To put it simply, a colleague put together a comparison using results obtained by another colleague regarding NVIDIA’s RTX 3060 12 GB. The comparison looks at the card’s performance in 2023 versus 2026. The results show that the performance gap with newer models, such as the RTX 4060 8 GB or the RX 7600, narrows compared to 2023. Clearly, the card suffers less from its lack of memory than the newer 8 GB models.
Is the RTX 3060 12 GB aging well?
Is the performance gap narrowing with newer GPUs?
In 2023, when the RTX 4060 was released, performance gaps at 1080p stood at 23.5% in favor of the RTX 4060, compared to 20.7% in favor of AMD’s RX 7600. But with an updated benchmark protocol and the latest drivers, the 3060 narrows the gap: at 1080p, the RX 7600 is 11.8% faster (a 7.4% drop), while the 4060 is now 18.8% faster (a 3.8% drop). In contrast, the RTX 4070 continues to widen the gap.
At 1440p, it’s the same story: the RX 7600 and RTX 4060 are 17.3% and 19.4% faster, respectively, than the older RTX 3060. But by 2026, the gaps narrow: 5% for the RX 7600 and 8.5% for the 4060.
Finally, at 2160p in 2026, the 3060 outperforms both the RX 7600 and the RTX 4060. In fact, the RX 7600 achieves 94.9% of the 3060’s performance, while the RTX 4060 reaches 97.2% of the 3060’s performance. Also, make no mistake—gaming inUHD with this type of card is going to be very challenging!
12 GB of memory = more future-proof?
The compact RTX 3060 seems to hold its own mainly thanks to its 12 GB of memory, whereas the RTX 4060 and RX 7600 are limited to 8 GB. We’ve seen this with the release of recent games like Hogwarts Legacy and The Last of Us Part 1 —8 GB cards are starting to show their limitations, a trend confirmed by the release of the 8 GB and 16 GB RTX 5060 (Ti) models last year. Naturally, with more memory, the impact on performance is less significant, and the card maintains better performance over time, despite having an older GPU.
