Question 1

Is the RTX 3060 12GB or the RX 7700 XT 12GB better for local LLMs?

Accepted Answer

The RX 7700 XT 12GB has about 20% more memory bandwidth (432 vs 360 GB/s). Batch-1 decode tracks bandwidth closely, so a model that fits both cards should decode roughly 20% faster on the RX 7700 XT 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 $449 for the RX 7700 XT 12GB. MSRP is a launch list price, not live retail — Amazon prices move; click through for the current price.

Question 2

How much faster is the RTX 3060 12GB than the RX 7700 XT 12GB for LLM inference?

Accepted Answer

On memory bandwidth the RX 7700 XT 12GB leads by about 20% (432 vs 360 GB/s), and batch-1 decode tracks bandwidth. In the Q4/8K head-to-head on this page, the RTX 3060 12GB wins 2 of 40 shared model rows and the RX 7700 XT 12GB wins 38.

Question 3

Which can run larger models, the RTX 3060 12GB or the RX 7700 XT 12GB?

Accepted Answer

Neither — both fit 18 of 61 catalog models at Q4/8K (12 vs 12 GB VRAM).

	RTX 3060 12GB	RX 7700 XT 12GB
Vendor	NVIDIA	AMD
VRAM	12 GB	12 GB
Memory type	GDDR6	GDDR6
Memory bandwidth	360 GB/s	432 GB/s
TDP	170 W	245 W
MSRP (list)	$329	$449
Buy	MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus 2X 12G OC (affiliate) · More listings	Search Amazon (affiliate)

Model	Params (B)	RTX 3060 12GB tok/s	RTX 3060 12GB fits	RX 7700 XT 12GB tok/s	RX 7700 XT 12GB fits	Winner
Qwen3-0.6B	0.8	286.4 est.	Yes	343.6 est.	Yes	RX 7700 XT 12GB
gemma-3-1b-it	1.0	229.1 est.	Yes	274.9 est.	Yes	RX 7700 XT 12GB
Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct	1.2	190.9 est.	Yes	229.1 est.	Yes	RX 7700 XT 12GB
gpt-oss-20b	21.5	84.0 measured	No	171.1 est.	No	RX 7700 XT 12GB
Qwen3-1.7B	2.0	114.5 est.	Yes	137.5 est.	Yes	RX 7700 XT 12GB
Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct	3.2	122.9 measured	Yes	85.9 est.	Yes	RTX 3060 12GB
Qwen3-30B-A3B	30.5	93.0 est.	No	111.6 est.	No	RX 7700 XT 12GB
Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct	30.5	93.0 est.	No	111.6 est.	No	RX 7700 XT 12GB
Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507	30.5	93.0 est.	No	111.6 est.	No	RX 7700 XT 12GB
GLM-4.7-Flash	31.2	89.3 est.	No	107.1 est.	No	RX 7700 XT 12GB
Phi-4-mini-instruct	3.8	60.3 est.	Yes	72.3 est.	Yes	RX 7700 XT 12GB
Phi-4-mini-reasoning	3.8	60.3 est.	Yes	72.3 est.	Yes	RX 7700 XT 12GB
gemma-3-4b-it	4.3	58.7 est.	Yes	70.5 est.	Yes	RX 7700 XT 12GB
Qwen3-4B-Instruct-2507	4.0	57.3 est.	Yes	68.7 est.	Yes	RX 7700 XT 12GB
Qwen3-4B-Thinking-2507	4.0	57.3 est.	Yes	68.7 est.	Yes	RX 7700 XT 12GB

RTX 3060 12GB vs RX 7700 XT 12GB for Local LLMs

Spec comparison

Q4 / 8K head-to-head — top 15 of 40 shared models

Fit coverage at Q4 / 8K

	RTX 3060 12GB	RX 7700 XT 12GB
Catalog models that fit	18 of 61	18 of 61
Largest exclusive fit	—	—