Review of the KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core video card

KFA2 is gaining momentum in promoting its brand in Russia, expanding its product range and attracting new customers with pleasant price tags in partnership with good performance. 2020 turned out to be a difficult year for many people and manufacturers, so the developers decided to start the next year 2021 with positive news and, of course, relevant materials.

The KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti CORE (1-Click OC) graphics card is the most affordable member of its family with a simple, laconic design and excellent performance, putting it forward as a first-class basis for building a gaming computer that meets modern requirements.

Full name: KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti CORE (1-Click OC);

Manufacturer Code: 36ISL6MD1VDK.

Packaging and equipment

The packaging of the new KFA2 products has changed, giving preference to a pleasant blue and white combination with the usual green NVIDIA accents.

On the box of the KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core is one of the strangers of the KFA2 line, who has become more open, but still hides his face: the allegory is visible on Watch Dogs;) The manufacturer openly informs about the two-fan version with 90 mm turntables, 8 GB of video memory and the proprietary 1-Click OC function, which is an additional frequency boost to the factory overclocking.

On the reverse side, the description is more restrained and allows you to get to know the new video card better.

Inside we are waiting for a graphics accelerator in soft material, and a small bundle, consisting of a user manual. More interesting achievements are found in older models.

Appearance and design

Despite its severity, the KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core video card looks more interesting than the other popular low-cost model of the Palit Dual series due to the interesting design of the decorative cooling system casing, although every reader likes certain shapes.

The novelty has received an original cooling system with two 90 mm fans, and the concept with a through external part of the radiator, which many have liked.

..therefore, one carlson blows hot air through the fins and cools the video card better. The backplate is completely metal with a characteristic honeycomb pattern.

The KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core meets the basic requirements of the RTX 3060 Ti and has a consumption at around 200 watts, as specified in the BIOS. To ensure such characteristics, one eight-pin connector is enough, so the novelty is also suitable for gamers of low-power power supplies of 450-550 W, and you will not need to look for a monster with 750+ W.

The rear ventilation grill breaks through the tears of seasoned old school students, who will consider in it the perforation of old servers and cases of yesteryear! Significant moment. In terms of interfaces, everything is smooth – three DisplayPort 1.4a and one HDMI 2.1.

Cooling system

The KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core seems to be the youngest model in the lineup and the most affordable for users, however, the cooling system at the acquaintance stage is already demonstrating its worth: four attachment points in the GPU area, four around the cooler perimeter, and four more on the interface panel. Thanks to this, a uniform adhesion of the CO is achieved, the deformation of the printed circuit board practically disappears.

The main cooler is a three-section radiator with two 6 mm heat pipes.

The thickness of the heatsink varies depending on the cooling zone and reaches almost two expansion slots in the front.

The KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core cooling system is built on a common plate technology and covers the graphics processor and eight GDDR6 video memory chips. The third section of the radiator with straight fins to the platform is responsible for cooling the power section, which I personally think is the best way to remove heat from the VRM.

Focosee FY09015M12LPA fans with a rotation speed of 0 – 3300 rpm are responsible for active cooling.

Without the main cooler, the video card looks defenseless and small.

The compact PCB and metal backplate immediately open. The latter, unfortunately, does not cool the textolite through thermal spacers; the rear grille is also removed with it.

Printed circuit board

Well, look at what a tiny printed circuit board the KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core video card has ?!

KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core is built on an original black PCB with a length of only 145 mm, which will be a great gift for SFFPC enthusiasts! It remains to wait for the water block or come up with an alternative scheme. This PCB was developed by NVIDIA for low-end graphics cards and the OEM segment.

The heart of the review hero is the GA104-200-A1 graphics processor. It was produced in 8nm process technology in the 41st week of 2020 and includes 4864 shaders, 80 rasterization units and 152 texture units.

The reverse side of the KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core PCB.

In comparison with the reference, the power subsystem is slightly simplified and has eight phases, where six phases are allocated to the graphics processor and two to video memory. Used power stages AOZ5311NQI from Alpha & Omega with a rated current of 50 A.

The video card is equipped with 8 GB of video memory of the GDDR6 standard. This volume is recruited by eight Samsung chips. Their clock frequency is 1750 MHz (effective frequency 14000 MHz).

Test stand

• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Z490 Maximus XII Formula;
• Processor: Intel Core i5-10600K;
• Cooling system: XPG Levante 240;
• Thermointerface: Noctua NT-H1;
• RAM: Team Xtreem 8Pack ~ 4000 MHz (2 x 8 GB);
• Video card: KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core;
• Drives: Western Digital Black SN750, 500 GB;
• Power supply: be quiet! Straight Power 11, 850W;
• Monitor: AOC U2790PQU;
• Case: open stand.

Software

• Operating system: Microsoft Windows 10 x64;
• Driver: GeForce 460.89 WHQL.

Testing tools and methodology

For overclocking video cards, as well as monitoring temperatures and fan speeds, we used the proprietary MSI Afterburner utility.

To check the temperature conditions of the video card in conditions close to everyday ones, we used the 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme stability test.

