RTX 3060 vs RTX 3080: Specs, VRAM & Price
Short answer: choose the RTX 3060 when you want the lower hourly rate and the specs are otherwise a wash. Choose the RTX 3080 when RTX 3080 pricing or availability works better where you're deploying.
Both the RTX 3060 and the RTX 3080 ship with 12 GB of VRAM.
You can rent both by the hour, no purchase required. RTX 3060 from $0.110/GPU/hr; RTX 3080 from $0.187/GPU/hr. The RTX 3060 is 41% cheaper at the entry rate.
RTX 3060
Good for inference and small-scale training workloads
RTX 3080
Good for inference and small-scale training workloads
Last updated: 2026-10-10 18:04:48 UTCRefreshes hourly
Specs side by side
| Spec | RTX 3060 | RTX 3080 |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 12 GB | 12 GB |
| Memory bandwidth | – | 760 GB/s |
| Architecture | Ampere | Ampere |
| Compute capability | 8.6 | 8.6 |
| Precisions in hardware | FP32, FP16, BF16, INT4 | FP32, FP16, BF16, INT4 |
| Peak FP16/BF16 tensor TFLOPS | – | 119 TFLOPS |
| Max board power (TDP) | – | 320W |
| Form factor | PCIe 4.0 x8 | – |
| Regions | 1 | 1 |
On-demand price
| Rate | RTX 3060 | RTX 3080 |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest per GPU/hr | $0.231/GPU/hr | $0.187/GPU/hr (cheapest overall) |
Which is better for AI: RTX 3060 or RTX 3080?
Choose the RTX 3060 when you want the lower hourly rate and the specs are otherwise a wash. Choose the RTX 3080 when RTX 3080 pricing or availability works better where you're deploying.
RTX 3060 vs RTX 3080: common questions
Is the RTX 3060 or the RTX 3080 better for AI?
Short answer: choose the RTX 3060 when you want the lower hourly rate and the specs are otherwise a wash. Choose the RTX 3080 when RTX 3080 pricing or availability works better where you're deploying.
Is the RTX 3060 or the RTX 3080 cheaper to rent?
On Aquanode's live marketplace the RTX 3060 starts at $0.110/GPU/hr (median $0.231/GPU/hr) and the RTX 3080 starts at $0.187/GPU/hr (median $0.198/GPU/hr). The RTX 3060 is the cheaper of the two at the entry rate, by 41%.
What is the difference between the RTX 3060 and the RTX 3080?
Both cards report 12 GB of VRAM; both are Ampere parts; both run BF16, INT4 workloads in hardware. On price, the RTX 3060 lists from $0.110/GPU/hr and the RTX 3080 from $0.187/GPU/hr.
How widely available are the RTX 3060 and the RTX 3080?
The RTX 3060 is listed in 1 region and the RTX 3080 in 1 region right now.
How much does 1,000 GPU-hours cost on the RTX 3060 vs the RTX 3080?
At the lowest rates listed today, 1,000 GPU-hours costs $110 on the RTX 3060 and $187 on the RTX 3080, a difference of $77 for the same runtime. Rates are per GPU per hour and update hourly.
How much VRAM does the RTX 3060 have compared to the RTX 3080?
Both the RTX 3060 and the RTX 3080 ship with 12 GB of VRAM.
How this comparison is calculated
Every price is normalized to a per-GPU hourly rate using the same pipeline as every other pricing surface on Aquanode, and only the cheapest qualifying offer per provider is shown. A dash means that provider does not currently list that GPU.
Architecture, compute capability and supported precisions come from each vendor's published datasheet for that generation, not from the marketplace feed. This page regenerates at most once per hour.
Memory bandwidth, tensor TFLOPS, NVLink/interconnect and max board power are the same verified-from-datasheet figures shown on each model's own RTX 3060 page and RTX 3080 page, which link the primary vendor source for that model. A dash here means Aquanode hasn't verified that figure from a primary source yet, never a guess.
Go further
Check what fits in each card's memory with the RTX 3060 VRAM calculator and the RTX 3080 VRAM calculator, or browse every model by generation in the GPU index.
More RTX 3060 comparisons
More RTX 3080 comparisons
Related reading: H100 pricing and specs, H100 vs H200, A100 vs H100, H100 and H200: SXM vs NVL vs PCIe, and The best GPUs for AI, ranked.
