Power consumption of RTX 3060 and 3080 - Which to buy for Iray? 3070?
rst
Posts: 6
Hey guys!
I hope you are all well?
So this is my first post here and I hope that I'm in the right area of the forum with it.
I recently started with Daz3D and really do enjoy it, but my GPU (AMD RX 5700 XT) has to be replaced.
Now I would like to ask if you would recommend either the RTX 3060 or the RTX 3080? Or would you rather go for the 3070?
Can you tell me how high their power consumption is when you make a Iray render?
Some Specs of my System:
Case: Corsair Carbide Series Air 540
MB: ASUS PRIME X570-PRO
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600
RAM: 4 x 16GB (G Skill F4-2400C15-16GVR)
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
PSU: Corsair RM650i
Storage: 1 x 1TB (Intel SSDPEKNW010T8) & 1 x 2TB (Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM008-2FR102)
OS: Windows 10 Pro
Thank you all for your help!
Have a nice day!
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Personally, I went for the 3060, as one of the absolute most key factors for Iray is that the scene fits into VRAM - if it doesn't fit into VRAM entirely, then the speed of the card is entirely irrelevant, because it's not in use. And in that respect, Nvidia's product line up this generation is very weird, with the 3060 having more VRAM than the 3060 Ti, 3070 and 3080.
Right now, the challenge is getting any card at all, but if you actually have a choice, I'd either recommend the 3060 or if you really want the extra rendering speed of the 3080, actually waiting for the 3080Ti at the end of April, which is currently also rumoured to be a 12 GB card. (It may be hard to get a 3060 before then anyway; there's enough people who've been struggling to get one for the last month). While the non-Ti 3080 is a very capable card, Nvidia's current line up is not very convenient for Iray users, forcing them to compromise on either speed or VRAM.
However, if you want a 3080 or 3080 Ti, Nvidia recommends a minimum of a 750W PSU, so you'd also need to upgrade that. (While a power supply can theoretically run its nominal power, they're most efficient at about half their limit, and you want some breathing room as the power supply ages and wears out).
As far as the 3070 - of the 30 series cards, the 3070 is probably the card in the series I would be least enthusiastic about for Iray. It's only got 8 GB of VRAM (which is okay, but not great), but isn't all that much faster than the 3060 Ti (which is also 8GB), which is a fair sight cheaper.
It should be noted that the 3060 is a very capable card for Iray, almost on a par with the 2080 Ti of last generation. It's... well, less impressive for gaming use, but is at least in the same ballpark as your current 5700 XT.
I agree with Matt_Castle.I'm waiting for the RTX 3060(MSRP $329) for all the same reasons.Unless of course I can get an RTX 3090 for around $800.
MSRP for the RTX 3090 FE is USD 1,499, so at USD 800, it would have to be stolen, unless you want to wait 5 or 6 years.
Think one will really be availalbe by then?Seems pretty fast by current standards. lol
I may have to wait for the PCIe5 cards to go on discount, or maybe whatever comes after PCIe5 :(
Thank you all for your answers so far.
To the gaming aspect: I play mostly sport games like (NFL, Fifa and so on) and Simulators (like Euro Truck Simulator) on the computer.
And in the matter of PSU: Mine should be fine with the 3060 from what I did read.
With that in mind... I guess the RTX 3060 is a really good option for me.
In the matter of getting one... I might be lucky with that as I work for a big IT company and I know we have some 3060 in house... So will ask my colleague if it is possible to buy one.
Could you maybe tell me how high the power consumption is during rendering Matt_Castle?
Afterburner tells me that my 3060 uses about 80% of its 180W power target during Iray renders. (Whereas gaming tends to max out the power target).
...basically with teh RTX 3060 you are getting a 1,200$ Titan-Xp that has only 300 fewer rendering cores, with the addition of RTX and tensor compute cores, faster boost clock, GDDR6 memory, in a smaller form factor that consumes 80w less for 329$ MSRP (if you can find one that is).. The only weak point in comparison is the memory interface which is half that of the Titan-Xp.
Save for the memory interface, it surpasses my Titan-X in every respect for about a third of the MSRP.. If I had, say a 1070 instead, I'd consider one myself though already having 12 GB of VRAMand still a farily powerful card lookign to go big if I upgrade (RTX A5000)
If we could only have peeked into the future a bit back then.
