Question NVIDIA 3000 Series GPUs with 12 GB or Greater VRAM?

I'm actually asking for a friend who is on a budget. We know about the 3060 with 12 GB of VRAM. However, he was thinking of stepping it up to perhaps a 3070, and I can't seem to find any with 12 GB or more of VRAM. The ones I saw are a lot more expensive than the 3060, and the 3060 is actually sufficient, but I am wondering if there any cost efficient NVIDIA GPUs not "a lot" more expensive which have at least 12 GB of VRAM which I have not found? E.g., a 3070 variant?
 
I am wondering if there any cost efficient NVIDIA GPUs not "a lot" more expensive which have at least 12 GB of VRAM which I have not found? E.g., a 3070 variant?
Next Nvidia GPU with vram at least 12GB is RTX 4060 Ti 16GB - least expensive.

Further products can not be really considered budget options
RTX 4070 12GB,
RTX 4070 Ti 12GB,
RTX 4080 16GB.

With 3000 series that would be RTX 3080 Ti 12GB
(performance similar to RTX 4070 Ti, but more expensive).
 
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Have you considered amd at all? I know you are looking at nvidia but something like an rx 6700xt might be what the doctor ordered. It has 12gb vram and on Newegg starts around 300 dollars. Looking at newegg again the cheapest 3060 12gb is about 269.99. So you are talking about 30 bucks or so. But the 6700xt is closer to a 3060ti or 3070 in performance. It won’t do ray tracing as well as the nvidia cards as amd is trying to catch up in that area, but on a budget you may not be doing a lot of ray tracing even on nvidia cards on the lower end anyway.
 
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Intel Arc A770 16GB is also out there, It has comparable gaming performance to the RTX 3060Ti/4060Ti/3060, but really only works well on more recent DX12 and Vulkan capable games. Has better ray-tracing performance than all the mid-tier AMD cards if that is important, but then the 3060 is probably the better option there.
 
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Intel Arc A770 16GB is also out there, It has comparable gaming performance to the RTX 3060Ti/4060Ti/3060, but really only works well on more recent DX12 and Vulkan capable games. Has better ray-tracing performance than all the mid-tier AMD cards if that is important, but then the 3060 is probably the better option there.
not to mention rebar must be enabled for the best performance.
 
Next Nvidia GPU with vram at least 12GB is RTX 4060 Ti 16GB - least expensive.

Further products can not be really considered budget options
RTX 4070 12GB,
RTX 4070 Ti 12GB,
RTX 4080 16GB.

With 3000 series that would be RTX 3080 Ti 12GB
(performance similar to RTX 4070 Ti, but more expensive).
Thank you! That more or less seems to verify what I've been able to dig up.
 
Have you considered amd at all? I know you are looking at nvidia but something like an rx 6700xt might be what the doctor ordered. It has 12gb vram and on Newegg starts around 300 dollars. Looking at newegg again the cheapest 3060 12gb is about 269.99. So you are talking about 30 bucks or so. But the 6700xt is closer to a 3060ti or 3070 in performance. It won’t do ray tracing as well as the nvidia cards as amd is trying to catch up in that area, but on a budget you may not be doing a lot of ray tracing even on nvidia cards on the lower end anyway.
AMD has been considered, but there is a desire to stick to NVIDIA. He's willing to pay a bit more, but does not want to jump onto the "big power supply and special connector" 4000 series. All of the past GPUs are NVIDIA, so I guess it is more tradition.
 
Intel Arc A770 16GB is also out there, It has comparable gaming performance to the RTX 3060Ti/4060Ti/3060, but really only works well on more recent DX12 and Vulkan capable games. Has better ray-tracing performance than all the mid-tier AMD cards if that is important, but then the 3060 is probably the better option there.
I am guessing he will go with the 3060. The main use is in fact with a Vulkan game which used to be DX12. There are some older games though which don't need first person shooter frame rates. There *might* be a desire to try out ray tracing.