wccftech - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Graphics Cards With Ampere GA104 GPUs Spotted
 
“NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards have been spotted using the GA104 GPU by Matthew Smith (TechPowerUp's GPU Database Editor). The entries are very recent which means that AIBs are using defective Ampere dies to power the mainstream gaming graphics card.
 
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card is based on the Ampere GA106 GPU which is a whole different SKU compared to the GA104 which powers the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti & GeForce RTX 3070.
 
Based on the new entry, it looks like NVIDIA may have a surplus stock of defective GPU dies that didn't make it into the higher-end graphics card but are still good enough for the RTX 3060 cards. This means that while the graphics card will retain its core specifications such as 3584 CUDA cores and 12 GB of GDDR6 memory running across a 192-bit bus interface, the chip itself will be a much higher-end SKU than the RTX 3060's original GA106 GPU core.
 
This won't be the first time that NVIDIA has used defective 104 dies to replace 106 SKUs. The RTX 2060 that was originally based on the TU106 GPU received several configurations including one of which featured a TU104 GPU. Other cards such as the Turing TU117 powered GeForce GTX 1650 also received updated configurations in TU116 and TU106 flavors.
 
What we could see is the GA104 powered GeForce RTX 3060 to allow stable boost clocks along with better control over power than its constrained GA106 variant. So overall, most of you would never know what's lying under the hood of your NVIDIA RTX 3060 graphics card, whether it be a GA104 or a GA106 GPU-based variant. It was recently reported that the supply of GA106 GPUs might become constrained so that might also explain why these defective GA104 dies are being repurposed for the RTX 3060.”
 
This is not a surprise and we will probably see further iterations of this.  The interesting part of this story is why the supply the shortage of GA 106 GPUs?

normal in my book, chips that do not pass quality testing, get used in lower demand sku

Yes, binning is normal, I'm just wondering what happened to the GA 106 GPUs?  I know NVIDIA warned of a shortfall in September:
 
"According to a report from Asian outlet ITHouse, the supply of NVIDIA’s budget RTX 30 series graphics cards is expected to drop by as much as 50% in the coming weeks, with no improvement expected till late September. The GeForce RTX 3060 and 3060 Ti will be affected the most, with a reduction in shipments for the next 2-4 works. It’s not clear why the supply has been tapered, but it may have to do with the sudden increase in cryptocurrency prices.
The source claims that the RTX 3060 chips are facing difficulties in being delivered to the board partners for unspecified reasons, and as a result, the overall product output, for the time being, will be affected. Earlier this month, there was news that NVIDIA was stockpiling the GA106 dies (that power the RTX 3060) to ensure sufficient availability after the Radeon RX 6600 XT launch. However, that seems to have been a hoax.
Overall, the reason for the shortages and delays is unclear, and it would seem that it’s merely an effort to control the prices. It’s hard to say anything for sure, but supply does seem weaker as of late. We’ll keep this space updated if something changes along the way."  (Source: hardwaretimes)

I'm glad that "defective chips" are still "recyclable" into lower cost cards. I'm pretty sure this was the basis of the SUPER cards.

Hope this will help with the supply.

Hoping those binned chips at least overclock a little better than normal 3060 chips

redrek43
Hoping those binned chips at least overclock a little better than normal 3060 chips

Anyone have any feedback or results on these, yet?
 
Looking at my chip data, it appears I managed to end up with one of these, myself.  Don't exactly have a killer system otherwise, so not sure how much my own testing would show, and no way to compare to anything else.  Google isn't really turning up much on this, either - just a few articles noting the (rare) existence of these, but nothing I can find on anyone pushing them.

I wonder if these GA104 base 3060s will have any tricks up their sleeves like the TU104 RTX 2060s did. The RTX 2060s with the 104 variant had much higher encoding and general workstation performance for those tasks while being virtually identical in game performance. 

CraptacularOne
I wonder if these GA104 base 3060s will have any tricks up their sleeves like the TU104 RTX 2060s did. The RTX 2060s with the 104 variant had much higher encoding and general workstation performance for those tasks while being virtually identical in game performance. 

Are there any public/free benchmarks I could run on it as a point of comparison?

(My system isn’t SUPER amazing, but it’s okay. Intel i9-9900, 64gb DDR4-2666, NVMe drive)

xanderf

CraptacularOne
I wonder if these GA104 base 3060s will have any tricks up their sleeves like the TU104 RTX 2060s did. The RTX 2060s with the 104 variant had much higher encoding and general workstation performance for those tasks while being virtually identical in game performance. 

Are there any public/free benchmarks I could run on it as a point of comparison?

From what i could gather a RTX 3060 Ti is roughly on par with a 1080 Ti  ( tho i have more leverage with 11GB VRam with my 1080 Ti)
a rtx 3070 for me would not be worth it for the little gain i would have in FPS...
 
a 3060 Ti is bit over 1000 euros and i payed bit under 800 euros in March 2019 for my 1080 Ti that has the same performance ( except ray tracing stuff that i dont value)
so.. im just fine for now as a true upgrade for me would be at least a RTX 3080 12GB or a RTX 3080 Ti that cost around 2000 euros
but im not rich to have about 2000 euros ( over 3 full month salaries) for a single GPU component that i actually do not need for 1440p gaming right now.
 
and  ive seen physically some RTX 3060 Ti on a store the other day! the owners will be happy with them... tho im sure they payed heavily for them.