When NVIDIA introduced the Ada Lovelace-based GeForce RTX 4000 household, it was very clear about the truth that GeForce RTX 3000 playing cards based mostly on its Ampere structure aren’t going wherever anytime quickly. These playing cards are over two years outdated now, and whereas their efficiency nonetheless holds up, they may face stiff competitors from AMD Radeon and ultimately Intel Arc GPUs as nicely. Maybe as insurance coverage towards that, NVIDIA may very well be readying a slightly-updated mannequin of the extra budget-minded GeForce RTX 3060.
Even after the launch of the RTX 4080, NVIDIA nonetheless is not going to have something from the brand new structure to serve the overwhelming majority of the market, which is to say the house that exists beneath $900. The RTX 3060 is the preferred chip within the Ampere household, and it is straight within the sights of Intel with its Arc Alchemist GPUs.
In that context, a small improve is smart, though we’re undecided if that is what’s truly occurring. The start of this story begins when common leaker 188号 (@momomo_us on Twitter) noticed an inventory in a Slovakian Lenovo spare elements retailer for a GeForce RTX 3060 with 12GB of GDDR6X reminiscence. GDDR6X bottoms out at 19 Gbps, so that will be a 4-Gbps improve, elevating reminiscence bandwidth from 360 GB/sec to 456 GB/sec.
The itemizing at Lenovoshop.sk has since been eliminated, however that very same card can be on the market at many different retailers, together with Newegg, Provantage, Compsource, and others. At nearly each single one in all these outlets, the cardboard is listed as a GeForce RTX 3060 with 12GB of GDDR6X reminiscence. Nevertheless, nearly each single storefront lists the cardboard with one picture, and it is precisely the identical picture: the one on the prime of this text. That factors to them utilizing the identical supply for his or her info.
There’s one website that lists the cardboard—similar mannequin quantity—with out that image, and it is Perception. Notably, Perception additionally lists the cardboard as an ordinary GeForce RTX 3060 mannequin with 12GB of GDDR6 reminiscence. Disappointing as it could be, we suspect that the “X” within the different listings might be only a typo on Lenovo’s half. Additional working towards the thought of an upgraded 3060 mannequin is the truth that this is not a brand new card. References across the internet to the Lenovo half quantity return at the very least to the start of this 12 months.
There was one other rumor going round yesterday a few similarly-upgraded GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. Videocardz famous that should you undergo a sophisticated course of, you’ll be able to entry a particular web page on UK retailer Scan that provides to promote you an “NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Version 8GB GDDR6X”. That website theorized that it might be a horrible coincidence if Scan had been providing this within the face of earlier rumors.
Properly, accessing the location now and including the cardboard to your cart reveals that it appears to have merely been one other typo, and the RTX 3060 Ti that Scan is providing is only a common outdated Founders Version card. The £380 closing value after tax and delivery ($420 USD) is not all that unhealthy for an RTX 3060 Ti, although.
