Rumours of its resurrection rumbled away for months, but Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB graphics card has indeed been churned out from fresh runs of GPU production lines, with models hitting retailers’ shelves in Germany. However, if you were hoping to pick up a cheap, older-generation card with lots of VRAM, then you’re going to be disappointed when you see the price tag.
Computerbase reported the news of the fresh production runs, and a quick check of Mindfactory confirms the re-release of the GeForce RTX 3060. However, the German retailer is currently only offering a single Asus model. With an asking price of €338.99 (£291.86, $386.27), though, sales are unlikely to be especially healthy.
You only need to briefly glance through the latest GPU deals to see that this amount of money will get you a GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB in the US and an RTX 5060 8 GB in the UK, both of which will easily surpass the RTX 3060 in games. Both Blackwell GPUs have more shader units, more cache, and more memory bandwidth than the six-year-old Ampere chip, plus they support the full DLSS 4.5 tech suite.
While the RTX 3060 really only lacks DLSS Frame Generation, it also has weaker Tensor and RT cores than those in the RTX 50-series GPUs, so any game that utilises them just isn’t going to be as performant. What the last-last-gen graphics card does offer more of is VRAM, of course, specifically 50% more and in some gaming scenarios, the extra memory will certainly help.
Is that enough to justify the price tag? The short answer is no; the long answer is noooooooo.
Slightly better: the RTX 4060FutureQuite a bit better: the RTX 5060FutureA lot better: the RTX 5060 TiFuture
When we reviewed the GeForce RTX 4060 back in June 2023, we recorded an average frame rate of 72 fps, with a 1% low rate of 46 fps, in Metro Exodus Enhanced (1080p Ultra). The RTX 3060 produced figures of 58 and 35 fps, respectively. Fast forward to May of last year, and the RTX 5060 pulled 87 and 47 fps, even with its shoddy launch drivers.
That’s by no means indicative of how every game will run on an RTX 3060, compared to the latest GPUs, but a 50% higher average frame rate is not to be sniffed at. Swap the 5060 for an 8 GB RTX 5060 Ti, and you’ll be looking at a 74% uplift on the average frame rate. Even an RTX 5050 is faster in that game, though not by very much.
The point is that the resurrection of the RTX 3060 is helping any PC gamer in these wallet-punishing times, and no amount of yelling about 8 GB of VRAM not being enough is going to offset the fact that the price is just far too high. If you really must have more graphics memory than this, then you’ll be better off with an Arc B570 graphics card. While its performance is a bit wonky, it at least has 10 GB of VRAM, and you can pick one up for $250.