So true :D Would never have bought my RT 5700 XT if I had known that I will start to make renders at some point in my life :D
One more question... I have a Oculus Quest 2... Anybody ever tried her with the 3060?
Thank you all again for the help! It really makes it easier to decide.
...according to the 3060's specifications on the Nvidia site it is "VR Ready"..
Looks like the RTX 3080 and 3080ti are rated at around 320 watts, and the 3070 around 220 watts, and the 3060 around 170 watts. When running Iray I'm guessing both would draw less than 300 and 200 watts respectively. And that varies as your render proceeds. It bounces all over the place. If you add up all of your computer components' power draws, and allow for the fact that your CPU (the second largest draw-er of power) probably isn't running anywhere near it's maximum at the same time your GPU is rendering, you'll probably be hard pressed to get your entire computer drawing over 400 watts with either of those GPU's.
Personally, I think an NIVIDA recommendation of 750 watts is somewhat overkill for this. There's virtually zero noticeable benefit to running your power supply at 50%, since the difference in efficiency (wasted power in the power supply) is negligible. It might save you a few $$ in power costs a year. You'd be better off turning of unused light bulbs.
I have a GTX-1080ti (rated 250 watts) running alongside an RTX-2070 Super (215 watts), and during Iray renders the entire computer takes less than 450 watts from the wall outlet. That includes both GPU's, the CPU, 3 fans, the power loss in the 750 watt power supply, and everything else. So the total rating of both GPU's is 465 watts, but the entire computer draws less than 450 peak during an Iray render. No matter how hard I tried I could never get anywhere near its rating of 750 watts. Something over just 500 watts would be fine.
Now of course you can justify buying as big a power supply as you want based on possible future upgrades. But as others have said, I'd worry far less about getting a big power supply and worry more about getting more VRAM, especially if you're like many and enjoy building big scenes with a lot of components. Also, keep in mind you'll need at least 2 or 3 times the amount of GPU VRAM for your system RAM, since scenes use a ton of system RAM, then get optimized down to much less data that is sent to the GPU to do the rendering. But it looks like you're covered with the planned 64GB.
I'm in the process of building a PC too. You guys are recommending the 3060 over 3080? I thought the 3080 would probably be better than the 3060 because it has more cores even if less RAM. Anyone have any idea what the 3080 will be priced at? If it will be more than $800 (which I'm assuming) I'd rather just choose one of those above because I can't really afford more than $800 or so. I mean that is if I can even find it. By the time they are available maybe I can afford that or the 3090 lol.
Also, I also plan to use Maya a good bit, not sure if that makes a difference.
I've just lost quite a long post here because the forum failed to save a draft, but please don't give this as advice.
Power supplies degrade from their nominal spec over time, there *are* things that can use more power than rendering (including exceeding the nominal TDP of the components), and brownouts can cause all kinds of problems for a system. There's good reason that Nvidia's recommendations about power supply have a good overhead. The PSU is the backbone of your system and it's not something you want to fall short.
The meat of the problem is that if you run out of VRAM, your core count might as well be zero, because Iray cannot use the GPU in those cases. This particular trade off is a tricky one that's not really been present in any previous generation. In almost every previous case*, within a generation, buying the higher models gets you both more processing power and more VRAM, so there wasn't this kind of compromising.
*There's been a few minor cases, like a the 1050 Ti being a 4GB card, and the first versions of the 1060 being a 3GB card, but they're comparatively small differences between immediately adjacent cards, rather than cases like this, where a card has more VRAM than those several models up.
For that reason, while the 3060 is the slowest (so far) of this generation, its large VRAM allocation compared to its cost means that it's shaping up to be a real workhorse. And with advancements to the RTX cores, being the slowest 30 series card still means its Iray performance is within spitting distance of the flagship 2080 Ti of last generation.
Unless they have particular concerns about gaming performance, I doubt there's many Iray users who would actively recommend the 3070 over the 3060, and... yeah, there's a lot who would would take the 3060 rather than the 3080 (particularly when cost difference is counted).
After everything I did read here, I will also try to get my hands on a 3060. Besides the good feedback here and the cost difference it is the PSU that got me to that point.
The 3060 should be fine with my actual one, something that saves me costs.
Also the power consumption of the computer will be less without a huge performance difference while rendering, another important reason for me.
I think the 3060 will also be doing fine with some Sport and Simulation games. And for VR... I will just hope that it will be fine with the Quest 2, did read mixed reviews.
