RTX 3060 12GB vs RTX 4060 Ti 16GB for local AI
Today the RTX 3060 12GB is cheaper: $320 against $656.27 for the RTX 4060 Ti 16GB. Per gigabyte of memory the RTX 3060 12GB wins, $26 against $41. Neither fits Qwen3.8 27B · Q4_K_M with 8K of context. The RTX 4060 Ti 16GB holds more, 16 GB against 12 GB, and fits 3 of our 28 reference models at Q4_K_M where the RTX 3060 12GB fits 2.
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB | |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest price today, delivered | $320 on eBay | $656.27 on eBay |
| Price per GB | $26/GB | $41/GB |
| Memory | 12 GB GDDR6 | 16 GB GDDR6 |
| Memory bandwidth | 360 GB/s | 288 GB/s |
| FP16 compute, dense | 51 TFLOPS | 88 TFLOPS |
| Reference models that fit at Q4_K_M | 2 of 28 | 3 of 28 |
| Power | 170 W | 165 W |
| Form factor | Dual slot, full height | Dual slot, full height |
| Interface | PCIe 4 | PCIe 4 |
| Software platform | cuda | cuda |
| Launched | 2021 | 2023 |
| Launch price | $329 | $499 |
Qwen3.8 27B · Q4_K_M by quantization
| Quant | RTX 3060 12GB | RTX 4060 Ti 16GB |
|---|---|---|
| FP16 | does not fit | does not fit |
| Q8_0 | does not fit | does not fit |
| Q6_K | does not fit | does not fit |
| Q5_K_M | does not fit | does not fit |
| Q4_K_M | does not fit | does not fit |
| Q3_K_M | does not fit | ~14 tok/s |
| IQ2_M | ~25 tok/s | ~20 tok/s |
Fit means the weights plus an 8K context cache fit in memory; speed is the estimated decode rate. Prices are the cheapest live eBay listing that passed our filters, item plus shipping. How we estimate.