AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT vs GeForce RTX 3060

We compared two discrete desktop gaming GPUs: the Radeon RX 6500 XT 4 GB with 1024 shaders against the 1 year older GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB that utilizes 28 pipelines and 3584 shaders. Here you will find complete details about specs, efficiency, performance tests, and more.

Review

General comparison of performance in games, applications, power efficiency, and other metrics
Gaming
Performance in DirectX, OpenCL, and Vulkan games
Workstation
Perf. in 3D modeling, video editing and rendering apps
AI/ML
Capabilities for machine learning and AI-related tasks
Energy Efficiency
Power consumption efficiency in different scenarios
DeviceFacts Final Score
Overall video card score

Value for money (Beta)

We use average GPU prices from all manufacturers by default. Enter the current price of a specific card for better accuracy.
Currency
4 GB GDDR6
VS
12 GB GDDR6
22.7
(Mediocre)
Value Index
49.1
(Average)

Key differences

Key distinctions and advantages of RTX 3060 over RX 6500 XT
Reasons to consider the Radeon RX 6500 XT
  • Manufactured using a more efficient 6 nm process technology
Reasons to consider the GeForce RTX 3060
  • Performs significantly better (up to 89%) in 3DMark Steel Nomad Lite
  • 2.2x higher maximum theoretical performance (12.7 vs 5.8 TFLOPS)
  • Shows 2x higher average frame rate in modern games at QHD resolution – 60 vs 30 FPS

Gaming Performance

Frame rate comparison across popular AAA titles at different resolutions

Games

FPS Table
Forza Horizon 5
84
46
33
22
112
68
60
39
The Witcher 3
60
50
28
14
122
100
74
39
Counter-Strike 2
95
67
44
18
181
137
99
48
Far Cry 6
64
54
40
16
95
85
67
37
Hogwarts Legacy
36
28
21
12
65
57
40
18
CoD: Modern Warfare III
54
42
33
18
80
74
53
31
Ghost of Tsushima
39
29
21
10
62
50
37
20
Cyberpunk 2077
36
30
18
-
68
64
38
16
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
70
61
36
19
109
98
70
36
Average FPS by Resolution
1080p High 60 99
1080p Ultra 45 81
1440p Ultra 30 60
4K Ultra 15 32
Margin of Error Low Low

Benchmarks

Graphics cards’ performance in recent benchmarking apps

3D Mark

Multiplatform graphics benchmark suite that directly correlates with performance in modern games
Steel Nomad Lite Score
4763
RTX 3060 +89%
9001
Time Spy 4942 8754
Solar Bay 20010 41158
Port Royal 368 5145
Fire Strike 15575 22304
Wild Life Extreme 8990 17728
Night Raid 65355 97159
Sources: 3DMark [1], [2]

GeekBench 6 OpenCL

GPU test for computational tasks (image processing, photography, computer vision, and ML)
GB6 Compute Score
53081
RTX 3060 +73%
91603
Background Blur 130.3 img/sec 149.6 img/sec
Face Detection 70.1 img/sec 91 img/sec
Horizon Detection 1.59 Gpixels/sec 4.07 Gpixels/sec
Edge Detection 2.21 Gpixels/sec 5.58 Gpixels/sec
Gaussian Blur 2.02 Gpixels/sec 3.92 Gpixels/sec
Feature Matching 0.65 Gpixels/sec 1.01 Gpixels/sec
Stereo Matching 223 Gpixels/sec 372.9 Gpixels/sec
Particle Physics 7470.5 FPS 12226.3 FPS
API OpenCL OpenCL
Sources: Geekbench [3], [4]

Cinebench 2024 GPU

Hardware benchmark using Maxon's Cinema 4D rendering engine
Cinebench 2024 GPU
2030
RTX 3060 +292%
7952

Passmark Graphics

Videocard test that focuses on compute shaders, multi-texturing, tessellation, and other features
G3D Mark Score
9617
RTX 3060 +74%
16710
G2D Mark 817 965
DirectX 11 90 FPS 127 FPS
DirectX 12 38 FPS 68 FPS
GPU Compute 4296 Ops/s 8231 Ops/s
Sources: PassMark [5], [6] – 3351 & 46248 samples

