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Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060: release date, price, news and rumors

While the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 wasn’t announced at this summer’s Nvidia 30-series launch event, there’s still every reason to expect that we’ll be seeing another aggressively priced midrange-level Ampere graphics card fairly soon.

While nothing is official yet, Nvidia insiders reportedly leaked specs of the upcoming RTX 3060 and component maker Palit has registered several dozen SKUs with the EEC for RTX 3060 cards.

Why the delay though? Well, it might have everything to do with AMD’s Big Navi announcement on October 28. It’s very likely being held back to steal some of the thunder of AMD’s latest GPUs, since what better way is there to rain on Team Red’s big announcement than to undercut its midrange cards just as they’re debuted?

Oddly, this competition with AMD makes it increasingly possible that Nvidia will break with past launches and release an RTX 3060 Ti- or Super-branded card before it releases the base model. It could be a very weird launch.

So what do we actually know about the RTX 3060? Here’s what we’ve got so far.

Cut to the chase

  • What is it? Nvidia’s upcoming midrange GeForce RTX 3000-series graphics card
  • When is it out? It should be available early to mid November
  • How much is it? It will likely go on sale for $339 (about £270, AU$490)

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RTX 3060 release date

Nothing official has been announced yet, but rumors indicate that the RTX 3060 may be announced in late October in an effort to counter the debut of AMD’s Big Navi cards. If the announcement and the release follow the pattern of the rest of the Ampere cards, it should go on sale sometime in early-to-mid November.

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RTX 3060 price

Without an official announcement, we don’t know the price of the RTX 3060 for certain. But considering that the RTX 3070 will run you $499 (£469, around AU$680) when it goes on sale in October, any RTX 3060 card will definitely sell for less than that.

When you consider that the Nvidia Ampere cards we’ve already seen didn’t get a price increase from their Turing predecessors, you might expect to see an RTX 3060 selling for less than $300, but there is a catch.

While RTX 3090 saw a pretty big price drops over its predecessor, the RTX 3070 will sell for roughly the same price as the RTX 2070 did at launch, ditto for the RTX 3080, so its very likely that the RTX 3060 will do the same. Since the RTX 2060 launched at $339 (about £270, AU$490), the RTX 3060 will likely cost around the same as well.

If, as rumored, the 3060 Ti/Super is announced as well – or instead of the base model, because it’s 2020 so why not? – then it should go on sale for the about same as the RTX 2060 Super, which sold for $399 (about £310, AU$ 560).

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RTX 3060 specs

We haven’t seen an official announcement yet, but the RTX 3060 is rumored to be released in two variants at launch.

The leaked specs on the more powerful variant, the 3060 Ti (or 3060 Super, the name is iffy at this point), indicate that it will be slightly less powerful than the RTX 3070. While it will use the same GPU as the RTX 3070 (GA104), the higher-spec RTX 3060 will feature 1,024 fewer CUDA cores than the 3070 (4,864 to 5,888, respectively)

The base model for the RTX 3060 would be less powerful still, though it’s hard to know if it will feature fewer CUDA cores, less memory, or possibly both. It is also likely to feature the slower GA106 GPU, which may not be ready for prime time just yet.

Here’s what we expect from the higher-powered RTX 3060 Ti/Super:

  • CUDA Cores: 4,864
  • VRAM: 8GB GDDR6X
  • Memory Interface: 256-bit
  • TDP: 220W
  • Required power connectors: 1 x PCIe 8-pin

As for the RTX 3060 base model, it should have either 6GB or 8GB VRAM and will likely have a hundred or two fewer CUDA cores. We’ll certainly see more leaks the closer we get to launch, so hopefully the specs for the base model are among them.

Source: techradar.com


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