THE CRUNCH
GPU makers across Asia, particularly in China, are reportedly redirecting sellers towards older graphics cards because NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 series "Blackwell" cards are in short supply. A ChannelGate report says some add-in card partners have already run out of RTX 50 series inventory, with cryptocurrency mining and e-commerce promotions in China draining stock from retailers. In response, sellers are focusing on the recently resurrected RTX 3060 and RTX 3050, entry-level cards from two generations ago.
NVIDIA reintroduced the RTX 3060 12 GB edition in June. The card has 3,584 CUDA cores and 12 GB of GDDR6 memory, and is once again built on Samsung's 8 nm DUV node, the same process used for the entire "Ampere" architecture lineup.
Reportedly, retailers are pushing RTX 3060 and RTX 3050 sales, alongside some AMD Radeon cards, to offload demand that would otherwise land on RTX 50 series designs. The shift is a notable reversal: as recently as October, the RTX 3060 had slipped to fifth place in Steam's Hardware Survey, overtaken by the RTX 5070, which then held the top spot with a 6.15% share.