Here next to me is the RTX 3060 Ti series, a selection of them rather, if you want to know which one of these performs the best, go check out my dedicated, but for this time I’m going to stick with the RTX 3060 Ti in general and in relation to the most popular sim racing games out there, ones that I also play, like the iRacing and Assetto Corsa Competition. I’ll try to make this type of video with every new GPU series, and once I hopefully manage to cover the majority of the latest ones, both with the Ampere and of course the Big Navi from ADM, their ongoing RX 6000 series at the moment that is, I will also make sure to round all of it up in a single video for
With that said, I wanted to check out how this mainstream graphics card series performs in all the popular titles that have a sim racing note to it, titles like iRacing, Assetto Corsa and Assetto Corsa Competizione, Formula 1, Dirt 5, and so on, I think you get the picture.
Since this is not your regular testing as there are a variety of use case scenarios when it comes to monitoring setups, I’ve decided to run them through all, at least the ones that are most common, so you get better with what we’re dealing here. Unfortunately, I don’t have a triple monitor setup, but since I have a 4K monitor, I can simulate a triple 1080p resolution in the overall pixel count, while for a 1440p setup I will try to interpolate my results from my 4K resolution testing, as the difference in the pixel count is around 28% between the 4K and triple 1440p setup. It’s an estimation, but should be a pretty good one.
RTX 3060 Ti with iRacing, ACC, F1 2020…
For all you out there who are playing at 1080p high refresh rate monitors, you’ll be happy to hear that even at high settings in every game possible, you’ll be getting well above 120 FPS, which is not a surprise considering how much power this GPU offers compared to previous generations, it’s even stronger than an RTX 2080 Super or GTX 1080 Ti. Moving to a multi-monitor setup based on this resolution, so that’s a triple 1080p monitor configuration and its 5760×1080 resolution, or 6,2 million pixel count, I’ve made a custom 3840×1620 resolution on my 4K monitor so it has that same pixel count and corespondents the performance demand that this triple 1080p resolution has. Looking at those results, sim racing RTX 3060 Ti is more than viable with triple 1080p setup as you can count on crossing the 100 FPS mark in some games while lowering the graphics settings down will bump that up even further.
Jumping back to a single monitor setup with a 1440p resolution, the RTX 3060 Ti easily goes through each game, spewing out good FPS numbers, making it definitely worthy of a high-refresh-rate panel. It managed to deliver anywhere from 100 FPS to 200 FPS, depending on the title and settings. Again, to get to some kind of performance insight, I’ve used 4K results and interpolated them to check out the rough performance estimation for a triple 1440p monitor setup, that being a pretty substantial 7680×1440 resolution, which is, as I stated before, around 25% more than the 4K resolution itself.
You can get a decent amount of frames with lower settings, but other than that, you would probably need something like the RTX 3080 or RX 6800 XT to get high enough frame-rates for taking advantage of a high-refresh-rate monitor.
4K too much to handle?
Moving on to the 4K results, in most case the figures were below 100 FPS, which is generally speaking well for most users, but in terms of the sim racing, it’s not enough as more and more drivers are going for high-refresh rate monitors, although in terms of 4K resolutions, there’s not that many of affordable models in this segment, so it’s probably not that widespread at the moment. Lowering down the settings does help a lot in the majority of titles, but it falls short in terms of reach that 144 FPS mark. This resolution and its results are also a good indicator for all of those ultra-wide 21:9 monitors, which are also popular with sim racing setups, like for example this LG’s latest 38” 1600p 144 HZ model, but in relation to this RTX 3060 Ti GPU, you’ll have to go with something a bit stronger than it.
The current ultra-wide gaming king, the Samsung G9 with its 32:9 aspect ratio, also has just a bit lower total pixel count than a standard 4K monitor with its 5120 x 1440 resolution, so playing on it is still viable on less demanding games like iRacing and lower settings, but have in mind that this is an even faster 240 Hz monitor, so for you to take the full advantage of that you’ll have to have a beast of a configuration. I actually just got my hands on one, unfortunately, after I was already finished with testing this GPU’s, but I’m already aiming to try it out with Sapphire’s RX 6800 XT Nitro+.
As you’ve probably noticed, the difference between high and low in-game graphical settings can deliver a pretty big performance jump, but although this will help momentarily in getting those extra sweet-sweet frames, it can’t do it opposite in terms of your driving turn-in points, braking marks and so on, because you’re losing details, which then removes the possibility of you finding different cues on the track itself. Of course, every game here can be tuned in separately even more as they’re a lot of graphics mods and tweaks that can improve performance, but it’s all about finding a good balance between every aspect of the game, so I’m hoping maybe to implement some of those too in my future testing, while this was a good baseline to start off like this.
RTX 3060 Ti – sim racing sweet spot
All in all, the 3060 Ti series seems to be a sweet-spot for sim racing in combination with high-refresh-rate single or triple 1080p, or single 1440p setups, although, with current pricing, which is far from original MSRP because of the current market situation, it’s hard to make the same conclusion with a straight face, once that hopefully and eventually level’s up, I think it will be a pretty common choice for sim racers who want to keep within a reasonable budget, but still get plenty of performance for hitting that apex as precisely as possible.
That’s it for this time, thanks for checking out this RTX 3060 Ti sim racing overview, if you have any question feel free to hit me in the comments section of my YouTube video listed above, you can contact me via my social media channels!
