The NVIDIA RTX 3060 Ultra is a graphics card that is priced and performing somewhere between the RTX 3060 Ti and the RTX 3070, both in terms of performance and price. Among other things, it anticipates a possible RTX 3070 Ultra with a 16GB GDDR6 configuration, which has not been officially announced.
The price that this new model of graphics card should have is $ 450, which makes us wonder if it will be the only one of its kind or NVIDIA will make us hesitate with jumps between cards from 50 to 50, which will do more. difficult choice when choosing an RTX 3000.
NVIDIA RTX 3060 Ultra is a reality
We learned of the existence of this card thanks to a leak of an ASUS model, in particular the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 3060 Ultra, which as you can see has a 12 GB GDDR6 configuration, which is confirmation not in the form of a rumor but in the form of an actual product that NVIDIA is going to start using chips from GDDR6 VRAM with 2 GB
Where is this new graphics card located?
The new GPU will be positioned between RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3070It will be called the RTX 3060 Ultra, which will have a 12GB GDDR6 configuration.
At first glance, you might think that since the GA106 GPU bus is 192-bit, we’re looking at an RTX 3060 with a 12GB GDDR6 configuration, built with 2GB capacity chips, but it turns out that it isn’t. is not the case. well and the GPU that this RTX 3060 Ultra would use would be the GA104 used in the RTX 3070.
This is no different from what happens between the RTX 3080 and the RTX 3090, both use the GA102 but the version of the RTX 3080 is reduced, using fewer units and with the narrower memory bus, 320 bits at the instead of 384 bits.
What sense does it make for NVIDIA to release this model of graphics card?
NVIDIA has a lot of GA104, RTX 3070 chips which do not work as a full setup and are partially defective, these chips are the ones they will use for the RTX 3060 Ultra which would be discarded first.
The reason for launching this graphics card and many mid-size models in a lineup is that the cost of a wafer is divided by the number of chips that come out “good”, converting those that are partially defective but 100% functional into new ones. GPU. cost per chip and they are given a market opportunity in the form of a new product.
This type of configuration does not exist from the start when designing a new generation of graphics cards, it is a product of the manufacturing details of already manufactured models, therefore the GA104 which cannot achieve the complete configuration can be found in these intermediate models which They improvise to take advantage of it.
Leverages RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 Ti designs
Since the chip is the GA104, graphics card makers can quickly deploy their RTX 3060 Ultra using PCBs, VRMs, and other items that they use to build their RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 Ti models very quickly. .
The difference between the three models? Looking at the two cards, you will see that one of them is missing 2 GDDR6 memory chips to be placed in the RTX 3060 Ultra models, this is the reason for the ephemeral deployment of this model in the market, it does not no new design required.
What configuration can the NVIDIA RTX 3060 Ultra have?
Well, for the moment we do not know, there are only a few days left to find out, since NVIDIA will make its presentation at CES where it could present this GPU model.
GA106 is said to have 30 SM configuration, while GA104 in its maximum configuration is 48 SM. So this RTX 3060 Ultra should be in a number of SMs in between, obviously we know there is a version of the GA104 with 38 active SM, which we’ll see in the RTX 3080 for laptops, which is precisely the same GPU that uses the RTX 3060 Ti, but we don’t know why it uses a 192-bit bus instead of a 256-bit bus.
It wouldn’t be the first time that NVIDIA and AMD have artificially superimposed the memory bus of a GPU either, in any case we can not rule out a mixed configuration between 1 GB and 2 GB of chips, but this is not usual on PC, although we did. Seen on Microsoft’s Xbox Series X.
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