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RTX 3060 12GB vs RTX 4070 12GB for Local LLMs

The RTX 4070 12GB has about 40% more memory bandwidth (504 vs 360 GB/s). Batch-1 decode tracks bandwidth closely, so a model that fits both cards should decode roughly 40% faster on the RTX 4070 12GB. Both fit the same number of catalog models at Q4/8K (18 of 61; 12 vs 12 GB VRAM). MSRP is $329 for the RTX 3060 12GB vs $599 for the RTX 4070 12GB. 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 (40 shared models), the RTX 4070 12GB posts the higher tok/s in 40 rows vs 0. Methodology.

Spec comparison

RTX 3060 12GBRTX 4070 12GB
VendorNVIDIANVIDIA
VRAM12 GB12 GB
Memory typeGDDR6GDDR6X
Memory bandwidth360 GB/s504 GB/s
TDP170 W200 W
MSRP (list)$329$599
BuyMSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus 2X 12G OC (affiliate) · More listingsASUS Dual GeForce RTX 4070 OC 12GB (affiliate) · More listings

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 40 shared models

ModelParams (B)RTX 3060 12GB tok/sRTX 3060 12GB fitsRTX 4070 12GB tok/sRTX 4070 12GB fitsWinner
Qwen3-0.6B0.8286.4 est.Yes400.9 est.YesRTX 4070 12GB
gemma-3-1b-it1.0229.1 est.Yes320.7 est.YesRTX 4070 12GB
Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct1.2190.9 est.Yes267.3 est.YesRTX 4070 12GB
gpt-oss-20b21.584.0 measuredNo199.6 est.NoRTX 4070 12GB
Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct3.2122.9 measuredYes160.7 measuredYesRTX 4070 12GB
Qwen3-1.7B2.0114.5 est.Yes160.4 est.YesRTX 4070 12GB
Qwen3-30B-A3B30.593.0 est.No130.2 est.NoRTX 4070 12GB
Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct30.593.0 est.No130.2 est.NoRTX 4070 12GB
Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-250730.593.0 est.No130.2 est.NoRTX 4070 12GB
GLM-4.7-Flash31.289.3 est.No125.0 est.NoRTX 4070 12GB
Phi-4-mini-instruct3.860.3 est.Yes84.4 est.YesRTX 4070 12GB
Phi-4-mini-reasoning3.860.3 est.Yes84.4 est.YesRTX 4070 12GB
gemma-3-4b-it4.358.7 est.Yes82.2 est.YesRTX 4070 12GB
Qwen3-4B-Instruct-25074.057.3 est.Yes80.2 est.YesRTX 4070 12GB
Qwen3-4B-Thinking-25074.057.3 est.Yes80.2 est.YesRTX 4070 12GB

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 4070 12GB
Catalog models that fit18 of 6118 of 61
Largest exclusive fit——

RTX 3060 12GB details → · RTX 4070 12GB details →