+1
There are also recent examples here on the forum of cases where inadequate PSU has been the problem in DS, even when games and some testing programs were running without problems.
Some background info for those concerned about sizing their power supplies, which has been a very popular topic here for years.
A "brownout" is when your power company lowers the voltage at your house due to some system problems they're experiencing. In the US, the voltage supplied at your wall outlet is typically around 120 volts, but can vary +/- 5% under normal conditions (114-126 volts). However, under abnormal conditions it can vary all over the place, but usually for very short periods (ie, less than a second). A quality power supply typically is rated to operate with outlet voltage down to 100 volts, which is 83% of nominal. That's very low. And for most of us, extremely rare.
In any case, sizing your computer power supply with a higher watt rating to account for this low voltage contingency is not really relevant. A brand name power supply with an ATX specification has internal circuitry to sense a low voltage and shut down to protect itself and your computer. This is independent of the watt rating. A higher wattage power supply won't matter. If you're really concerned about brownouts you should probably unplug your computer during a long-lasting brownout, as well as any other important appliances (refrigerator, etc.). And if it's something that happens often where you live and you need to run your PC during those events, you might want to buy a UPS (battery backup) to power your computer if it's that important.
My only point is that when sizing any component in your PC I encourage you to use facts, not fear. A quality Corsair 650 watt power supply costs about $70, and an 850 watt costs twice that ($140). I think it makes sense to spend that extra $70 on something that's important, not hypotheticals that don't really matter.
Again, if anyone is curious about how much power your entire PC is taking, you can buy (approx. $30) a device which will measure power, and voltage, and current, and other stuff that your computer is drawing from the wall outlet, and monitor it in real time. That might help to de-mystify a lot of the unkowns that constantly circulate about power supplies. And that should help folks not under-size their power supplies too.
So it looks like the OP has a 650 watt power supply and is going to stick with that. From my perspective I think that's the best choice based on the equipment described. IMO, what's more important is that it is a quality, name brand power supply that complies with the ATX specification (Corsair, Dell, etc.).
Thank you for the background info, that was realy interesting.
...
If I had known earlier that I would get into Daz and making renders, I would have gone for a 850 watt, but so the 650 watt was fine.
....
Thank you! I think that the equipment that I do have is fine for rendering, only the GPU needs to be changed.
And in this times... I think everyone is happy to know that he can save some money and will still have a great system.
I'd go with the 12GB 3060 over the 10GB 3080. In fact, I'd keep my 11GB 1080TI over the 10GB 3080 just for that 1GB of additional VRAM. The entire concept of them DECREASING the amount of VRAM on the 3XXX line just boggles my gourd.
That being said...good luck finding one. I've been watching and waiting for a 3090 for a while now and the only options I've come across for purchase are (no lie) double MSRP and I'm sorry but I'm not paying $3500US for a graphics card.
Except that said device can only show you how much your computer is drawing from the wall, it doesn't tell you how much power is used inside the case from different pins (+5V/+12V) and whether the PSU is able to supply the needed power without dropping the level to an extent that the computer will be shut down.
I was wondering the same last summer and everybody was telling me "No game requires that much VRAM, 10GB:s is plenty enough..." even when we we talking about IRAY rendering...
If you can get the cards, a pair of 3060s should give an impressive iray rendering performance for any scene that fits in 12GB VRAM. This is something I picked up talking to Richard. All the still-supported NVidia graphics cards in your system with enough VRAM to hold the scene can work on the render. You don't get pooling of VRAM, but you do get use of all the render cores.
If an ATX power supply is, for whatever reason, unable to supply the power/voltage/current it is designed to provide, it has internal circuitry that will sense that and automatically remove what's called the "Power Good" logic signal it's sending to the computer. This signal is used to tell the computer the power it's providing is either good or bad. And if it's bad, at that point the PSU and computer will shut down.
So if you're using an external power monitoring device like I described to see what the entire computer is taking from the wall during a render, and the power supply is no longer able to provide rated power, it will automatically shut everything down. So the way you'll know that the power supply can't meet the demands is, well, the computer will shut down.
So you're right, an external power meter doesn't monitor internal computer stuff. You'd have to go elsewhere for that. Not sure why you'd need it though.
