmark, we are running it on Ultra High Settings at 1080p resolution.

GTA V

Despite being released several years ago, GTA V is still one of the best games to benchmark today’s graphics cards. Its hunger for CPU & GPU processing will surely test the limits of your PC’s performance. To benchmark the RTX 2060 Super and RTX 3060 Ti Graphics Cards, we are running the game on Ultra Settings (MSAA x8) at 1080p resolution.

Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption 2 is a AAA game that is GPU intensive. The graphics cards will be tested on Ultra Preset at 1080p resolution.

Battlefield 5

The next game to benchmark with our graphics cards is Battlefield 5. It is an old title, but its support for Ray Tracing will allow us to test out the capability of our graphics cards. For this benchmark, we are running it on Ultra High Settings at 1080p resolution while Ray Tracing is on (DLSS off).

Control

Another excellent game to test out the Ray Tracing capabilities of each graphics card is Control. Ray Tracing is on (DLSS on) on this benchmark. Still, Ultra Settings is set at 1080p resolution.

Metro Exodus

Metro Exodus support for Ray Tracing is another excellent opportunity to test the Ray Tracing capability of the RTX 2060 Super and 3060 Ti cards. In this benchmark, Ray Tracing is on (DLSS off) on Extreme Settings at 1080p resolution.

Benchmarking Summary

We've compiled a complete list of games we used to benchmark the RTX 2060 Super and RTX 3060 Ti. So far, both of the RTX graphics cards are capable of running most of the games at Ultra Settings while achieving an average frame rate of 60 FPS. However, two game titles, Snowrunner and Watch Dogs: Legion, have been pretty heavy for our graphics cards. In fact, both the RTX graphics cards couldn't reach an average framerate of 60 FPS. But still, the RTX 2060 Super and RTX 3060 Ti are still very capable of running games at Ultra Settings on 1080p resolution.

Verdict: RTX 2060 Super or RTX 3060 Ti

The RTX 3060 Ti is definitely the better choice than the RTX 2060 Super. Considering the listed price by Nvidia, it is the best value RTX Graphics Card of 2021. However, as I've mentioned earlier, stock shortages and scalper's hoarding significantly affect the pricing of the RTX 3060 Ti. If the price surges due to the reasons mentioned, then it might not be the best value RTX graphics card at all. However, if you are willing to wait for prices to get stable, then we strongly recommend the RTX 3060 Ti over the RTX 2060 Super.