The noise level was measured using a TM-102 digital sound level meter. The measurements were taken from a distance of 30 cm. The background noise level in the room is no more than 28 dBA. All system fans were turned off. On the graphs, the conditional noiselessness limit for the system is determined at the level of 30.5 dBA, the conditional comfort limit is 37 dBA. The room temperature was 25 degrees Celsius.

Additionally, readings of the power consumption were taken using a Robiton PM-2 wattmeter and the temperature of the printed circuit board with a Fluke 59 Max IR thermometer.

Standard Frequencies KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core

KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core corresponds to the reference frequencies and can add 15 MHz thanks to 1-Click OC technology through the proprietary Xtreme Tuner Plus application.

Despite its positioning, the KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core can offer a “Fan Stop” feature, which is a welcome exception. We get the following indicators:

• 44 ° C and 0 rpm when working with MS Office documents;
• 45 ° C and 0 RPM when watching videos and surfing the Internet.

Fans start at 64 ° C and off at 32 ° C.

Here are the detailed characteristics of the BIOS of the KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core model. The TDP level is 200 W without the possibility of increasing.

The KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core video card behaves as aggressively as possible, trying to squeeze out of itself and the “200 W” peak of its capabilities. The novelty boosts up to 1965 MHz, the average value is 1800-1845 MHz. Upon reaching 64 ° C, the cooling system is activated and reaches a stable value at 73 ° C. The cooler rotates at 1770 rpm, creating an average comfort level (39.2 dBA). The rustle of air passing through the radiator fins is slightly noticeable. The VRM area heats up to 74 ° C.

At full fan speed, the KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core cools down to 62 ° C and 64 ° C, respectively. The cooler is working at full capacity, the sound level meter records 55.2 dBA, the noise level is high, but surprisingly does not cause irritation, which is probably due to the thin blades.

The video card downvolts perfectly and with an average value of 850 mV for models of the RTX 30 generation conquers the core frequency of 1845 MHz. Energy consumption is reduced by almost a quarter! Temperatures drop by 6-7 ° C, rotational speed does not rise above 1500 rpm, making the KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core virtually silent.

Overclocking KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core

The low TDP rate hinders the full potential of the KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core. In any case, overclocking the core up to 1950 MHz in boost and memory from 14000 MHz to 16500 MHz allows the novelty to be overclocked.

Overclocked KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core in benchmarks.

The performance of the KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core from manual overclocking increases by 7-11%.

Of course, the most anticipated game – Cyberpunk 2077 – cannot be ignored! The KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core video card playfully deals with it in QHD resolution at high graphics settings and with RTX at medium ones, demonstrating stable 60 frames per second! For the novelty, the FPS counter is at around 59-67, which is very worthy! In 4K resolution, the KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti video card demonstrates 32 FPS, but that pleases without jerks and drawdowns. Old warriors will fondly remember 2007, the first Crysis at 30 frames per second at 1920x1080px, and nothing, they enjoyed it as best they could.

Well, another project in the face of Fortnite for a wide audience in QHD resolution at maximum settings.

Gaming performance in other games at 2560×1440.

Testing KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core with RTX technology in current projects at 2560×1440.

In total, we have high performance in modern games and top-end releases, in particular in projects with RTX and DLSS (an anti-aliasing technology based on a neural network that helps to increase fps) or a combination of both technologies, including Metro Exodus, Fortnite, Control, CoD Cold War, Watch Dogs Legions, Cyberpunk 2077.

NVIDIA technology

Well, those for whom a video card is not only a means of entertainment, but primarily a working tool, will like the NVIDIA Studio driver package, which is responsible for the stability of working applications. Thanks to the RTX platform, all types of cores are involved: CUDA, RT, tensor – accelerating AI algorithms that are used in production applications. The increase in rendering performance and speed can be felt in Adobe, Autodesk, Blender, Cinema 4D, Vegas Pro, Davinci Resolve and a number of other graphics and 3D rendering applications.

Power consumption KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core

Attention! The power consumption of the entire stand from the outlet is taken into account using the Robiton PM-2 wattmeter.

Conclusion

The KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core is a pleasant graphics card without overestimated requirements and expectations, demonstrating good performance at the level of past flagships and a quiet cooling system, which make the new product an interesting model for purchasing and building a gaming PC.

Compared to other RTX 3060 Ti graphics cards, the KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core model does not focus on the lush design and heap of publicized technologies, spiced with a pinch of $ (dollars) for each feature. Rather, the novelty acts as a modest representative of its kind, meeting the “set and forget” requirement, enjoying the increased performance. As such, it was not possible to find a drawback, it is even more difficult to find fault with the video card, so I will be glad to criticize in the comments.

Summing up, the KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Core video card is the main basis for building an up-to-date gaming PC, and the model itself is probably the “national” status, which is very rarely assigned, but often deserved.

Advantages:

• High performance and speed;
• Original appearance;
• Quiet and efficient cooling system;
• Compact dimensions;
• Passive cooler mode.

Disadvantages: