Is it worth upgrading?
A newer card winning every row of a comparison table does not make it worth buying. This works out how much faster it actually is at your resolution, what that improvement costs per percentage point, and whether a cheaper card would get you most of the way there.
Both cards have to be ones CompareYourGPU tracks. The database currently covers current and recent desktop cards, so if you are coming from something older it may not be listed yet. See what is covered.
RTX 3060 12GB → RTX 5060 at 1440p
Worth considering
Marginal- Performance gain
- +26.1%
- Estimated, native
- Measured cross-check
- Not tested
- Upgrade cost
- $502
- Price of the new card
- Cost per 1% gained
- $19
What you gain
- In favour: Estimated 26.1% more performance at 1440p.
- In favour: Estimated frame rate moves from roughly 40-60 FPS to 50-75 FPS.
- In favour: 47.4% stronger in ray-traced workloads.
- In favour: Adds DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation, Hardware AV1 encoding.
- In favour: Works out at about $19.2 per percentage point of performance gained.
What it costs you
- Caution: You would lose 4 GB of memory, going from 12 GB to 8 GB.
The two cards side by side
| Measure | RTX 3060 12GB | RTX 5060 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Estimated FPS at 1440p | 40-60 | 50-75 | +26.1% |
| VRAM | 12 GB | 8 GB | -4 GB |
| Board power | 170 W | 145 W | -25 W |
| Ray tracing index | 19 | 28 | +47.4% |
| Price on record | $555 | $502 | -$53 |
| Launched | February 25, 2021 | May 19, 2025 | 4.2 years apart |
Where these numbers come from
- Performance gain: CompareYourGPU estimated index, native resolution, no upscaling.
- VRAM, board power and features: manufacturer specifications.
- Prices: verified current street prices.
- The cost of the upgrade is the price of the new card. CompareYourGPU does not model what your current card might sell for.