Winners & losers: The long-rumored return of the RTX 3060 12GB – a necessity brought about by the memory crisis – could finally happen this summer. According to reports, major board partners including Asus, MSI, Colorful, and Galax will soon receive new allocations of chips ahead of mass production starting in July.
The new claims come from the Chinese forum Board Channels. A user writes that production of the RTX 3060 12GB GPUs (as opposed to the 8GB variant) will resume in June before being allocated to add-in card manufacturers, with the retail (re)launch coming in July. The card was originally discontinued in 2024.
While posts on Board Channels have proved accurate in the past, they're usually best taken with a grain of salt. However, this one does align with what MEGAsizeGPU said last month.
– MEGAsizeGPU (@Zed__Wang) April 17, 2026
The reputable leaker said a long-rumored version of Nvidia's RTX 5050 had been delayed and might never launch, so the new RTX 3060 would fill the gap by launching in June.
Despite arriving over five years ago with a $329 MSRP, the RTX 3060 remains the most popular GPU on the Steam survey, illustrating its enduring popularity.
The Board Channels poster writes that the RTX 3060 price is expected to remain relatively high, despite its disadvantages in terms of both cost-effectiveness and performance compared to the RTX 5050 and 5060 series.
As we noted previously, some might wonder why Nvidia isn't bringing back the newer RTX 4060 instead of the RTX 3060. It's likely due to capacity. The RTX 4060 (AD107) is made on TSMC's custom 4N process, which Nvidia relies on for much of its newer lineup, so ramping that card back up could mean fighting for the same wafer capacity Nvidia wants reserved for higher-margin parts (i.e., those for AI products).
By comparison, the RTX 3060 (GA106) is an older Samsung 8N product, which could let Nvidia add volume without pulling from TSMC allocations.
Moreover, the fact the RTX 3060 12GB has 4GB more VRAM than the 8GB RTX 4060 makes it a more appealing prospect in an era where memory capacity has become a big selling point.
Team Green quietly launched the 12GB version of the RTX 5070 laptop GPU this week. The company said that while demand for its GeForce RTX GPUs remains strong, the memory crisis is causing issues. It added that it was launching this GPU to maximize memory availability.
Nvidia still hasn't officially confirmed it will relaunch the RTX 3060, but Jensen Huang did drop some hints in January. The CEO said at the time that releasing older cards featuring modern AI tech was a "good idea." It's just a shame that the state of the current market means releasing a two-generation-old card is something to celebrate.