What time does the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 release?

While all previous NVIDIA RTX GPUs have released around 9 a.m. EST on the day of release, NVIDIA has officially announced different plans for the 3060. In an email sent to press, NVIDIA said the RTX 3060 is expected to be available at nationwide retailers around 12 p.m. EST on February 25.

That being said, as we saw with Sony’s PS5 pre-order fiasco back in September, it may not hurt to have your tabs ready at 9 a.m. EST just in case some stores decide to release their stock a little early. Even though NVIDIA has likely established strict sale provisions with its partnered stores, it never hurts to be overprepared on GPU release day.

Now that you know precisely when the RTX 3060 is expected to go on sale, it’s time to figure out where you might want to buy one. NVIDIA isn’t selling a Founder’s Edition of the 3060, so that means all versions of the card will be offered via third-party manufacturers. In keeping with that idea, you may want to start your search at third-party stores before visiting NVIDIA’s own site.

This list of retailers isn’t completely exhaustive, but here are some of the best places to secure a 3060 on launch day. We’ve cached the pages to search for the 3060 already, so hopefully, they populate correctly once the cards go live.

B&H in particular has avoided the last few graphics card releases on launch day, but we thought it might be helpful to include the store on our list as an outlet once all the other options have been totally exhausted.

Best tips for ordering an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060

You’ve got the official release time and a few links you might use to make your 3060 pre-order, so now we’ll offer a few helpful tips to potentially allow you to get your card ahead of those pesky bots. Some of these tips may be obvious to experienced online shoppers, but here are a few retail tactics we’ve learned after successfully securing a few hot tech items during the pandemic.

The NVIDIA GeForce 3060 goes on sale February 25 for $329 MSRP.

Are you planning to order an RTX 3060 on Thursday? What are your best pre-order tips for securing hot items? Tell us in the comments section!