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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB vs GeForce RTX 4080 — Specs & Performance Compared

Verdict: The GeForce RTX 4080 is ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB on all 7 shared benchmarks on file, by 27% to 248%, including 213% in 3DMark Time Spy (27,392 vs 8,747). On qwen3:14b, the GeForce RTX 4080 generates 62.0 tokens/s (per Hardware Corner) against 33.4 for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB (per TYO Lab blog), best community run on file for each.

Side-by-side GPU comparison of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB and the GeForce RTX 4080. MSRP range: $329 · $1,199. Specs, synthetic benchmarks, AI inference tok/s, and Amazon availability below; each column header links to that part's benchmark page.

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*Price sourced from Amazon.com. Price and availability subject to change.

Where to buy

A listing for each part; the current price and stock are on the retailer's page.

Specs side-by-side

SpecNVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GBGeForce RTX 4080
vram gb 1216
vram type GDDR6GDDR6X
tdp w 170320
cuda cores 35849728
rt cores —76
tensor cores —304
process nm —5

Synthetic benchmarks

Each row says whether a higher or a lower number is better (ranks and times are lower-is-better). Scores come from Overclocking.com, KitGuru, 3DMark, Legit Reviews, Wccftech, Hyper Cyber, Tom's Hardware, Geekbench Browser and PassMark; each row links its sources, and where they differ the cell shows their median. Empty cells mean we don't yet have that benchmark on file for the SKU.

BenchmarkNVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GBGeForce RTX 4080
3DMark DirectX Raytracing (higher is better)
Source: Overclocking.com		 —85 FPS
3DMark DirectX Raytracing feature test (higher is better)
Source: KitGuru		 —85 FPS
3DMark Fire Strike (higher is better)
Source: Overclocking.com, 3DMark		 21,653 points48,524 points
3DMark Port Royal (higher is better)
Source: Legit Reviews, Wccftech, 3DMark, Hyper Cyber		 5,074 points17,650 points
3DMark Speed Way (higher is better)
Source: Overclocking.com, 3DMark		 2,192 points7,376 points
3DMark Steel Nomad (higher is better)
Source: 3DMark		 1,976 points6,595 points
3DMark Time Spy (higher is better)
Source: 3DMark, Tom's Hardware		 8,747 points27,392 points
3DMark Time Spy (overall score) (higher is better)
Source: Legit Reviews		 9,755 points—
3DMark Time Spy Extreme (higher is better)
Source: Wccftech		 —14,078 points
Geekbench 6 OpenCL (higher is better)
Source: Geekbench Browser		 82,071 points—
Geekbench 6 Vulkan (higher is better)
Source: Geekbench Browser		 91,383 points—
PassMark G2D Mark (higher is better)
Source: PassMark		 984 pts1,250 pts

AI inference (tokens/sec)

Top community-reported tokens-per-second results for popular LLMs whose weights fit the card's memory, each linked to its source. See the per-SKU benchmark page for the full set including quantization and prompt length.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB

All NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB AI benchmarks →

GeForce RTX 4080

All GeForce RTX 4080 AI benchmarks →

Quick answers

Which is faster, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB or the GeForce RTX 4080?

The GeForce RTX 4080 is ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB on all 7 shared benchmarks on file, by 27% to 248%, including 213% in 3DMark Time Spy (27,392 vs 8,747).

Which is better for running local LLMs?

On qwen3:14b, the GeForce RTX 4080 generates 62.0 tokens/s (per Hardware Corner) against 33.4 for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB (per TYO Lab blog), best community run on file for each.

What did the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB and the GeForce RTX 4080 cost at launch?

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB launched at a $329 MSRP and the GeForce RTX 4080 at $1,199. Street prices drift from launch pricing; the Where to buy section links current listings.

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