Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 8GB With 128-Bit Memory Bus Now Available

A GPU with a memory bus that is significantly reduced in size. Only 8 gigabytes of memory are included on Manli’s NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card, which is the industry’s first of its kind. The new board has the same computational performance as a full-fledged GeForce RTX 3060 12GB product; however, it has a lower memory capacity and a narrower bus width, both of which result in a lower memory bandwidth. It is expected that each of these adjustments will have a discernible impact on performance.

It is reasonable to assume that the graphics processor unit found on Manli’s GeForce RTX 3060 8GB GDDR6 graphics card (via VideoCardz😉 is identical to the one found on the 12GB card. It has the same clock speeds as the reference RTX 3060 12GB and comes equipped with 3584 CUDA cores and a boost frequency of 1777 MHz.

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The GeForce RTX 3060 8GB only has a 128-bit memory interface, in contrast to the standard GeForce RTX 3060 12GB card, which has a 192-bit memory bus and peak memory bandwidth of 360 GB/s. This results in a 33% decrease in the peak memory, which brings it down to 240 GB/s. If memory bandwidth is an important factor in a given scenario, the new board will ultimately end up being a lot slower than the old GeForce RTX 3060 that has 12GB of GDDR6 memory.

The only difference between the GeForce RTX 3060 8GB and the 12GB card is the memory bus, which is smaller on the 8GB version. A 170W TBP (Total Board Power) rating, a dual-slot cooling system, and four display outputs are all included in the package (three DisplayPort 1.4, one HDMI 2.0).

Neither Manli nor Nvidia has provided a suggested retail price (MSRP) for the new RTX 3060 8GB model; however, given that it should be priced somewhere in the range between the GeForce RTX 3050 8GB (which costs $249) and the GeForce RTX 3060 12GB (which costs $329), it is likely that it will be priced in accordance with that range. We anticipate that other manufacturers of graphics cards will soon follow Manli’s lead and release their own versions of the RTX 3060 8GB.

Also, check out our separate post on Why Do Graphics Cards Have Memory? Best Guide 2023

It would appear that the motivation for the creation of this card was a desire to fill the gap in performance that exists between the relatively underpowered GeForce RTX 3050 and the already existing RTX 3060 12GB.

Both in terms of price and performance, the 3050 is completely outclassed by its competitors, the AMD RX 6600 and the Intel Arc A750. However, although reducing the memory size could potentially bring the price down in comparison to the 12GB card, doing so would result in a decrease in performance.

Our educated guess is that Nvidia has a large quantity of GA106 graphics processors, some of which may not have three fully operational 64-bit GDDR6 controllers but which still have nearly all of the potential 30 Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs) available.

Despite this possibility, we believe that Nvidia likely has a large quantity of GA106 graphics processors. This appears to be a strategy to try to increase the price in comparison to the 3050 while simultaneously delivering a slight improvement in performance.

As Nvidia prepares to launch its next-generation graphics processing units (GPUs) based on the Ada Lovelace architecture, the company’s primary focus will be on maximizing revenue from the sale of its existing Ampere GPUs over the next few months by exploiting any and all available opportunities to do so.

Instead of attempting to bridge the gap in capacity that already exists between the 3050 8GB and 3060 12GB cards, we can’t help but think that it would be more successful if it simply lowered its costs.

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