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The Nvidia RTX 3060 has climbed up to the #2 spot on the Steam Hardware Survey charts of June 2023. It is only behind the GTX 1650 and ahead of the GTX 1060 now, which had been the most popular option for ages before losing to the 1650 late last year. The 1650 has been almost discontinued, which raises the question: is the RTX 3060 the go-to GPU for gaming this year? The answer can vary.
Consensus says that the most popular kid on the block isn't the best one. This doesn't apply to the Ampere-based 3060 video card. It has a ton of positives going for it: 12 GB of video memory (unlike other RTX 30 series cards in the budget and mid-range), an affordable $279 price tag, and support for all modern technologies like ray tracing (that can be used unlike the RX 6500 XT) and temporal upscaling.
However, the card was replaced by the newer RTX 4060 and RX 7600 with strong promises. We will compare the last-gen 3060 with the newer video cards and try to answer whether the Ampere-based 60-class card is any good.
The RTX 3060 is exactly what budget gamers need, cheap and reliable
The RTX 3060 has a ton of positives going for it. It ranks among the most value-for-money cards Team Green came up within the last few years. Let's look at its on-paper specifications before delving into its performance metrics.
Specifications
The 3060 is based on a severely cut-down GA106 graphics processor. Under its hood, the GPU packs 3,584 CUDA cores, 112 Tensor cores, and 28 RT cores. The numbers may not be very impressive, but it's worth noting the card is built for 1080p gaming with some compromises.
The biggest pro of the card is the 12 GB memory, which is in stark contrast to what the newer RX 7600 and the RTX 4060 have done. These days, 8 GB of memory is already falling short in most video games, even at 1080p. Even though companies are claiming 8 GB is plenty, the extra VRAM is acting as a sales magnet for the 3060.
The GPU is currently selling for just $259 on Newegg, which makes it cheaper than the AMD RX 7600 ($269 MSRP). The RTX 4060, on the other hand, is the costliest in the bunch with a price tag of $299.
Performance differences
In terms of gaming performance, the trends are clear — the RTX 3060 is the slowest in the current cohort of budget sub-$300 GPUs. However, we are interested in the percentage margins.
Across a ton of games, the RTX 3060 is about 18-20% slower than the newer RTX 4060 and the RX 7600. The older GPU still hits 60+ frames easily with the highest settings applied in some of the most demanding games in the market.
The RTX 4060 has one solid weapon in its arsenal: DLSS 3.0. Frame generation will push framerates to new boundaries. Thus, we can mostly conclude that the newer 60-class card is a future-proofed option, while the 3060 is an essential offering that can play every modern game at 60 FPS today.
