Nvidia brings the RTX 3060 back from the dead to beat the RAM crisis — there's a reason why it still tops the Steam Hardware Survey after all these years

• Nvidia's RTX 3060 has returned to retailers, amid the ongoing RAM crisis
• MSI, Gigabyte, and Asus models reportedly started at $339.99, but have seemingly increased
• It's a sign that the current state of the PC hardware market is in complete disarray in terms of shortages and pricing

The PC and console hardware market is in the worst place its arguably ever been, with the RAM crisis leading to high prices on components utilizing memory. That's why the return of a popular GPU is one that doesn't come as a huge surprise.

As reported by Tom's Hardware, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card has returned to retailers, notably on Newegg, with numerous Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte models available.

While Tom's Hardware highlights that prices for these returning GPU models were seen at $339.99 (which is $10 above the MSRP when launched), listings range from at least $416. It's already a big ask at $339 for an old graphics card that doesn't have the same advantages of the current-gen RTX 5060, so the increase won't do it much favors.

It's worth noting that the RTX 3060 has been the most popular GPU on PC, according to Steam's Hardware & Software Survey results, consistently ranking at number one each month for several years. The same trend is evident in May's results, and likely the same for June.

The 12GB GPU is still very much capable of providing solid performance in games at 1080p or 1440p, especially when using DLSS upscaling, and that explains why it's still so popular among Steam users.

However, it's not exactly being received well among consumers. My colleague and PC enthusiast, Matthew Hanson, views the return of the RTX 3060 "like a s**t Frankenstein", and frankly, it's a reasonable observation and one that highlights just how messy the PC hardware market is.

Users on Reddit haven't been shy about highlighting why the GPU's return doesn't make much sense, with one stating: "Even Nvidia enthusiasts would be hard-pressed to get this for $339.99. At that point, just get an RTX 5060.

"The only real benefit to this card is the VRAM, so we all know who this is really for - The AI crowd."

It's not that the RTX 3060 is a bad graphics card, because that's far from the case. However, at the current price the models from MSI and others are available at, it makes little to no sense, since the RTX 5060 is within the same price region, and it has the advantage of Multi-Frame Generation over the RTX 3060.

Regardless, one more option on the market doesn't hurt, especially since it doesn't seem as though its unstable condition will change anytime soon.