What processor is needed for RTX 3060?
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X
In conclusion, the best CPU for the RTX 3060 depends on your budget and what you plan to do with it. For those who want the best performance, AMD's Ryzen 9 5950X is a great choice. If you need something more affordable, Intel's Core i5-11600K is a great budget option.
Bottlenecks will depend on what software you're running, but in general an RTX 3060 Ti and i5 11400F is a very well-balanced combination for gaming at 1080p or 1440p.
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 is a fast desktop graphics card. It is based on the GA106 Ampere chip and offers 12 GB GDDR6 graphics memory with a 192 Bit memory bus. It offers 3,584 cores and supports PCIe 4.0.
Powered by an 11th Gen Intel Core i5-11400 processor, it can meet all of your heavy gaming demands. In addition, this gaming desktop also has a GeForce RTX 3060 Ti graphics card with NVIDIA Ampere architecture, which provides enhanced performance.
NVIDIA has paired 12 GB GDDR6 memory with the GeForce RTX 3060, which are connected using a 192-bit memory interface.
Nvidia rates the GeForce RTX 3060 TGP (Total Graphics Power) at 170W, making it the lowest power Ampere GPU by 50W. It has a single 8-pin power connector, and combined with the x16 PCIe slot that's enough for up to 225W of power — more than sufficient headroom for overclocking.
Is i5 10400 and RTX 3060 a good combination? Yes, you shouldn't experience any bottlenecks in that system and it should serve you well. Just make sure you pair it with 16gb of memory or you'll run into some issues.
The Intel Core i5-12600K is an incredible mid-range CPU that beats the Ryzen 5 in most benchmarks. DDR5 RAM and PCIe 5.0 support set you up for the future if you factor in the LGA 1700 socket requirement. On a tighter budget, this will make an excellent pairing with the RTX 3060.
In terms of memory, the RTX 3060 's 8192 MB RAM is more than enough for modern games and should not cause any bottlenecks. This combination between RTX 3060 and Intel Core i5-7400 @ 3.00GHz has less than 15% bottleneck in many games and can cause minor FPS loss.
As a mainstream card, the RTX 3060 primarily targets 1080p and 1440p gaming. Some lighter games may also run fine at 4K, or in some cases, you could shoot for 4K at medium settings. But despite having more VRAM than even the RTX 3080, frame rates definitely take a hit at the highest resolutions.
What CPU will not bottleneck a RTX 3060?
There's no CPU that won't bottleneck an RTX 3060 Ti in any situation (even a Ryzen 9 5950X would bottleneck it at 480p low settings in most games), but for most practical purposes, a Ryzen 5 3600 or i5 10400F would be a good choice for minimal bottlenecking at 1080p.
You can enjoy fast and immersive gaming sessions, thanks to the ANT PC Intel Core i5 12400F AB400NF Gaming Tower. With 12 GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060, it improves the graphics while keeping you enthralled during gaming and creating content.

Will the RTX 3060 Ti bottleneck with an Intel Core i5 11400 or 11400F? No. This is an excellent combo. The i5–11400 with a B560 motherboard can allow you to unlock the 65W TDP power limit and essentially let the CPU self-overclock.
- The MSI RTX 3090 Ti Suprim X (Image via Newegg)
- The Sapphire Radeon RX 6950 XT Nitro+ (Image via Newegg)
- The XFX RX 6800 XT Speedster MERC 319 (Image via Newegg)
- The Gigabyte RTX 3070 Ti Gaming (Image via Newegg)
It's mid end. What's considered a high end gpu is a gpu created for 4k gaming so gpu's like the 3080 and up. The 3060 is mostly a 1440p gaming gpu which puts it at mid end.
In the end, the RTX 3060 is still a very solid buy a year in and will be a GPU that could easily last for years to come, similar to the GTX 1060 and 1660 before it. I would have no problem recommending anyone upgrade to the RTX 3060, even from a higher-tier non-RTX card like the 1080, similar to the move I made myself.
Tom's Hardware Verdict. If the GeForce RTX 3060 can come close to its official $329 asking price, it's a great product for mainstream gamers. But in today's market, even with reduced mining performance, that's an unlikely if, as its performance lands right between the RTX 2060 Super and 2070 Super.
