RTX 3060 vs RTX 3070
The complete head-to-head: full specs, real per-game FPS with 1% lows, ray tracing, a live CPU-bottleneck check, thermals, power and value, with a straight verdict.
GeForce RTX 3060
GeForce RTX 3070
avg, 1080p
The short answer
The gap here is real and worth taking seriously. The RTX 3070 is about 48% faster on average, built on the bigger GA104 die with 2,304 more CUDA cores and a much wider 256-bit bus. It's also the better used-market value despite costing more, at $2.49 per frame against the 3060's $2.54. The 3060's one clear advantage is memory, 12 GB against the 3070's 8 GB, which shows up specifically at 1440p ultra textures where the 3070's fast core outruns its own VRAM.
The RTX 3060 and RTX 3070 sit at opposite ends of the same Ampere generation, one tuned for accessible pricing and generous VRAM, the other for raw speed at a genuine mid-high-end price. This is less a close comparison and more a look at what a real tier gap actually buys you, and where the 3070's famously tight 8 GB starts to bite despite its power.
Scroll on for the two Ampere siblings in full: spec tables, ten-game frame rates anchored by a Red Dead Redemption 2 frametime chart, ray tracing and DLSS, a CPU-pairing check, thermals, power, price history, and a verdict on whether the 3070's extra cores justify the premium.
At a glance
Seven dimensions, two cards. Bigger area is not automatically better, each card owns different corners.
Strengths radar
Each axis scored 0-100 relative to the pair
Performance vs price
Up and to the left is better value
Grey dots are neighbouring cards for context.
Which should you buy?
Pick your use case, the winner changes with what you actually do.
A big, felt speed advantage from more CUDA cores and a wider 256-bit bus, this isn't a marginal win.
The 3070's fast core can outrun its own 8 GB in the heaviest 2026 texture packs, where the 3060's 12 GB stays smooth.
12 GB fits bigger models and batches than the 3070's 8 GB, memory capacity beats raw speed for local AI work.
Meaningfully faster raw throughput and more bandwidth for quicker exports, though neither card has AV1.
At 170 W against the 3070's 220 W, the 3060 is the easier fit for a modest PSU and tighter thermal budget.
448 GB/s of bandwidth over a 256-bit bus gives the 3070 a clear edge in the most demanding high-resolution emulation cores.
Already own an RTX 3060? The 3070 is a genuine step up.
Short answer: probably not
A 48% average gain is a real generational-feeling jump within the same generation, not a sidegrade. If you're chasing higher 1440p frame rates or heavier ray tracing, the 3070 delivers, and its used pricing has come down enough to make the $/frame math favor it too.
The one thing to weigh carefully is memory. If you play texture-heavy AAA titles at 1440p ultra, the 3070's 8 GB can actually bottleneck a chip that fast, keep that in mind before paying the premium.
Full specification comparison
Every spec side by side. The highlighted figure wins each row.
| Specification | RTX 3060 | RTX 3070 |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| GPU / architecture | GA106 · Ampere | GA104 · Ampere |
| Process node | Samsung 8 nm | Samsung 8 nm |
| Release date | Feb 25, 2021 | Oct 29, 2020 |
| Launch MSRP | $329 ▲ | $499 |
| Compute | ||
| CUDA cores | 3,584 | 5,888 ▲ |
| RT cores | 28 · 2nd gen | 46 · 2nd gen ▲ |
| Tensor cores | 112 · 3rd gen | 184 · 3rd gen ▲ |
| Base / boost clock | 1320 / 1777 MHz ▲ | 1500 / 1725 MHz |
| L2 cache | 3 MB | 4 MB ▲ |
| Memory | ||
| VRAM | 12 GB GDDR6 ▲ | 8 GB GDDR6 |
| Memory bus | 192-bit | 256-bit ▲ |
| Bandwidth | 360 GB/s | 448 GB/s ▲ |
| Power & form factor | ||
| TDP | 170 W ▲ | 220 W |
| Power connector | 1× 8-pin | 1× 8-pin |
| Suggested PSU | 550 W ▲ | 650 W |
| PCIe interface | 4.0 ×16 | 4.0 ×16 |
| Features | ||
| Upscaling | DLSS 2 / Super Res | DLSS 2 / Super Res |
| AV1 encode (NVENC) | No | No |
| Display outputs | 3×DP1.4a · HDMI 2.1 | 3×DP1.4a · HDMI 2.1 |
Average FPS by game
Switch resolution, metric, ray tracing and upscaling, the bars update live. Hover a bar for the avg / 1% / 0.1% breakdown.
Average FPS · 1080p · Rasterization. Representative data, hover a bar for avg / 1% / 0.1%. Note the RTX 3070's 1% lows fall off at 1440p and up from its 8 GB VRAM.
