IMAGINE FOR A MOMENT that there’s such a thing as a GPU that’s about 20 percent faster than its predecessor and costs less money. That sounds like a good product. Sadly, only one of those things exists right now.
On paper, Nvidia’s RTX 3060 continues the well-trodden path of releasing smaller and less costly GPUs that also trim performance, at a theoretically lower price. Unfortunately, cryptocurrency mining, the pandemic, and global shortages of chip manufacturing and substrates make the latest addition feel every bit as much vaporware as the other Nvidia Ampere and AMD RDNA2 GPUs launched in the past nine months.