Skip to main content

Nvidia’s most popular graphics card just bit the dust

The RTX 3060 installed in a computer.
Luke Larsen / Digital Trends

Nvidia is reportedly discontinuing the RTX 3060, which is easily one of the best graphics cards Nvidia has released in the past few years. The GPU is now over three years old, and Nvidia has apparently sent a notice to its board partners that the next order for these cards will be the last the company sends out.

The notice was posted on Board Channels, which is a forum where board partners discuss the internal movements of companies like Nvidia and AMD. Although Nvidia hasn’t confirmed that the RTX 3060 is being discontinued, it would make sense. The card was originally released in February 2021, and sales have likely declined in the face of newer cards like Nvidia’s own RTX 4060 and competitors like the Intel Arc A750.

Recommended Videos

The RTX 3060 stands as the most popular GPU on Steam, and it has for quite a few months. According to the latest Steam hardware survey, the RTX 3060 shows up in 5.71% of all gaming PCs. The GTX 1650, which is in second place, is found in 3.88% of gaming PCs. Although the RTX 3060 is massively popular, Nvidia’s newer RTX 4060 has been slowly crawling up the Steam hardware survey over the past few months, and it now shows up in 3.36% of gaming PCs.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming
Check your inbox!

Board partners — the ones who actually release Nvidia’s GPUs — might be placing their final orders now, but it’ll take several months for the RTX 3060 to disappear from store shelves. Retailers are still likely getting shipments from board partners, and it’ll take a few months for Nvidia to send the final orders out to board partners. All of that is to say, although the RTX 3060 will slowly disappear from retailers, it won’t totally be gone for quite some time.

By the time the RTX 3060 is gone, Nvidia will likely have its RTX 5060 ready to go. We’ve seen rumors ramp up about Nvidia’s RTX 50-series GPUs over the past few months, suggesting the generation will launch later this year. As we saw with the RTX 3060, a new card in this class will prop up the last-gen RTX 4060, and it will continue to rise in the Steam hardware survey.

Although the RTX 3060 remains the most popular graphics card around, it’s not exactly a great buy in 2024. Prices for the GPU haven’t significantly dropped, so you’ll spend around $300 for one today. At around that price, Nvidia’s RTX 4060 and AMD’s RX 7600 are both better buys.

Jacob Roach
Lead Reporter, PC Hardware
Jacob Roach is the lead reporter for PC hardware at Digital Trends. In addition to covering the latest PC components, from…
Nvidia’s RTX 50-series may launch ‘soon,’ whatever that means
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang with an RTX 4090 graphics card.

As we inch closer to the expected release date of Nvidia's RTX 50-series, the number of leaks is growing by the minute. Today, a reputable leaker weighed in on when we might see the RTX 50-series join the ranks of the best graphics cards. Could Blackwell make an appearance sooner than currently expected? It's certainly possible, but who even knows at this point?

The information comes from kopite7kimi, who, in typical tipster fashion, dropped a vague message on X (formerly Twitter) and then left without answering any questions. However, at this point in the GPU release cycle, even one vague sentence is enough to send the internet for a spin, which is what's happening in the reply section of Kopite's tweet.

Read more
Intel Battlemage GPU: everything we know so far
Intel Arc A770 GPU installed in a test bench.

Despite a rocky start, Intel's Arc GPUs are now among the best graphics cards you can buy. Targeting budget PC gamers, Intel has established itself as a major player in gaming graphics cards, and all eyes are on Team Blue with its next generation of GPUs, codenamed Battlemage.

We know Battlemage GPUs are coming, and Intel has slowly been dropping hints about the graphics cards over the past year. Although we're still waiting on an official release date, specs, and pricing details for Battlemage GPUs, there's a lot we can piece together already.
Intel Battlemage: specs

Read more
Your next gaming PC could be fully built by Nvidia
Nvidia's A100 data center GPU.

Nvidia might be at the heart of your next gaming PC, not just through a graphics card, but also through your processor. Team Green is working on an Arm-based PC platform that's built around a CPU and GPU designed by Nvidia and that is reportedly set to launch in September 2025, according to DigiTimes.

According to the report, Nvidia is planning on launching a high-end computing platform based on Arm instructions in September, with a commercial launch following in March 2026. This is the first we're hearing about a timeline for Arm-based chips designed by Nvidia, but it's not the first time we're hearing about it. About a year ago, Reuters reported that Nvidia began looking into Arm-based CPUs as "part of Microsoft's effort to help chip companies build Arm-based processors for Windows PCs."

Read more