Good Luck Paying NVIDIA's MSRP For An RTX 3060

Today is a big day for those who are in the market for a new GPU, as NVIDIA is releasing the RTX 3060. While that branding suggests it'll be less powerful than the highly sought-after RTX 3070 and RTX 3080, it might the only obtainable option for those who have an aging PC and need to upgrade their graphics hardware.

On paper, at least, the RTX 3060 looks like it could be a good choice for those who are looking to upgrade right away, as it has an MSRP of $329 and may not be in as high of demand as its more powerful RTX 30-series brothers. In reality, though, paying NVIDIA's MSRP is going to be difficult, and not necessarily because of scalpers.

If you take at look at listings on Best Buy or Newegg at the moment, you'll find that in addition to every card being listed as out of stock, many of the RTX 3060 options are priced well above $329. For instance, Best Buy is showing only two RTX 3060 cards at the time of this writing, and they're the EVGA XC Gaming model for $389.99 and MSI's Ventus 3X model for $499.99.

It gets a little better over at Newegg because there are at least a few 3060 listings priced at $329.99 (Zotac's Twin Edge model and EVGA's XC Gaming model to name a couple), but there are still quite a few listings priced high as well. ASUS is offering two models – one from TUF Gaming and the other with ROG Strix branding – for $499.99 and $519.99, respectively, while Gigabyte's Gaming OC model is $479.99.

With manufacturers hiking prices and scalpers all too willing to snatch up any available stock they can, paying NVIDIA's MSRP of $329 for an RTX 3060 is going to be a big challenge. If you're going to try to do that, good luck to you, but even an RTX 3060 might prove to be a very expensive purchase in this age of GPU scarcity.