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RTX 3060 12GB vs RTX 3070 8GB for Local LLMs

The RTX 3070 8GB has about 24% more memory bandwidth (448 vs 360 GB/s). Batch-1 decode tracks bandwidth closely, so a model that fits both cards should decode roughly 24% faster on the RTX 3070 8GB. The RTX 3060 12GB fits more of the catalog at Q4/8K — 18 vs 17 of 61 models (12 vs 8 GB VRAM). Largest model that fits the RTX 3060 12GB but not the RTX 3070 8GB: gemma-3-12b-it (12.2B). MSRP is $329 for the RTX 3060 12GB vs $499 for the RTX 3070 8GB. MSRP is a launch list price, not live retail — Amazon prices move; click through for the current price. In the Q4/8K head-to-head below (38 shared models), the RTX 3060 12GB posts the higher tok/s in 21 rows vs 17. Methodology.

Spec comparison

RTX 3060 12GBRTX 3070 8GB
VendorNVIDIANVIDIA
VRAM12 GB8 GB
Memory typeGDDR6GDDR6
Memory bandwidth360 GB/s448 GB/s
TDP170 W220 W
MSRP (list)$329$499
BuyMSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus 2X 12G OC (affiliate) · More listingsSearch Amazon (affiliate)

MSRP is the launch list price, not live retail. Buy links are Amazon affiliate links — the price after you click is the live price.

Q4 / 8K head-to-head — top 15 of 38 shared models

ModelParams (B)RTX 3060 12GB tok/sRTX 3060 12GB fitsRTX 3070 8GB tok/sRTX 3070 8GB fitsWinner
Qwen3-0.6B0.8286.4 est.Yes356.4 est.YesRTX 3070 8GB
gemma-3-1b-it1.0229.1 est.Yes285.1 est.YesRTX 3070 8GB
Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct1.2190.9 est.Yes237.6 est.YesRTX 3070 8GB
Qwen3-1.7B2.0114.5 est.Yes142.5 est.YesRTX 3070 8GB
Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct3.2122.9 measuredYes89.1 est.YesRTX 3060 12GB
Qwen3-30B-A3B30.593.0 est.No51.4 est.NoRTX 3060 12GB
Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct30.593.0 est.No51.4 est.NoRTX 3060 12GB
Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-250730.593.0 est.No51.4 est.NoRTX 3060 12GB
GLM-4.7-Flash31.289.3 est.No49.4 est.NoRTX 3060 12GB
gpt-oss-20b21.584.0 measuredNo78.9 est.NoRTX 3060 12GB
Phi-4-mini-instruct3.860.3 est.Yes75.0 est.YesRTX 3070 8GB
Phi-4-mini-reasoning3.860.3 est.Yes75.0 est.YesRTX 3070 8GB
gemma-3-4b-it4.358.7 est.Yes73.1 est.YesRTX 3070 8GB
Qwen3-4B-Instruct-25074.057.3 est.Yes71.3 est.YesRTX 3070 8GB
Qwen3-4B-Thinking-25074.057.3 est.Yes71.3 est.YesRTX 3070 8GB

est. = bandwidth-based estimate; measured = curated real benchmark that overrides the estimate. Fits = weights + KV(8K) + 1 GB overhead ≤ 95% of VRAM.

Fit coverage at Q4 / 8K

RTX 3060 12GBRTX 3070 8GB
Catalog models that fit18 of 6117 of 61
Largest exclusive fitgemma-3-12b-it (12.2B)—

RTX 3060 12GB details → · RTX 3070 8GB details →