NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3060 Gets a Release Date: February 25th
by Ryan Smith on February 12, 2021 12:30 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- NVIDIA
- GeForce RTX
- Ampere
- RTX 3060
NVIDIA this morning has sent over a quick note revealing the release date for their next GeForce desktop video card, the RTX 3060. The mainstream(ish) video card, previously revealed at CES 2021 with a late February release date, has now been locked in for a launch on February 25th, with prices starting at $329.
As a quick recap, the RTX 3060 is the next card down in NVIDIA’s Ampere architecture consumer video card stack. Using the new GA106 GPU – which is already shipping in RTX 3060 laptops – the RTX 3060 follows the traditional price/performance cadence for video card launches, with NVIDIA releasing a cheaper and lower performing video card for the mainstream-enthusiast video card market. NVIDIA’s 60-tier cards have long been the company’s workhorse parts for 1080p gaming – as well as some of their highest-volume parts in North America – and the RTX 3060 is expected to fill the same role within the Ampere/30-series family.
| NVIDIA GeForce Specification Comparison | ||||||
| RTX 3060 | RTX 3060 Ti | RTX 2060 | GTX 1060 | |||
| CUDA Cores | 3584 | 4864 | 1920 | 1280 | ||
| ROPs | 64? | 80 | 48 | 48 | ||
| Boost Clock | 1.78GHz | 1.665GHz | 1.68GHz | 1.709GHz | ||
| Memory Clock | 14Gbps? GDDR6 | 14Gbps GDDR6 | 14Gbps GDDR6 | 8Gbps GDDR5 | ||
| Memory Bus Width | 192-bit | 256-bit | 192-bit | 192-bit | ||
| VRAM | 12GB | 8GB | 6GB | 6GB | ||
| Single Precision Perf. | 12.8 TFLOPS | 16.2 TFLOPS | 6.5 TFLOPS | 4.4 TFLOPS | ||
| Tensor Perf. (FP16) | 51.2 TFLOPS | 64.8 TFLOPS | 51.6 TFLOPS | N/A | ||
| Tensor Perf. (FP16-Sparse) | 102.4 TFLOPS | 129.6 TFLOPS | 51.6 TFLOPS | N/A | ||
| TDP | 170W | 200W | 160W | 120W | ||
| GPU | GA106 | GA104 | TU106 | GP106 | ||
| Transistor Count | ?B | 17.4B | 10.8B | 4.4B | ||
| Architecture | Ampere | Ampere | Turing | Pascal | ||
| Manufacturing Process | Samsung 8nm? | Samsung 8nm | TSMC 12nm "FFN" | TSMC 16nm | ||
| Launch Date | 02/25/2021 | 12/02/2020 | 01/15/2019 | 07/19/2016 | ||
| Launch Price | MSRP: $329 | MSRP: $399 | MSRP: $349 | MSRP: $249 Founders $299 |
||
NVIDIA has already published most of the specifications for the card back in January. Including the fact that it offers 28 SMs (3584 CUDA cores), and 12GB of GDDR6 running on a 192-bit memory bus. As with previous 60-tier cards, the non-power-of-two memory bus means that NVIDIA is shipping with a somewhat odd amount of memory, in this case 12GB, which is actually more than what comes on even the RTX 3080. However with the only other option being an anemic-for-2021 6GB, NVIDIA is opting to make sure that the card isn’t for want of VRAM capacity.
Meanwhile, for better or worse the RTX 3060 is all-but-guaranteed to fly off of shelves quickly. With every video card more powerful than a GTX 1050 Ti seemingly getting shanghaied into mining Ethereum, desperate gamers will be fighting with hungry miners for supplies. Even with the 192-bit memory bus, I would be shocked if the RTX 3060 wasn’t profitable, especially with Ethereum reaching record highs. So for anyone thinking of grabbing the card, best be prepared to camp out at your favorite retailer or e-tailer on that Thursday morning.
On a final note, unlike the other RTX 30 series cards launched to date, NVIDIA will not be producing any Founders Edition cards for the RTX 3060 series. So all of the cards released will be AIB cards with their own respective designs. And, if tradition holds, don't be surprised if we see the AIBs outfit their cards with premium features and raise their prices accordingly.
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brucethemoose - Saturday, February 13, 2021 - link
Uhhhhh, I don't set the pricing?Udyr - Monday, February 15, 2021 - link
See at the bottom of the specification comparison chart.brucethemoose - Monday, February 15, 2021 - link
I still don't really get what Sonny is saying. The compute crowd will be willing to pay a whole lot more than the $330 MSRP.RadiclDreamer - Tuesday, February 16, 2021 - link
I wouldnt touch this, and I dont know a single person that would.Prices are getting stupid and stock is non existent. I'll hold my 1080 until it molds before ill pay some scalper a premium for a card. Even at MSRP they are over priced.
ozzuneoj86 - Friday, February 12, 2021 - link
It's pretty lame that any GPU news is basically meaningless for the vast majority of us at this point, unless someone releases a GPU that simply cannot be used for mining... which isn't going to happen. My 970 with an Arctic Accelero III will probably still be in my main system this time next year unless something crazy happens.Even if stock is available near MSRP, I have very little interest in paying over $300 for a **60 level GPU. The only thing working in the 3060's favor is that the 2060 was actually more expensive at launch... but that pricing was so bad it was likely intentional, to set a new standard for "normal" pricing mid range GPUs.
Gone are the days of getting a **60 on sale for under $200, or a **70 on sale for under $300.
raywin - Friday, February 12, 2021 - link
This ^^^^^^sonny73n - Friday, February 12, 2021 - link
"Gone are the days of getting a **60 on sale for under $200, or a **70 on sale for under $300."This or the dollar has lost its value.
Spunjji - Monday, February 15, 2021 - link
Not "or", both are true - but the scale of the difference is mostly about Nvidia realising they could use their video game customers to bootstrap their AI business and, as a result, saddling us with ever-more-expensive chip and board designs for ever-diminishing returns.Of course, some competition from AMD would have helped a bit. You can track each price bump very obviously to the lack of a "true" competitor (features and performance) from AMD. We're not likely to see that situation reversed now though - even if AMD could make enough cards to fulfil demand, they have no incentive to harm their own margins when Nvidia have blazed such a bright trail for them - just like Apple and Samsung with flagship smartphone prices.
Tomatotech - Friday, February 12, 2021 - link
If you have decent internet and don't play crazy fast reaction games, take a look at trialing a cloud gaming subscription eg GeForce Now. I have it and am pretty pleased with it, and it's cheap compared to something like Shadow Cloud. Shadow offers better quality but costs more and is more fiddly to look after.Yojimbo - Saturday, February 13, 2021 - link
It's a good point, but hardly anyone will actually do it. That's probably good for you because if people did sign up en masse the service would become swamped. On the other hand, although NVIDIA can't ensure cards get sold to gamers instead of miners, they can make sure they get the cards themselves instead of anyone else buying them. But it would still take months to implement such a thing (doubt they can just buy all MSI's cards, for example, they'd have to sell the modules to manufacturers with the understanding that the cards are for them) so there would be a painful period until they secured the supply that might turn people off to the service. Well, maybe they do have enough power to negotiate the purchase of already made cards under not-too-unfavorable terms, I don't know.