8 GB is more than enough for 3060 Ti, and therefore it's nonsensical that 3060 would benefit from more than that.
The 3060 delivers a cinematic 33fps at 4K, but things look a lot better at 1440p (54fps) and 1080p (68fps). Focusing on 1080p, we're getting around 72 per cent the performance on an RTX 3060 Ti at 82.5 per cent of the cost; not a great trade-off unfortunately.
77 degrees is pretty normal, GPU's these days are running very hot.
Can i5 run RTX?
An i5–12400 won't significantly bottleneck an RTX 3080 Ti in recent GPU-intensive games (e.g. Cyberpunk 2077, Spider-Man Remastered, Red Dead Redemption 2), on high/ultra graphics settings, at 1440p or higher resolutions, or with ray tracing enabled.
For gaming its true that the Core i5 10300H is a weaker processor coupled with the RTX 3060, but there are ways and means to remove the bottleneck, if you know and can optimize your systems well. The RTX is a 80 W TDP with a 5 W dynamic boost. The bottleneck is not more than 5-6 %.
Yes. The RTX 3060 is more than adequate for gaming, and also, the RTX 3080 is better. You should buy what you have the budget for.
The Intel Core i5 is an all-purpose processor that offers solid performance for gaming, web browsing, and doing basic work. The Intel Core i7 has more processing power and is better for high-performance gaming, content creation, multimedia editing, and specialized applications.
No, the Core i5-11400 is not going to bottleneck a mere RTX 3060. It wouldn't even bottleneck a 3080 Ti, for that matter.
10400 is powerful enough to utilise a 3060 easily. It even almost uses a 3070 for 1080p as good as most 6 core CPUs. Would you upgrade to the 10th generation i5 NUC from an 8-year-old i5-3550?
The Ryzen 5 5600X and RTX 3060 are a great combination for 1080p or 1440p gaming, and the 16GB of RAM and 1TB SSD are exactly what we'd recommend for a mid-range system, so this Scan build is right on the money.
Yes it will bottleneck it. It will work good for you but you will see improvement with a better cpu.
It's a fair enough combo. I wouldn't buy a Ryzen 3600 in 2022, but if you already have one then there's little reason to change it out in anticipation of getting a RTX 3060. Yeah if you want to save a buck.
It's mid end. What's considered a high end gpu is a gpu created for 4k gaming so gpu's like the 3080 and up. The 3060 is mostly a 1440p gaming gpu which puts it at mid end.
How much FPS can you get with a RTX 3060?
The 3060 delivers a cinematic 33fps at 4K, but things look a lot better at 1440p (54fps) and 1080p (68fps). Focusing on 1080p, we're getting around 72 per cent the performance on an RTX 3060 Ti at 82.5 per cent of the cost; not a great trade-off unfortunately.
The RTX 3060 contains 3,584 CUDA cores and a core clock performance of 1,320 MHz, while the 3060 Ti has 4,864 CUDA cores and a core clock performance of 1410 MHz. Despite the lesser VRAM and a lower boost clock, the RTX 3060 Ti offers better performance.
Though the RTX 3060 does have very high driver overhead (which makes it more likely to be bottlenecked by a CPU than AMD's graphics cards are), a Ryzen 5 3600 is good enough for it in most situations.
The RTX 3060 release has become the most memorable of the Nvidia releases. The green brand reduced the hash rate of Ethereum mining on its new graphics card so that it's less desirable to miners. It was working as intended at first, but now the restriction is removed. We tested the RTX 3060 and measured its hash rate.
One factor could be your motherboard only has PCIe 3.0 x16, that could be a limiting factor. Have you run any benchmarks are compared them to similar setups? Also, make sure you are running the latest version of the AMD chipset drivers. The issue is likely drivers, OS Configuration, Ram Timings.
The 3060 Ti will only be capable of running many graphically intensive games between 40-50fps on average at 4K resolution and max settings. If 4K gaming is your goal, then an RTX 3070 or RTX 3080 will probably be a better bet.
The RTX 3060 is allegedly 30% faster than the PlayStation 5. While that might not make people choose a gaming laptop over a console, it's still impressive considering the RTX 3060 is the lowest-powered GPU in the stack.
Well the RTX 3060 Ti is said to be on par with the 2080 Super or faster. So, technically an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 will be enough, or if you really stretch it, a Ryzen 3 3100. The Ryzen 3 3300X is also a viable option too, although it is pretty much never in stock anywhere.