Blender

Rendering performance test for 3D modeling
Blender GPU
424.41
RTX 3060 +439%
2288.28
Sources: Blender [9], [10] – 119 & 6537 samples

Recent User Tests

The latest benchmark tests that have been submitted by users
Radeon RX 6500 XT
No benchmark results yet
GeForce RTX 3060
DateBenchmarkResult
📘 2025-12-07 (tach)Cinebench 20247952

Artificial Intelligence Tests

Performance in machine learning and artificial intelligence tasks

GeekBench 6 ML

Tests throughput of AI operations in single, half, and quantized precision
GB6 ML Single Precision
10359
RTX 3060 +46%
15123
GB6 ML Half Precision
12861
RTX 3060 +102%
25942
GB6 ML Quantized
7842
RTX 3060 +32%
10356
Image Classification (SP) 3867 6645
Image Segmentation (HP) 5136 15338
Image Super Resolution (Q) 11758 14283
Face Detection (HP) 14844 28862
Pose Estimation (Q) 42787 61313
Text Classification (SP) 1986 2463
Machine Translation (HP) 2665 3793
Object Detection (SP) 4251 7712
Depth Estimation (Q) 19707 25461
Style Transfer (SP) 101802 123233
Framework ONNX ONNX
Backend DirectML DirectML
Sources: Geekbench [9], [10]

Specifications

Technical specifications of Radeon RX 6500 XT and GeForce RTX 3060

General

Vendor Amd Nvidia
Build Discrete Discrete
Released January 19, 2022 January 12, 2021
Launch price (MSRP) $199 $329
Case Desktop Desktop
Purpose Gaming Gaming
Segment Mid-range Mid-range
Architecture RDNA 2.0 Ampere
GPU Codename Navi 24 GA106
Rival Equivalent - GeForce RTX 3050 - Radeon RX 6700 XT
Successor - - GeForce RTX 5060
Recommended CPU - Intel Core i5 12400 or above - Intel Core i5 12600K or above
Desktop GPU rating (79th and 58th place)

Graphics Processing Unit

Base Clock 2310 MHz 1320 MHz
Boost Clock 2815 MHz 1777 MHz
Shading Units 1024 3584
Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) 64 112
Render Output Units (ROPs) 32 48
Compute Units (Pipelines) - 28
Tensor Cores No 112
Ray-tracing Cores 16 28
L1 Cache 128KB per cluster 128KB per cluster
L2 Cache 1024KB shared 3MB shared
Instructions Per Cycle 2 IPC 2 IPC

Raw Performance

Pixel Fill Rate 90 GPixel/s 85 GPixel/s
Texture Fill Rate 180 GTexel/s 199 GTexel/s
FLOPS (FP32)
5.8 TFLOPS
RTX 3060 +119%
12.7 TFLOPS

Physical

Interface PCIe 4.0 x4 PCIe 4.0 x16
TGP 107 W 170 W
Manufacturing TSMC Samsung
Fabrication Process 6 nm 8 nm
Die Size 107 mm² 276 mm²
Transistor Count 5 billion 12 billion
Transistor Density 46.73 MTr/mm² 43.48 MTr/mm²

Memory

Memory Type GDDR6 GDDR6
Memory Size 4 GB 12 GB
Memory Clock 2248 MHz 1875 MHz
Effective Memory Speed 18000 Mbps 15000 Mbps
Bus 64-bit 192-bit
ECC No No
Memory Bandwidth
143.9 GB/s
RTX 3060 +150%
360 GB/s

API

DirectX 12 12
Vulkan 1.3 1.3
OpenGL 4.6 4.6
OpenCL 2.2 3.0
CUDA - 8.6
Ray Tracing Yes Yes
DLSS No DLSS 2
DisplayPort 1.4a 1.4a

Cast your vote

Choose between two graphics cards
2 (14.3%)
12 (85.7%)
Total votes: 14

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