PNY RTX 3060 XLR8 Gaming Review

1. Introduction2. PNY RTX 3060 XLR8 Gaming3. Testing Methodology4. 3DMark Fire Strike & Time Spy5. 3DMark DirectX Raytracing6. Assassin's Creed Valhalla7. Control8. Cyberpunk 20779. Dirt 510. The Division 211. F1 202012. Gears 513. Hitman 314. Metro Exodus15. Red Dead Redemption 216. Total War Saga: Troy17. Watch Dogs: Legion18. Performance Summary (12 Game Average)19. Clock Speed20. Temperatures21. Acoustics22. Noise-Normalised Temperatures23. Power Consumption24. Overclocking25. Closing Thoughts26. View All Pages

As the fourth RTX 3060 to come through our doors, today we have focused on the PNY RTX 3060 XLR8 Gaming, a fairly simple dual-fan card that doesn't come with a factory overclock. That alone makes it fairly unusual, as the other three models we have tested have all shipped with at least a minor factory overclock.

That does mean the XLR8 proved the slowest of all four RTX 3060s we have tested – but honestly I don't think that matters. At worst, it came in just 5FPS slower than the Gigabyte RTX 3060 Gaming OC, when typically the difference was more like 2-3FPS. In other words, I really don't think anyone would be able to tell the difference between the two. The XLR8 is the slowest on paper, but in the real world, the differences are trivial.

We did have good success overclocking the card though. We were able to add another 260MHz to the GPU core, and 950MHz to the memory, giving an extra 9-12% performance in the titles we tested. Of course, not every card will overclock the same, but it's certainly positive to see we were able to extract a decent chunk of extra performance from this GPU.

As for the card's cooling abilities, I'd say it is fine but not anything special. The dual-fan cooler kept temperatures below 70C at all times, while producing just 38dBa of noise, which is certainly decent.

The main thing that stands out to me however, is the fact that Palit's StormX OC ran just 2C hotter when noise-normalised to 40dBa, despite being a significantly smaller – and single-fan – graphics card. That doesn't mean the XLR8 is bad per se, but I don't think the design is overly efficient, as you'd expect a larger dual-fan card to be more than 2C cooler.

Still, as graphics cards go, this is far from the worst I've ever tested, and I'd certainly have no issues using it in my own system. We all know how things are right now in the GPU market, so if you can snap up the PNY RTX 3060 XLR8 Gaming for a decent price, it will do a good job.

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Pros

• Simple, no-frills design.
• Bright RGB lighting.
• Decent cooler.
• Performs like an RTX 3060.

Cons

• Relatively plain design won't appeal to everyone.
• No factory overclock means it is fractionally slower than the likes of the Palit StormX OC.

KitGuru says: PNY's RTX 3060 XLR8 Gaming is a decent offering. It doesn't excel in any one area, but it also has no significant weaknesses.

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