No, I'm talking more generally in the sense of a brownout being a problem where the power demand exceeds the power supply. And, this case, the "power supply" I'm talking about is the physical unit that's in your computer, not the power grid. A PSU being unable to supply as much power as the system requires, even for brief sub-second instants that will probably not register on many power monitoring units (unless you're talking expensive professional gear), can be the cause of many system problems.
Also, as PerttiA says, these wall socket measuring devices don't give you the breakdown of power draw inside the system. The power is split between different voltage rails internally, and with many supplies, they can only provide a given proportion of their maximum rating to any specific one of those rails, so even if you're certain your system never goes above a 450 watt draw, a 450 Watt supply almost certainly is not supplying that in exactly the right proportions.
As absolutely everything else relies on the power supply, it's the single component that I least advise overstressing or cheaping out on.
Saying "You'll know if the PSU gets overloaded" doesn't mean that it WON'T get overloaded.
Because you're not actually using a 500 Watt supply that isn't getting overloaded - you're using a 750 Watt supply, seeing that it doesn't draw more than 450 watts, and assuming a 500 Watt one would be fine.
I would give fair odds that if you genuinely put a 550 watt PSU into your system, your system would start having problems.
You are advising people that Nvidia's recommendations don't need to be followed since the computer is drawing just a fraction of the recommended power, but you have no knowledge of how much load is put on the different pins.
From the attached comparison, you can see the differences between 550W and 750W PSU:s. You say 550W is enough, but how do you know that the system is not drawing more than 20amps at the +5V pin when you are effectively measuring just the overall consumption - The overload on +5V pin doesn't show on your external measuring device.
I have a 3080 and the speed is great, but my scenes are usually simple, so I put speed over RAM when deciding between it and the 3060.
If your scenes are heavy enough that would need as much RAM as possible, go for the 3060, but for reference, I scratch the limit with a 5 SubD Genesis 8 (which is like having 4 Genesis at 4 SubD each) with fibermesh body hair and a geometry shell in my previous 1080ti (11 GB).
I don't know about power consumption, but if you'd have to upgrade the PSU to get a 3080, I'd stick with the 3060.
Forget about the 3070.
I have a 3090, and I would recommend it.
It is basically a Titan, when considering the previous generations, for much less cash. It isn't, however a Titan as there are aspects it doesn't do.
Whatever you get RAM is king. As already said, if it doesn't fit on your card then speed drops to CPU - or you can do as I do and also render in Blender, which has out of core rendering; uses CPU and GPU even when it doesn't fit on the card; this method isn't as straightforward as Iray - but worth mentioning.
What will 99% of your scenes need RAM-wise? That tells you what you need, presuming you know what it is now - and confident it wont change when you get more GPU RAM.
Look at the image, that was one figure, clothed and haired (
), and it managed to use almost 24GB... But as I was comparing lighting changes I left images open, which uses RAM.
With more RAM you have more options in your workflow - for example: I've used more than one stance of studio to render additional scenes and i've rendered in Blender and Studio at the same time.
I think fears of 5v rail overloads (in a system where the devices like the power hungry GPU and CPU that might be running during renders use 12v), can only be classified as unprovable hypotheticals. And if those fears are sufficient for a particular user to be concerned about, then I totally agree get the largest power supply that will fit in the case.
...+2
I had a 750w PSU in my system I built 9 years ago that rarely if ever got pushed beyond half its capacity. When I installed a Titan-X and upgraded the memory to 24 GB that maybe raised it's peak output to around just 2/3 rds (I routinely monitored performance). A few months ago while I was doing routine stuff (not rendering but just watching a short video on Youttube) it went *poof", basically from old age. It also experienced a few "unplanned shutdowns" due to power outages during it's lifetime as well the last this past summer (I always turned everything off and unplug it before to avoid spikes when the power came back even though I have protection there as well). Fortunately it didn't take any other components with it. (which can happen).
I've always been a firm believer in overbuilding systems to have that overhead instead of skating on thin ice to save a few zlotys. Currently running an 850w which just gives me more "breathing space".
....yeah it sort of gets me that the base 3060 has 12 GB but the 3060Ti has only 8, True, the Ti has about 1,300 more CUDA, 50 more Tensor and 13 more RT cores, a slightly facer base clock and wider memory interface (256 bit).. So yeah, better on the speed factor but the trade-off is a lower limit on scene size which translates to the process dumping to much slower CPU mode (particularly if you don't have an HCC Xeon or Threadripper.).