sebastiand88

Nov 22, 2021

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060

The arrival of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 makes Nvidia’s Ampere architecture finally available in the budget market. $70 (about £50, AU$90) cheaper that the highly-rated Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, this budget GPU is targeting consumers who can’t or are unwilling to shell out $400/£400 or more on a graphics card. That includes GTX 1060 users who’ve been waiting for the right time – and price – to upgrade to the current generation.

Since the Nvidia GTX 1060 is still the most abundant card available on the market to this day, per the Steam Hardware Survey, Nvidia may have a good sector to sell the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 – even if it does come with a higher price tag. The GTX 1060 has been on the market for almost 5 years after all, having made its auspicious debut back in August 2016. And, it has a fraction of the speed of the RTX 3060. 

Nevertheless, it wouldn’t be an easy sell. The GTX 1060 is not only still capable of tackling plenty of the best PC games coming out, but it remains to be the cheaper proposition. Meanwhile, the RTX 3060 Ti offers the kind of added performance that makes the extra cost more than worth it. 

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 launched on February 25, 2021, starting at $329 (about £240, AU$430). The pricing is a little bit complicated, though. Unlike previous entries in the Nvidia Ampere lineup, Team Green is not releasing a Founder’s Edition of the RTX 3060 – much like what it did with the GTX 1660 Ti back with the Turing lineup. 

So, while the EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 Black XC we reviewed here will sell for $329 (about £240, AU$430), there will be a whole range of Nvidia RTX 3060 graphics cards. There will be some RTX 3060 cards with elaborate cooler designs, boasting better overclocking capabilities and may even be overclocked out of the box.