I'm deciding between an RTX 5060 with 8GB of VRAM and an RTX 3060 with 12GB. Right now I use a laptop with an RTX 3050 6GB, and I regularly play games, edit videos in DaVinci Resolve, and stream Valorant through OBS at 1080p. I'm not aiming for 1440p, though I'm curious whether the RTX 5060 could handle it reasonably well.
Some people have told me that the RTX 3060's extra VRAM would be more important for streaming and newer AAA games, while others say the RTX 5060's much higher performance and newer features matter more. My main games are heavily modded Minecraft with shaders and Valorant, but I'd also like to play newer AAA titles at sensible settings. Would 8GB be enough for this use, or is the 12GB RTX 3060 the safer long-term choice? I'd also appreciate feedback from anyone using an RTX 5060 8GB for modern games, OBS streaming, or video editing.
4 Answers
Eight gigabytes isn’t automatically a deal-breaker, especially at 1080p. The 3060’s 12GB gives it more headroom for high-resolution textures and some future games, but the 5060 offers a much larger performance advantage. I’d only pick the 3060 if it were significantly cheaper or if your priority was maximizing VRAM rather than frame rate.
For 1080p gaming and editing, I’d choose the 5060 unless you already know a specific application or game requires more than 8GB. DaVinci Resolve can benefit from additional VRAM with complex timelines and effects, but for ordinary editing and streaming, the newer GPU should be the more capable option. It should also remain usable at 1440p if you’re willing to adjust textures and other demanding settings.
The RTX 5060 is the better overall choice for this workload. It has considerably more raw performance and newer encoding and graphics features, while 8GB is generally fine for 1080p. In demanding AAA games, reduce texture quality or disable ray tracing if VRAM usage becomes a problem. For OBS at 1080p60, the GPU’s hardware encoder should handle streaming without a major issue.
That sounds reassuring. I was mainly worried that streaming while gaming would make 8GB unusable.
The RTX 3060 is more likely to run into a performance limit before its 12GB of VRAM becomes especially useful. The 5060 is substantially faster, so it should deliver smoother gameplay in Minecraft with shaders and newer games. The extra memory on the 3060 can help in a few texture-heavy situations, but it doesn’t make the card faster overall.
So the 5060 seems like the better balance, and I can use the laptop or a capture device later if I want to separate streaming from gaming.