NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 vs AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary
Side-by-side benchmark comparison, specs, pricing, and value analysis.
Benchmark Comparison
Gaming figures are average frames per second, measured by Tom's Hardware GPU hierarchy. Geometric mean of 15 games, ultra settings, no upscaling. Ray tracing figures are DXR-enabled at 1440p. A dash means the card was not tested at that resolution. Productivity and Steel Nomad are synthetic scores on their own scales and are not comparable to the fps columns.
Specifications
| Spec | GeForce RTX 3060 | Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 12GB GDDR6 | 8GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Bandwidth | 360 GB/s | 448 GB/s |
| Shaders | 3584 | 2560 |
| Boost Clock | 1777 MHz | 1905 MHz |
| TDP | 170W | 225W |
| Architecture | Ampere | RDNA 1.0 |
| 3DMark Steel Nomad | 1,965 | 2,123 |
| Best Price | $250 | $449 |
| Value Score | 54/100 | 24/100 |
Verdict
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 is the clear winner — it offers both better performance and better value.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 vs AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary: Which Should You Buy?
These two land on top of each other: 54 fps versus 53.1 fps at 1440p ultra, a 2% difference you will not notice in a game. The decision comes down to price, VRAM and power draw rather than speed.
Pricing settles it: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 is both faster and 80% cheaper at $250 versus $449. There is no scenario in this pairing where the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary is the better buy at these prices.
Two things beyond raw speed: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 carries 12GB against 8GB — the deciding factor at 1440p and above with ray tracing or texture packs, and the reason 8GB cards age badly; and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 draws 55W less (170W versus 225W), which can mean a smaller PSU and a quieter case; and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 is 2 years newer (2021 versus 2019), so it gets longer driver support and newer upscaling and frame generation features.