Reevaluating the Value of Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3060 in 2024

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 has remained a popular choice among gamers since its launch in February 2021. According to the Steam Hardware & Software Survey, it is the most widely used graphics card on Valve’s platform and continues to offer a great price-performance ratio. The graphics card is based on Nvidia’s GA106 “Ampere” graphics processor and achieves a computing power of 12.74 TFLOPS with 3,584 shader units. It comes with 8 or 12GB of GDDR6 graphics memory, and most models have 12GB. The RTX 3060 has 12GB of GDDR6 VRAM, which is more than the faster GeForce RTX 3080. With some cutting-edge games requiring more than 8GB of VRAM to run Ultra settings at 1080p, the extra capacity is welcome. The RTX 3060’s power consumption (TDP) of 170 watts is relatively low for a graphics card in this performance class. It is suitable for all games and is primarily aimed at gamers who play in 1080p resolution at medium to high details. The RTX 3060 is still a solid choice in 2024 if a good custom design can be obtained for under $300, especially considering Nvidia features and a large memory capacity. The Radeon RX 7600 and Intel’s Arc A750 graphics cards also exist in this price range, but the RTX 3060 holds a firm lead in ray tracing performance and software features. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 is still worth considering in 2024 if you can get hold of a good custom design for under $300, especially if you prioritize Nvidia features and a large memory capacity.