AMD Radeon RX 7600 vs Nvidia RTX 3060 vs RTX 3060 Ti: Which is the best budget GPU for gaming?

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 has finally been launched in the market for mid-range gamers. It shares a similar spec sheet with the last-gen Radeon RX 6650 XT while being more power efficient and costing less. Team Red initially decided on a $299 price tag, but following the Nvidia RTX 4060 launch, the latest RDNA 3 GPU has been discounted to just $269 to stay competitive.

This is a huge win for gamers. Exact reviews and benchmarks are yet to be published. But if the performance gains on the high-end RX 7900 XT and the 7900 XTX are anything to go by, the newer GPU might destroy the upcoming 60-class Nvidia RTX graphics card market.

Do note that the RTX 4060 won't launch until July this year. In contrast, the 7600 goes immediately up for sale starting tomorrow. This gives the Team Red card a solid head start in the market.

However, what you can buy today in the market is the older RTX 3060 and the 3060 Ti. Is the RX 7600 worth buying over them? Let's find out.

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The Radeon RX 7600 is a massive win in terms of thermal efficiency and performance-per-dollar

Before proceeding further into the comparison, it is worth noting that making an apples-to-apples comparison between the RX 7600 and the RTX 3060 family of GPUs can be difficult. That is because they are based on completely different architectures.

However, a look at the specs can reveal what the new GPU has to bring to the table.

	AMD Radeon RX 7600	Nvidia Geforce RTX 3060 Ti	Nvidia Geforce RTX 3060	AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT
Architecture	RDNA 3	Ampere	Ampere	RDNA 2
GPU name	Navi 33 XL	GA104	GA106	Navi 23 KXT
Shading units	2,048	4,864	3,584	2,048
TMUs	128	152	112	128
ROPs	64	80	48	64
RT cores	32	38	28	32
Compute Units	32	N/A	N/A	32
Tensor cores	N/A	152	112	N/A
Memory	8GB GDDR6 128-bit	8GB GDDR6 256-bit	12GB GDDR6 192-bit	8GB GDDR6 128-bit
TDP	165W	200W	170W	176W
MSRP	$269	$399	$329	$399

At first glance, the RX 7600 might look like a rehashed RX 6600 XT. It packs the exact number of shading units, RT cores, Compute Units, and memory as the last-gen card. The only difference is a lower power draw and price tag.

However, the newer RDNA 3 architecture should be able to deliver better performance with almost the same spec sheet. Thus, we are expecting the RX 7600 to shine in video games.

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Performance differences

In video game benchmarks conducted by YouTuber Gamers Nexus, the Radeon RX 7600 is way more powerful than the last-gen variant. It even beats the Radeon RX 6600 XT and the RTX 3060 by a decent margin in most video games while costing less than them.

	AMD Radeon RX 7600	Nvidia RTX 3060 12 GB	Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti 8 GB	AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT
Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p)	89	76	96	80
F1 22 (1080p)	146	124	164	154
Shadow of the Tomb Raider (1080p)	150	123	160	145
Rainbow Six Seige (1080p)	377	300	392	325
GTA V (4K)	58	56	77	45
Total War 3: Warhammer (1440p)	62	58	78	51

The new GPU gets very close to the RTX 3060 Ti 8 GB card but cannot beat the premium 1080p gaming option from the last gen. This is fine, given that the 7600 is an entry-level card and costs way less than the 3060 Ti.

The last-minute price reduction of the latest Team Red GPU makes all the difference. It can easily become a best-buy GPU for 1080p gaming. In addition, AMD is known for improving driver optimization, which boosts framerates over a few months after a card's release.

If this applies to the 7600, it has the chance of becoming a solid offering over the RTX 4060. But Nvidia does have DLSS 3 and features for 3D professionals and creators (Canvas, studio drivers, and more) to fight back with.