Nvidia RTX 3060 Prices Gone Wild Ahead of Release Date; Leaked Specs Confirmed

Launched on Jan. 2021, the most affordable GPU under the Nvidia RTX 30 series is finally arriving this month. It seems that Nvidia's solution in meeting the overwhelming demand for its latest graphics card series is coming up with a new product, that is the RTX 3060. However, even before its official release, it looks like Nvidia has another headache in its hands. Its attempt to solve a problem seemingly created a new one.

The $329 MSRP of the Nvidia RTX 3060 is reportedly shooting up even if it is still at its pre-order stage, according to the latest report from Videocardz. Some retailers are allegedly selling the upcoming graphics card at 50% above the MSRP. ProShop is apparently selling the GPU at $499, while PCDiga is offering it at $100 more than the price suggested by Nvidia.

The surge in the most affordable model's price under the Nvidia RTX 30 series is not surprising. A lot of factors contribute to why this scenario happens. For months, the industry has been seeing a supply crunch of current generation GPUs of both AMD and Nvidia.

Aside from that, the cryptocurrency market is now booming, which means it's not just scalpers that fans looking for a gaming GPU are now competing against. In general, it's a bleak picture for folks planning to invest in a new and improved performance GPU amid pricing and availability issues.

While it is true that Nvidia cannot enforce retailers to follow a fixed price, it expects that they would sell the initial stock at MSRP. However, it seems that it is not happening. According to the report, some retailers who were sent initial stocks to fulfill pre-orders got creative and canceled them. This move leaves buyers with a limited choice. Those who really want to get their hands on the GPU have no other option but to purchase it at a ridiculously high price. This move leaves buyers with a limited choice, and those who really want to get their hands on the GPU have no other option but to purchase it at a ridiculously high price.

Meanwhile, ahead of the official release of RTX 3060, Nvidia updated its website, offering more information about the incoming graphics card. Apart from the information that it is based on Ampere architecture and features 3584 GPU cores, the graphics card has 30 RT cores and 120 Tensor Cores. In terms of memory, it has 12 GB of GDDR6.

During its official launch, Nvidia announced that the incoming GPU is capable of providing performance at 13 Shader-TFLOPS, 25 RT-TFLOPS, and 101 Tensor-TFLOPS.