RTX 3060 vs RX 6700XT for gaming as well as Blender & UE5 at a hobby level.

[cyberpxl]

Hello, I’m not sure if this is the correct place to post this, but we’ll see. I’ve mostly decided that I’m going to build this, however I am torn between the RX 6700XT and the RTX 3060 12GB. I will mostly be using this for gaming, and from that perspective, for $50(AUD) more, the 6700XT will get me over 30 more FPS over the 3060. 
 

However, the problem is that I’d also like to be able to comfortably learn Blender & UE5, as well as some AI applications (as a hobbyist, I am in no way a professional). I’ve heard that AMD cards are absolutely terrible for 3D software. What I’d like to know is if the “tier” difference is enough for the AMD card to be just as good in 3D software. And if not, is the extra gaming performance on the AMD significant enough to sacrifice the features and support of the 3060?

 

So, the question is 3060 12GB, 6700XT, or something else entirely? My budget is $1500 AUD. Thanks.

[RONOTHAN##]

Blender they're in a completely different tier of performance. If you're just starting out and not doing anything that complicated it's probably OK, but the 3060 will be 70% faster than the 6700 XT. Blender does publish some GPU benchmarks if you want to compare different cards: https://opendata.blender.org/benchmarks/query/?blender_version=3.6.0&group_by=device_name

 

For UE5, from what I've seen the AMD cards do just fine. They struggle a bit in RT workloads, but that's just the 6000 series in general. 

 

For AI applications, many of the major libraries rely heavily on CUDA and other Nvidia specific APIs. If you want to do anything with AI, you need a Nvidia card, there isn't really any way to avoid it, it's not that they don't run well on AMD cards, it's that they don't run at all on AMD cards. If you can verify that the libraries you want to learn and use are AMD compatible (there are some that do), use the AMD card, but it's likely that if you're serious about this the 3060 is the better option. Used 3060s are also an option worth considering. 

[cyberpxl]

5 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Blender they're in a completely different tier of performance. If you're just starting out and not doing anything that complicated it's probably OK, but the 3060 will be 70% faster than the 6700 XT. Blender does publish some GPU benchmarks if you want to compare different cards: https://opendata.blender.org/benchmarks/query/?blender_version=3.6.0&group_by=device_name

 

For UE5, from what I've seen the AMD cards do just fine. They struggle a bit in RT workloads, but that's just the 6000 series in general. 

 

For AI applications, many of the major libraries rely heavily on CUDA and other Nvidia specific APIs. If you want to do anything with AI, you need a Nvidia card, there isn't really any way to avoid it, it's not that they don't run well on AMD cards, it's that they don't run at all on AMD cards. If you can verify that the libraries you want to learn and use are AMD compatible (there are some that do), use the AMD card, but it's likely that if you're serious about this the 3060 is the better option. Used 3060s are also an option worth considering. 

So do you think it’s worth it to just get the 3060 now and upgrade to something like a 4070 later on? In terms of gaming, will the 3060 run nearly as well as the 6700XT?

[WereCat]

6700X will be much better for gaming and 3060 for Blender. 

But just because 3060 renders faster in Blender it does not mean the 6700X is unusable, it's still much faster than CPU rendering.

For comparison my RX 6800 XT sits between RTX 3060 and 3060ti in Blender render times using Cycles (Optix for Nvidia will render even faster than that though). 

 

And my 3060ti renders roughly 3 times faster than my old 1080ti.

[RONOTHAN##]

4 minutes ago, Tigerboy3050 said:

In terms of gaming, will the 3060 run nearly as well as the 6700XT?

Unless you're playing entirely RT games, the 6700 XT will be ~30-35% faster. It's faster enough to be worth spending the extra $50 if you just game and I wouldn't want to give up. 

 

It's really just the AI task that determines whether you can go AMD or not. If you want to do AI, you probably need to give up the gaming performance and get a 3060, while if can live without it the 6700 XT is the better option. 

 

10 minutes ago, Tigerboy3050 said:

So do you think it’s worth it to just get the 3060 now and upgrade to something like a 4070 later on?

I'm not a big fan of stop gap solutions like this, so take opinion for what you will. I'd recommend just saving up a bit more and get a faster card if you think you'll want to upgrade pretty soon after. I get it can be necessary to do in some instances, but I'd try to avoid that if you can. 

[cyberpxl]

24 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Unless you're playing entirely RT games, the 6700 XT will be ~30-35% faster. It's faster enough to be worth spending the extra $50 if you just game and I wouldn't want to give up. 

 

It's really just the AI task that determines whether you can go AMD or not. If you want to do AI, you probably need to give up the gaming performance and get a 3060, while if can live without it the 6700 XT is the better option. 

 

I'm not a big fan of stop gap solutions like this, so take opinion for what you will. I'd recommend just saving up a bit more and get a faster card if you think you'll want to upgrade pretty soon after. I get it can be necessary to do in some instances, but I'd try to avoid that if you can. 

When I say upgrade eventually, I’m more saying in 2-3 years, maybe even upgrade to 40 series once 50 series is out. I have a friend that might be able to sell me a very lightly used 3060 for slightly cheaper, so if I can get that I’ll probably just go for the 3060. If not, I might just try my luck with the RX 6700XT.

[191x7]

11 minutes ago, Tigerboy3050 said:

When I say upgrade eventually, I’m more saying in 2-3 years, maybe even upgrade to 40 series once 50 series is out. I have a friend that might be able to sell me a very lightly used 3060 for slightly cheaper, so if I can get that I’ll probably just go for the 3060. If not, I might just try my luck with the RX 6700XT.

How about the 4060Ti?

[cyberpxl]

8 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

How about the 4060Ti?

That's what I was originally going to go with, but apparently for the price the performance is barely any better than a 3060 Ti. It's expensive, and apparently not that good. Is that incorrect, or is it actually worth purchasing?

 

Edit: I've heard that for the price, only having 8GB of VRAM in 2023 is very bad, and apparently without DLSS 3, the card performs about the same as the 3060 Ti.

[191x7]

3 minutes ago, Tigerboy3050 said:

That's what I was originally going to go with, but apparently for the price the performance is barely any better than a 3060 Ti. It's expensive, and apparently not that good. Is that incorrect, or is it actually worth purchasing?

 

Edit: I've heard that for the price, only having 8GB of VRAM in 2023 is very bad, and apparently without DLSS 3, the card performs about the same as the 3060 Ti.

The 16GB beats the 6700XT in anything you need.

[cyberpxl]

4 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

The 16GB beats the 6700XT in anything you need.

The RTX 4060 Ti 16GB is over $500 AUD more than the 6700XT and is unfortunately way out of my budget.

[treestain]

35 minutes ago, Tigerboy3050 said:

I have a friend that might be able to sell me a very lightly used 3060 for slightly cheaper

how much cheaper? because the 3060 is way worse in terms of gaming performance than the 6700XT

[cyberpxl]

5 minutes ago, treestain said:

how much cheaper? because the 3060 is way worse in terms of gaming performance than the 6700XT

I'm not sure yet. I'll probably end up just buying a new 6700XT. Blender will still run better than it does on integrated graphics (right??), and AI stuff isn't really all that necessary. Apparently AMD support in 3D software is getting better, so it'll probably be fine.

[treestain]

3 minutes ago, Tigerboy3050 said:

Blender will still run better than it does on integrated graphics (right??)

Definitely