AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700, 32GB vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, 12GB for local AI
The Radeon AI PRO R9700, 32GB holds 34 of the 50 current models here, and the GeForce RTX 3060, 12GB holds 14. The GeForce RTX 3060, 12GB costs $970 less, both priced as the card alone, without the PC around either. On Gemma 4 12B, the strongest model both hold, the Radeon AI PRO R9700, 32GB is about 1.8× faster: 70 tok/s against 38, both estimated from memory bandwidth. The GeForce RTX 3060, 12GB pays for itself sooner, in 26 years against 84 years at 500k tokens a day, though that is each machine on its own strongest model rather than on the same one. The GeForce RTX 3060, 12GB is the previous generation, so every figure here for it is priced at what it launched at rather than at a price you can pay today.
| AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700, 32GB | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, 12GB | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1,299card only | $329card only |
| Memory | 32 GB | 12 GB |
| Usable by the GPU | 31 GB | 11 GB |
| Memory bandwidth | 640 GB/s | 360 GB/s |
| Power under load | 300 W | 170 W |
| Models that fit | 34 | 14 |
| Best model it runs | Qwen3.8 27B | Gemma 4 12B |
| Speed on that model | 30 tok/s estimatedQwen3.8 27B | 38 tok/s estimatedGemma 4 12B |
| Pay-back on that model | Pays back in 84 years | Pays back in 26 years |
Run the numbers on the AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700, 32GB · or the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, 12GB
Jump to: Side by side on Gemma 4 12B · How much use it takes to pay back · What the extra memory buys · The assumptions behind both columns
Side by side on Gemma 4 12B
The table above gives each machine the strongest model it can hold, and those are not the same model, so the two speeds in it are not a race. Gemma 4 12B is the strongest model both machines hold, so this is the pair running the same work.
| AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700, 32GB | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, 12GB | |
|---|---|---|
| Speed | 70 tok/s estimated | 38 tok/s estimated |
| Pay-back | Pays back in 101 years | Pays back in 26 years |
Run Gemma 4 12B on the AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700, 32GB · or on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, 12GB
How much use it takes to pay back
Everything above is at 500k tokens a day. Pay-back moves with how much you actually run, so here are both machines on the same model, at the five levels of use the calculator names. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, 12GB pays back sooner at every level of use, so this is not a choice that turns on how hard you work it.
| A day's use | AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700, 32GB | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, 12GB |
|---|---|---|
| 50ka few chats a day | 1,010 years | 257 years |
| 200klight assistant use | 253 years | 64 years |
| 1Ma moderate coding-assistant day | 51 years | 13 years |
| 4Mheavy coding with an agent | 13 years | 3.2 years |
| 20Magents running most of the day | 2.5 years | 7.7 months |
Run the AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700, 32GB at 20M tokens a day · or the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, 12GB
What the extra memory buys
The AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700, 32GB holds 20 models the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, 12GB cannot at 32k of context. The strongest of them are what the difference in memory actually buys.
| Model | Weights | Needs at 32k | On the AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700, 32GB |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen3.8 27BSonnet-class | 16 GB | 19 GB | 30 tok/s estimated |
| Qwen3.6 27BHaiku-class | 17 GB | 19 GB | 29 tok/s estimated |
| Nemotron 3.5 Bolt 74B-A9BHaiku-class | 22 GB | 22 GB | 114 tok/s estimated |
| Qwen3.6 35B-A3BHaiku-class | 22 GB | 23 GB | 132 tok/s estimated |
| Muse Glimmer 30BHaiku-class | 17 GB | 18 GB | 31 tok/s estimated |
| Gemma 4 26B-A4BHaiku-class | 17 GB | 18 GB | 97 tok/s estimated |
14 more, on the AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700, 32GB page.
The extra memory buys context as well. Of the 14 current models both machines hold at 32k, 8 run to a longer window on the AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700, 32GB: the weights are a fixed size and the KV cache is not, so what the weights leave spare is what a longer context grows into. Granite 4.2 8B reaches 128k there against 32k on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, 12GB, each the longest window the calculator offers that the machine still holds it at.
The Radeon AI PRO R9700, 32GB is also head to head with another card: RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell, 96GB · GeForce RTX 5090, 32GB · GeForce RTX 4090, 24GB · GeForce RTX 3090, 24GB · GeForce RTX 4080, 16GB. With a complete computer: Mac mini M5 Pro, 24GB · Mac Studio M5 Max, 128GB · DGX Spark, 128GB · GMKtec EVO-X2, 128GB · MacBook Air M5 (15-inch), 16GB · MacBook Pro M5 Pro (16-inch), 64GB · Mac mini M6, 32GB.
The GeForce RTX 3060, 12GB is also head to head with another card: RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell, 96GB · GeForce RTX 5090, 32GB · GeForce RTX 4090, 24GB · GeForce RTX 3090, 24GB · GeForce RTX 4080, 16GB.
The assumptions behind both columns
Both columns use the same usage: 500k tokens a day at 15:1 input to output, 32k of context, $0.17 per kWh, and today's API prices held flat. Speeds marked estimated are worked out from memory bandwidth rather than measured, and pay-back scales with them. Both are priced as the card alone, so neither figure includes the PC to put it in. All seven cards here are ranked by what each one holds. Change any of it in the calculator.
More head to head: everything the AMD Radeon AI PRO R9700, 32GB runs · everything the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, 12GB runs · every other match-up · the quickest pay-back at each level of use · every model against the frontier