Should I get a 3060?

[Invision]

So I just built a new machine after having not built one for several years with the help of this community.

Ryzen 5 2600
Gigabyte Aorus x470
Corsair 16GB 3200mhz ram
Corsair 650w cx650-f PSU
Corsair MP510 250gb NVME
WD SN750 Black 500gb NVME

Due to the GPU shortage, I put in a 7870 for now as it cost me £20 and does the job of giving me an output on the display and allowing me to play some games in v.low settings.

With the GPU shortage, its giving me time to do my research and whilst I was originally looking at either the RTX 3060Ti and RTX 2060 from Nvidia I was also looking at the RX5700 from AMD.

But then I saw the 3060 is due out at the end of month and I can only assume stock wont be an issue?

I only play some indy games and WoW/other blizzard games. I have a series X so dont need anything super fancy. I also have an oculus quest 2 so would also like to take advantage of Oculus Link so I can play Half Life Alyxx and other non quest 2 games.

Is the 3060 the right card? Or should I, could I be looking at something completely different? I don't want to spend more then £400 and would happily go lower then any of the cards listed above as I've seen people running the 1660 and rx580 to meet my above requirements.

I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

[kalniel]

But then I saw the 3060 is due out at the end of month and I can only assume stock wont be an issue?

That's a very strange assumption.

[Invision]

That's a very strange assumption.

Well I assume given the cards not on the market yet, they will have built up stock of a few thousand.

[jwhitbread]

I think you're going to see a generally good uplift with getting a 3060 - most gaming activity you are doing is going to be GPU bound.

However, I'd pair it with an upgrade to your CPU too as you'll notice an upgrade to a 3600 with a new 3x series GPU will be a nice upgrade sweet spot for you imo.

[Invision]

I think you're going to see a generally good uplift with getting a 3060 - most gaming activity you are doing is going to be GPU bound.

However, I'd pair it with an upgrade to your CPU too as you'll notice an upgrade to a 3600 with a new 3x series GPU will be a nice upgrade sweet spot for you imo.

Yeah I only paid £110 for the 2600 and the 3600 is a bit more, with the money saved I probably will get a 3x series, and upgrade the CPU to a Ryzen 7 later down the line.

But still open to other cards etc

[DanceswithUnix]

The 3060 will do you just fine.

The problem is I suspect there will be something like a feeding frenzy when it comes out and cards will be hard to find, just like all the other cards released recently.

[QQmoo]

RTX 3060 represents a decent cost/return ratio to the miners therefore demand will be high. Difference is this time there won't be FE version and prices for the aftermarket cards will be very likely on a much higher level when stock became available.

[ik9000]

How does £9999 sound? Curries have bargains galore! (I presume they're just holding prices but seriously, LOL)

[Zhaoman]

If you can get your hands on a 3060Ti FE for £369 then I would suggest that is your best option because the 3060 has much less firepower for not a lot less in cost. Aftermarket options are priced much higher and I imagine that will also be the case with the 3060 which doesn't have a Founders Edition so will likely end up costing similar or more than the 3060Ti FE out in the wild anyway. I have this card paired with a 2600 and it works great for 4K60 gaming and Quest 2 VR. The problem is getting your hands on one of course... If you're not a fan of signing up to every stock alert service under the sun and sitting at your computer hitting F5 on the Nvidia homepage then the best thing to do right now might be to just enjoy your Series X and check back in later in the year. I can't even suggest getting a stop gap for now because you can see everything, even second hand rubbish GPUs from years ago, is selling for double what you might expect.

[ik9000]

If you can get your hands on a 3060Ti FE for £369 then I would suggest that is your best option because the 3060 has much less firepower for not a lot less in cost. Aftermarket options are priced much higher and I imagine that will also be the case with the 3060 which doesn't have a Founders Edition so will likely end up costing similar or more than the 3060Ti FE out in the wild anyway. I have this card paired with a 2600 and it works great for 4K60 gaming and Quest 2 VR. The problem is getting your hands on one of course... If you're not a fan of signing up to every stock alert service under the sun and sitting at your computer hitting F5 on the Nvidia homepage then the best thing to do right now might be to just enjoy your Series X and check back in later in the year. I can't even suggest getting a stop gap for now because you can see everything, even second hand rubbish GPUs from years ago, is selling for double what you might expect.

hey, my 1GB gtx460 is a damn good option for £2k right now, what are you on about?

[Zhaoman]

hey, my 1GB gtx460 is a damn good option for £2k right now, what are you on about?

I can't even disagree! That is a good price compared with £9999 for a 3060.

[rand0m]

Well I assume given the cards not on the market yet, they will have built up stock of a few thousand.

I can only assume the opposite, that stock will be just as limited with the 3060 as all of the other 30series cards.

Given some AIB pricing I've seen for the 3060, I'd try and get a 3060ti instead

Alternatively, you might have to wait a few months longer for 6700/6700xt to come out and a bit more supply, if you dont want to pay over the odds

[NonLinearLines]

Prices are starting to show, and anywhere from £350-600 depending on model. Wondering if there'll even be enough stock to last minutes on launch day.

[Corky34]

Not only are prices appearing but apparently you can even buy them, never used, second hand from a miner who's offloading them due to Nvidia nerfing the hash rates.

[kalniel]

Not only are prices appearing but apparently you can even buy them, never used, second hand from a miner who's offloading them due to Nvidia nerfing the hash rates.

'Offering' at four times the MSRP... yeah, no thanks, another scalper.

[Tea1023]

Not only are prices appearing but URL you can even buy them, never used, second hand from a miner who's offloading them due to Nvidia nerfing the hash rates.

How are these miners and scalpers getting their hands on huge amounts of these things? I've seen one guy with 36x 3080s. Are the retailers giving preferences to people buying pallets before listing stock?