The RTX 3060 feels like it's everywhere. The desktop version of the graphics card tops the March 2023 Steam Hardware Survey, while the laptop version holds down 8th place in the same rankings. It's not an entirely unexpected state of affairs, with this tier of GPUs dominating since the great GTX 1060 back in 2018, but the laptop version in particular is worth looking at in more detail.
Our interest was prompted by two factors. The first is the fact that the RTX 3060 Laptop uses precisely the same silicon as the desktop card, with even more CUDA cores activated - just with a slightly lower power target. That dichotomy is a rarity in the laptop space, which often marries high-end GPU names (eg RTX 4090) with more down-market GPU dies (AD103) - with a corresponding gulf in expected performance. The second, more prosaic reason is that recent sales have brought premium 3060 laptops to the £1250 mark and budget examples well below the £1000 barrier.
So given these factors, how well do these laptops perform - can a 3060 Laptop GPU give a desktop-class 3060 a run for its money? We've gotten in two RTX 3060 gaming laptops to find out, a heavyweight option from British firm Chillblast (via parents CCL) and a more sophisticated model from German company Tuxedo, who focus on advanced Linux machines.