The RTX 3060 is the best value 1080p graphics card, and recently it’s gotten significantly cheaper as next-gen Nvidia GPUs have been rumoured. Right now, you can pick up a Gigabyte RTX 3060 Eagle 12GB for just £330 at Scan UK, a £61 reduction over the same card at Amazon UK and some £40 cheaper than the cheapest RTX 3060 we spotted last month. If you’re in the market for a new GPU and you’ve got a 1080p monitor, this is an awesome shout.
So why the RTX 3060? In Katharine’s review from last year, she noted that the card delivers double the performance of the GTX 1060 or RX 580, making it a ‘highly capable graphics card for those after a top notch 1080p experience’. She continues:
[The RTX 3060 is capable of] delivering 70-80fps frame rates in nearly all of today’s biggest games as well as pretty much bang on 60fps speeds in the most demanding games from the end of 2020. It’s certainly the next-gen card that makes the most amount of sense for people with 1920×1080 monitors at the moment… I’d also say the RTX 3060 is worth considering if you’ve currently got a 1080p monitor and are thinking about upgrading to a 1440p one in the future, too, as it will likely still provide a decent (if not completely stellar) 1440p experience to tide you over until your next GPU upgrade.
Since that review, the RTX 3050 has been released, but it doesn’t offer quite the same level of price versus performance than the RTX 3060. Similarly, the RTX 3060 in turn is outshone in terms of value by the more powerful and only slightly more expensive RTX 3060 Ti, so do take a look at these GPUs as well – particularly if you’re in that 1440p monitor camp.
For those that have a ~£300 budget though, this is an awesome card that should keep your gaming PC running smoothly for years to come, with the RTX, DLSS and NVEnc features that give you more options both in the here-and-now and later on.