Smoothness & frametimes
Average FPS hides stutter. This is one run plotted as frametime, a flat line is smooth, spikes are hitches. Watch what the RTX 3070's 8 GB VRAM does in a texture-heavy game.
Frametime: Red Dead Redemption 2, 1440p Ultra
Lower and flatter is better · 16.7 ms = 60 fps
Counterintuitive but real: the slower RTX 3060 delivers a smoother line here because 12 GB holds the texture pool the 8 GB RTX 3070 keeps evicting, those spikes are VRAM stutter, not raw speed.
Lab scores
Clean apples-to-apples tests, useful, but weaker at predicting real games than the FPS above.
Ray tracing & upscaling
Ray tracing tanks both cards at native resolution. What makes it playable is upscaling, and here the RTX 3070 has a real edge.
Is frame generation "real" performance?
Neither card supports DLSS 3 Frame Generation, that feature arrived with the RTX 40 series. Both the 3060 and 3070 are limited to DLSS 2 and Super Resolution upscaling, which sharpens a lower-resolution render rather than inserting new AI-made frames.
For either card, DLSS 2 Quality mode is close to a free performance boost with minimal visual cost, useful on the 3060 especially where the extra fps matters most. Without Frame Generation available on either side, the 48% gap between them plays out directly on screen.
Will your CPU bottleneck these cards?
A faster GPU only helps if your CPU keeps up. Pick your CPU and resolution to see expected FPS and bottleneck for each card.
CPU + GPU pairing check
The willitbottleneck engine, built right into the comparison.
Estimated from a 43-CPU model across 1440p. A weak CPU mostly bites at 1080p; at higher resolutions the GPU becomes the limiter and the bottleneck shrinks.
Thermals & noise
The efficiency gap shows up here: the newer card runs cooler and quieter, day in and day out.
Real draw, efficiency & PSU
TDP is the rated figure; what matters is real gaming draw and how many frames you get per watt.
Both use a single 8-pin connector. If your PSU already ran the RTX 3060, it will run the RTX 3070 easily. Leave about 30% headroom for spikes.
Will it fit, and what to pair it with?
Size to scale
Card length matters for small cases
What monitor to pair
RTX 3060: comfortable at 1080p 144 Hz or 1440p 60-100 Hz. RTX 3070: handles 1440p 100-165 Hz well, and is a genuinely capable 4K 60 fps card in lighter titles, a resolution the 3060 isn't built for.
Running an older PCIe 3.0 board?
Both cards run a full PCIe 4.0 ×16 link, so there's no bottleneck on a modern board, and only a small, largely unnoticeable loss on an older PCIe 3.0 system.
Price history & dollars-per-frame
Raw price is only half the story. Cost per frame is the number that decides it, and it keeps moving as prices fall.
New price over time
Street price of new cards (USD)
The 12 GB vs 8 GB question
RTX 3060 · 12 GB
- 12 GB on a 192-bit bus holds up better at 1440p ultra textures than the 3070's 8 GB, despite the 3070's faster core.
- Local AI and Stable Diffusion gain straight away from the added VRAM, loading larger models and batches.
- Big Blender and Resolve projects hold in VRAM longer before overflowing to system RAM.
- The extra memory doesn't close a 48% raw performance gap, the 3070 is still clearly the faster card in most games.
RTX 3070 · 8 GB
- The wider 256-bit bus and 448 GB/s of bandwidth make the most of the 8 GB it has, better than the 3060's own memory subsystem manages.
- 8 GB still covers the large majority of 1080p and most 1440p titles at high settings today.
- The RTX 3070 is the textbook example of a fast core paired with too little memory, several 2023-2026 AAA titles at 1440p ultra textures stutter on 8 GB where the chip itself has plenty of headroom left.
- It's a weaker fit than the 3060 for serious local AI or huge creator scenes, where capacity matters more than speed.
Emulation & memory bandwidth
The narrower bus is a real downgrade for emulation
The 3070's 448 GB/s of bandwidth over a 256-bit bus gives it a clear raw-speed edge over the 3060's 360 GB/s in most emulation workloads, including upscaled Switch cores and RPCS3. Its 8 GB VRAM can still be a limiting factor in the heaviest memory-hungry cores at the highest internal resolutions, where the 3060's 12 GB narrows the gap somewhat, but the 3070's overall speed advantage wins out in practice.
Creator, AI & streaming
The newer card is quicker per task, but the older card's extra VRAM unlocks larger jobs it can't fit at all.
Streaming: the AV1 encoder is the differentiator
Neither card has a hardware AV1 encoder, that's an RTX 40-series feature. Both rely on NVENC's 7th-generation H.264 and HEVC encoder, and the encode quality difference between them is negligible, the 3070's advantage here is purely its faster raw throughput for quicker exports and smoother simultaneous gaming and encoding.
