NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB
For running models locally, priced in Canada. At 64k context the first runs 22 models fully in memory, the second 11.
In short
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB has more memory for models: 12 GB against 8 GB. At 64k context the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB runs 22 of the models we track fully in memory and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB 11; only the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB holds Gemma 4 12B. On the models both run fully in memory, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB is about 1.3× as fast as the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB (estimated, median across models). In Canada the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB costs $530 at Amazon and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB $864 at Amazon: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB is $334 cheaper.
Updated . Speeds are estimates; how they are worked out.
Specifications
| Spec | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB |
|---|---|---|
| GPU | GeForce RTX 3060 12GB | GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB |
| Memory | 12 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 |
| Memory bus | 192-bit | 128-bit |
| Memory bandwidth | 360 GB/s | 288 GB/s |
| FP16 compute | 25.6 TFLOPS | 22.065 TFLOPS |
| Software | CUDA | CUDA |
| Board power | 170 W | 160 W |
| PCIe generation | Gen 4 | Gen 4 |
| PCIe lanes | x16 | x8 |
What each runs
Estimated decode speed with the most precise quant that fits each one est.
| Model | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB |
|---|---|---|
| Gemma 4 12B | 23tok/sQ5_K_M | offload |
| Qwen 3.5 9B | 23tok/sQ6_K | offload |
| Qwen 3.5 4B | 33tok/sQ8_0 | 27tok/sQ8_0 |
| Gemma 4 E4B | 22tok/sQ8_0 | offload |
| LFM2.5 8B-A1B | 33tok/sUD-Q6_K | offload |
| Qwen2.5 0.5B | 167tok/sQ8_0 | 134tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen3.5 0.8B | 136tok/sQ8_0 | 109tok/sQ8_0 |
| Qwen3.5 2B | 99tok/sQ5_K_M | 79tok/sQ5_K_M |
| LFM3 1.7B | 84tok/sQ8_0 | 67tok/sQ8_0 |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B | 59tok/sQ8_0 | 47tok/sQ8_0 |
| Mellum2.1 12B A2.5B Thinking | 44tok/sQ5_K_M | offload |
| MiniCPM5 2B | 41tok/sQ8_0 | 33tok/sQ8_0 |
| Spark X2.5 4B | 41tok/smlx-4bit | 32tok/smlx-4bit |
| FrogNano 4B 2609 | 33tok/sQ8_0 | 30tok/sQ6_K |
| LFM2.5 2.6B | 32tok/sQ8_0 | 29tok/sQ6_K |
| LFM2.5 VL 3B | 32tok/sQ8_0 | 29tok/sQ6_K |
| GLM 4.6V Flash | 25tok/sQ4_K_M | offload |
| granite vision 4.1 4b | 25tok/sQ8_0 | offload |
| granite 4.2 3b | 24tok/sQ8_0 | offload |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 7B | 22tok/sQ6_K | offload |
| Ministral 3 3B Instruct 2512 | 21tok/sQ8_0 | offload |
| GLM 4 9B 0414 | 20tok/smlx-5bit | offload |
| Qwen 3.8 27B | offload | offload |
| Qwen 3.6 27B | offload | offload |
| Gemma 4 31B | offload | offload |
| Qwen 3.6 35B-A3B | offload | offload |
| Qwen 3.5 27B | offload | offload |
| Gemma 4 26B-A4B | offload | offload |
| Qwen 3.5 35B-A3B | offload | offload |
| GLM 4.7 Flash | offload | offload |
| Devstral Small 2 24B | offload | offload |
| Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B-A3B | offload | offload |
| gpt-oss 20B | offload | offload |
| Kimi Linear 48B-A3B | offload | offload |
| Qwen3 Coder 30B-A3B | offload | offload |
| Qwen3 32B | offload | won't run |
| Gemma 3 27B | offload | offload |
| Mistral Small 3.2 24B | offload | offload |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B | offload | won't run |
| Ministral 3 14B | offload | offload |
| Qwen3 14B | offload | offload |
| DeepSeek R1 0528 Qwen3 8B | offload | offload |
| Qwen3 8B | offload | offload |
| Phi-4 14B | offload | offload |
| Ministral 3 8B | offload | offload |
| Granite 4.2 8B | offload | offload |
| Llama 3.1 8B | offload | offload |
| Kimi VL A3B Thinking 2506 | offload | offload |
| Kimi VL A3B | offload | offload |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 8B | offload | offload |
| Ministral 3 8B Reasoning 2512 | offload | offload |
| GLM 4.1V 9B Thinking | offload | offload |
| LFM2.5 24B A2B | offload | offload |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | offload | offload |
| Ministral 3 14B Reasoning 2512 | offload | offload |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B | offload | offload |
| Devstral Small 2507 | offload | offload |
| Magistral Small 2506 | offload | offload |
| Magistral Small 2507 | offload | offload |
| Magistral Small 2509 | offload | offload |
| Qwen3.8 27B OBLITERATED | offload | offload |
| granite 4.2 30b | offload | won't run |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | won't run | won't run |
| GLM 5.3 Flash | won't run | won't run |
| Qwen 3.8 Flash Next | won't run | won't run |
| MiniMax M2.7 | won't run | won't run |
| Qwen 3.5 122B-A10B | won't run | won't run |
| Nemotron 3 Super 120B-A12B | won't run | won't run |
| Qwen3 Coder Next | won't run | won't run |
| gpt-oss 120B | won't run | won't run |
| Mistral Small 4 119B | won't run | won't run |
| GLM 4.5 Air | won't run | won't run |
| Qwen3 Next 80B-A3B | won't run | won't run |
| Llama 3.3 70B | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek R1 | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek R1 0528 | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70B | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek R1 Zero | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek V3 | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek V3 0324 | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek V3.1 | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek V3.2 | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 | won't run | won't run |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp | won't run | won't run |
| Devstral 2 123B Instruct 2512 | won't run | won't run |
| GLM 4.5 | won't run | won't run |
| GLM 4.5V | won't run | won't run |
| GLM 4.6 | won't run | won't run |
| GLM 4.6V | won't run | won't run |
| GLM 4.7 | won't run | won't run |
| GLM 5 | won't run | won't run |
| GLM 5.1 | won't run | won't run |
| GLM 5.2 | won't run | won't run |
| GLM 5.3 | won't run | won't run |
| Kimi Dev 72B | won't run | won't run |
| Kimi K2 | won't run | won't run |
| Kimi K2 Instruct 0905 | won't run | won't run |
| Kimi K2 Thinking | won't run | won't run |
| Kimi K2.5 | won't run | won't run |
| MiniMax M2 | won't run | won't run |
| MiniMax M2.1 | won't run | won't run |
| MiniMax M2.5 | won't run | won't run |
| MiniMax M3 | won't run | won't run |
| Mistral Medium 3.5 128B | won't run | won't run |
Questions
- Which is better for local AI, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB or the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB?
- Choose the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB to run bigger models. Choose the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB for speed. Choose the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB to spend less.
- Which can run bigger models, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB or the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB?
- At 64k context the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB runs 22 of the models we track fully in memory and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB 11; only the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB holds Gemma 4 12B.
- Which is faster for local AI, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB or the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB?
- On the models both run fully in memory, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB is about 1.3× as fast as the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB (estimated, median across models).
- What is the price difference between the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB?
- In Canada the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB costs $530 at Amazon and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB $864 at Amazon: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB is $334 cheaper.
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