Samsung to Resurrect NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3060 Using 8 nm Node

NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3060 is making a comeback, expected around mid-March. For this, NVIDIA will once again use Samsung’s 8 nm DUV node, as it has in the past. This has been confirmed by the Korean media outlet Hankyung, which reports that Samsung is restarting its 8 nm node production to meet NVIDIA’s needs. Originally, Samsung manufactured these GPUs back in 2021. The entire NVIDIA “Ampere” architecture lineup was produced on the 8 nm DUV node, and we didn’t anticipate its return after several years. However, since NVIDIA has transitioned to TSMC for manufacturing its “Ada Lovelace” and latest “Blackwell” GPUs, and has become TSMC’s largest customer, utilizing the 5 nm node, this move is intriguing.

We still lack concrete information about which version of the RTX 3060 will be reintroduced—whether it will be the original 12 GB model with a 192-bit wide memory bus or the newer 8 GB variant with a 128-bit bus. Additionally, the decision to use a two-generation-old GPU architecture in 2026 is puzzling, as the reason NVIDIA has chosen the RTX 3060 instead of a newer model like the RTX 4060 remains unclear. Speculatively, it could be because the RTX 4060 is based on the same NVIDIA 4N (5 nm-class) node at TSMC as the current RTX 5060, while the RTX 3060, along with the rest of the GeForce “Ampere” generation, is built on the Samsung 8N (8 nm DUV) foundry node, which would leave the 5 nm capacity for “Blackwell” and its enterprise variants. Finally, it is worth pointing out…