According to reports, Nvidia is making RTX 3060 models with GA104 chips, which are normally used in the RTX 3070.
Nvidia RTX 3060, RTX 3070 models with GA104 chips spotted
Due to the supply shortages that Nvidia is experiencing, the manufacturer is forced to use faulty chips to meet the demand. For this reason, Nvidia is found to be using GA104 chips for the development of the mid-range RTX 3060 graphics cards.
In general, the RTX 3060 uses the smaller GA106 chip (276 mm²) rather than the GA104 (392 mm²), which is also much more powerful. However, Nvidia has kept the same specifications, so these refreshed models have virtually the same performance as the original models.
The use of other types of silicon has happened before. For example, with EVGA’s RTX 2060 KO Gaming. This kind of practice is widespread, using defective chips in less powerful models to match the performance of the original model.
The GA104 chip is used in the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3070, and RTX 3070 Ti graphics cards. The chip is trimmed by Nvidia to achieve a similar performance to the RTX 3060. This way, they take advantage of these defective GPUs and help combat the stock shortage.
It is possible that the shortage of graphics cards will last until 2022, which will keep prices high. We will keep you updated on further developments.