I've been away from the building/upgrading scene for a few years and am still using a GTX 1060 12gb. I've been considering upgrading to a 3060, but unfortunately my wife isn't on board with that purchase, as we're supposed to be prioritizing our downpayment on a house. Boo, Wendy.. This has at least given me time to to step back a little and evaluate whether or not the 3060 is even what I need at the moment. Maybe there are equally decent options for a better value. I want to be able to run RDR2 on high settings, and want to be set to go when STALKER 2 eventually drops. Is there a better Radeon card out there for my needs, vs. the GTX 3060?
Be aware that 8Gb version of 3060 is practically a different card. Think of it as 3050Ti or smth.
If you care only about games, you probably want to look at 6600xt (8Gb), 6700 (10Gb) and 6700xt (12Gb), as those offer better value than 3060, or any Nvidia card from those classes for that matter.
Also Intel A750 and A770 are an option, although you'll have to tinker a lot more with those.
Also, since you're budgeting your housing, you could also budget (as in save now, buy outright later) the GPU. It shouldn't be impacting your finances much if you do that.
Vs a 3060 a 6700xt would probably be a lot better for only a little more money. Otherwise it's probably Worth looking at used options as the price/performance gets worse as you get lower priced cards than that.