I built my current PC back in November 2019. At the time I knew the 30 series would come out in 2020 so I bought a 1660Ti graphics card as a temporary measure planning to upgrade to a 30 series later on.
Well, we all know how that turned out.
A couple of weeks ago I noticed that the 3060Ti had dropped in price and more importantly, were actually in stock. The original retail price of the 3060Ti in Australia was supposed to be $688 (all prices will be in Australian dollars). Two weeks ago the prices were $800-$900 depending on the model. Still a premium over the retail price (has anyone ever bought a 3060Ti at retail price?) but compared to the $1,300 they were going for a month ago I thought now was as good as time as any to buy. Who knew how long these cards would still be in stock at these new lower prices.
I ordered the Asus rog strix geforce rtx 3060ti. It was on the higher end at $900 but I liked the three fans and the reviews mentioned it was a quiet card.
It finally arrived today (more floods had interrupted the mail last week).
I don't know why I didn't but I should have measured the case. Turns out the card wouldn't fit. A bay for 2.5" drives was in the way but after a bit of work with an old chisel and a hammer to knock out the rivets I was able to take the drive bay out and slot the card in. In the end it worked out well as below the 2.5" drive bay was a 5.25" bay and an eraser placed on top of that bay was able to prop up the corner of the 3060Ti.
Finally, onto the comparisons between the 1660Ti and 3060Ti in MSFS. For these I took a few measurements using HWiNFO of the GPU temperature (in Celsius) and the GPU Power. MSFS was run in windowed mode at 2560x1440. I switched VSync on and selected between the three available fixed FPS of 20, 30 and 60 (not possible on the 1660Ti so I only did locked 60fps for the 3060Ti). I then turned off VSync to see how fast the FPS would go without any limits.
1660Ti
Sync On, Set to 20 fps: 20 FPS, 71°C, 78W
Sync On, Set to 30 fps: 30 FPS, 79°C, 97W
Sync Off: 44fps, 86C, 119W
3060Ti
Sync On, Set to 20 fps: 20 FPS, 37°C, 52W
Sync On, Set to 30 fps: 30 FPS, 42°C, 83W
Sync On, Set to 60 fps: 60 FPS, 47°C, 128W
Sync Off: 75fps, 55°C, 200W
Final notes: The 1660Ti has always been a hot and loud card. It only has one fan and as you can see it would run at 70-90C. I usually ran MSFS at 30fps locked simply because the card couldn't push 60fps.
Unlimited the 3060Ti has 70% more FPS. It uses 80 more watts to do it but the temperature is 30 degrees less. That's what 3 fans can do for you.
It's also interesting that at 20fps and 30fps that the 3060Ti uses less power than the 1660Ti. Even running at 60fps locked the 3060Ti is able to do 33% more FPS while being 40 degrees cooler and only using 9 more watts than the unlocked 1660Ti.
The CPU is an i5 9600KF so it's a few generations behind now. My limit with MSFS has always been the GPU, not the CPU. Even with the 3060Ti the CPU doesn't go above 50% utilization. I'm sure a more up to date CPU would still improve framerates due to a larger cache and using PCIe 4.0 instead of 3.0 that I am limited too.
Well, we all know how that turned out.
A couple of weeks ago I noticed that the 3060Ti had dropped in price and more importantly, were actually in stock. The original retail price of the 3060Ti in Australia was supposed to be $688 (all prices will be in Australian dollars). Two weeks ago the prices were $800-$900 depending on the model. Still a premium over the retail price (has anyone ever bought a 3060Ti at retail price?) but compared to the $1,300 they were going for a month ago I thought now was as good as time as any to buy. Who knew how long these cards would still be in stock at these new lower prices.
I ordered the Asus rog strix geforce rtx 3060ti. It was on the higher end at $900 but I liked the three fans and the reviews mentioned it was a quiet card.
It finally arrived today (more floods had interrupted the mail last week).
I don't know why I didn't but I should have measured the case. Turns out the card wouldn't fit. A bay for 2.5" drives was in the way but after a bit of work with an old chisel and a hammer to knock out the rivets I was able to take the drive bay out and slot the card in. In the end it worked out well as below the 2.5" drive bay was a 5.25" bay and an eraser placed on top of that bay was able to prop up the corner of the 3060Ti.
Finally, onto the comparisons between the 1660Ti and 3060Ti in MSFS. For these I took a few measurements using HWiNFO of the GPU temperature (in Celsius) and the GPU Power. MSFS was run in windowed mode at 2560x1440. I switched VSync on and selected between the three available fixed FPS of 20, 30 and 60 (not possible on the 1660Ti so I only did locked 60fps for the 3060Ti). I then turned off VSync to see how fast the FPS would go without any limits.
1660Ti
Sync On, Set to 20 fps: 20 FPS, 71°C, 78W
Sync On, Set to 30 fps: 30 FPS, 79°C, 97W
Sync Off: 44fps, 86C, 119W
3060Ti
Sync On, Set to 20 fps: 20 FPS, 37°C, 52W
Sync On, Set to 30 fps: 30 FPS, 42°C, 83W
Sync On, Set to 60 fps: 60 FPS, 47°C, 128W
Sync Off: 75fps, 55°C, 200W
Final notes: The 1660Ti has always been a hot and loud card. It only has one fan and as you can see it would run at 70-90C. I usually ran MSFS at 30fps locked simply because the card couldn't push 60fps.
Unlimited the 3060Ti has 70% more FPS. It uses 80 more watts to do it but the temperature is 30 degrees less. That's what 3 fans can do for you.
It's also interesting that at 20fps and 30fps that the 3060Ti uses less power than the 1660Ti. Even running at 60fps locked the 3060Ti is able to do 33% more FPS while being 40 degrees cooler and only using 9 more watts than the unlocked 1660Ti.
The CPU is an i5 9600KF so it's a few generations behind now. My limit with MSFS has always been the GPU, not the CPU. Even with the 3060Ti the CPU doesn't go above 50% utilization. I'm sure a more up to date CPU would still improve framerates due to a larger cache and using PCIe 4.0 instead of 3.0 that I am limited too.