Overclocking & undervolting
Neither card has dramatic overclocking headroom left, both were already tuned close to their limits at launch. The bigger win on either is undervolting, similar performance at lower temperature and noise, and the 220 W 3070 benefits the most from it.
Pros & cons
RTX 3060
- 12 GB VRAM on a 192-bit bus ages better at 1440p and for AI work
- Lower 170 W draw, and runs cooler and quieter
- Much cheaper both new and used
- About 48% slower on average, a big, felt real-world gap
- Fewer RT and Tensor cores, weaker ray tracing
RTX 3070
- Much faster, nearly 50% ahead on average
- More bandwidth and RT and Tensor cores for ray tracing and creator work
- Better $/frame on the used market despite costing more
- Only 8 GB VRAM on a fast core, the card's real bottleneck at 1440p ultra
- 220 W draw runs hotter and needs a bigger PSU
Buying pitfalls
Which RTX 3060 are you buying?
Watch for two 3060 variants: the usual 12 GB on a 192-bit bus, which this page covers, and a later 8 GB, 128-bit version up to roughly 17% slower. Make sure the listing says 12 GB / 192-bit.
The RTX 3070's 8 GB is its real weak point
The 3070 pairs a genuinely fast core with a memory capacity that hasn't aged as well, several modern titles at 1440p ultra textures will force you to drop texture settings a notch to stay smooth. There's no 16 GB version of the 3070 itself, if VRAM is a dealbreaker, look at the 3060 or a newer 16 GB card instead.
RTX 3060 vs RTX 3070: your questions answered
For raw speed, clearly, it's about 48% faster on average and even wins on used-market dollars per frame. The 3060's advantage is memory: 12 GB against the 3070's 8 GB, which matters specifically at 1440p ultra textures and for local AI work.
Buy the 3070 if raw gaming speed and ray tracing matter most, it's the clearly stronger performer and now the better used-market value too. Buy the 3060 if you need the extra VRAM for 1440p ultra textures or AI and creator work, or if the lower price and power draw matter more.
Yes, and it remains a genuinely capable 1440p and even light-4K card. Its main limitation is the 8 GB VRAM, which shows up as texture-setting compromises in the newest, heaviest AAA titles rather than as an overall performance problem.
It's a real, felt upgrade if you want meaningfully higher frame rates, and the used price gap has narrowed enough to make it a reasonable buy. Just weigh the VRAM trade-off first if you play texture-heavy games at 1440p ultra.
The RTX 3060, thanks to its 12 GB of VRAM against the 3070's 8 GB. Local AI and large 3D scenes are limited by memory capacity more than raw speed, so the 3060 fits bigger models and batches despite being the slower card.
For exports, yes. The 3070's faster core and higher bandwidth mean quicker exports and more headroom for simultaneous gaming and encoding. Neither card has a hardware AV1 encoder though, that's an RTX 40-series feature, so streaming output quality is essentially tied.
Pretty closely. Both use 2nd-generation RT cores, but the 3070 simply has more of them (46 vs 28), giving it roughly the same 48% advantage it shows in raster performance.
No. As Ampere parts, both are limited to DLSS 2 Super Resolution. Frame Generation came with DLSS 3 on the RTX 40 series and up, which rules out both cards on this page.
The 3070 is more likely to be held back by a weak CPU given its higher raw speed, especially at 1080p. Use the pairing checker on this page, a Ryzen 5 5600X or Core i5-12400F and up keeps the 3070 fed comfortably at 1440p.
Meaningfully. The RTX 3060 draws 170 W against the 3070's 220 W, which means lower temperatures and noticeably less noise under load. Both idle silently with fan-stop.
A quality 550 W unit for the 3060 and 650 W for the 3070, each on a single 8-pin connector. A 650-750 W supply gives either card, especially the 3070, comfortable headroom.
Size matters more than PCIe here: most 3060 cards run around 242 mm and 2-slot, while 3070 AIB cards run larger, often around 280 mm and 3-slot, check your case's maximum GPU length either way. Both use a full PCIe 4.0 ×16 link with minimal loss on older PCIe 3.0 boards.
They exist but don't perform the same. Laptop RTX 3060 and RTX 3070 GPUs are different, lower-power chips than their desktop namesakes, and the gap between them can differ from this page. Use the mobile comparison if you're shopping laptops.
The 3070, clearly. The 3060 is best treated as a 1080p-to-1440p card, while the 3070 is a genuinely capable 4K 60 fps card in lighter or older titles, though modern AAA games at 4K ultra will still push it hard.
The 3070, if the price is close. A used RTX 3070 at around $260 is currently the stronger value pick, it beats even the cheaper 3060 on dollars per frame. Buy with a return window and avoid untested ex-mining cards regardless of which model you pick.
Yes, effectively. Both sit on the same Ampere architecture with full Game Ready driver support well into the future, so neither is an end-of-life concern for a 2026 purchase.