The NVIDIA RTX 3090 is the objective winner of this comparison, securing victory in eight out of fifteen measured specifications. Its most significant advantage over the NVIDIA RTX 5060 is its VRAM capacity, which is 200% better. This substantial memory lead provides the primary technical edge for the former, while the latter holds a 100% advantage in AV1 encoding capabilities, marking the most impactful spec improvement for the newer hardware.

Choose the NVIDIA RTX 3090 if your primary requirements involve tasks that benefit from superior VRAM capacity. Conversely, select the NVIDIA RTX 5060 if your workflow prioritizes the 100% improvement in AV1 encoding efficiency. While the former leads in the majority of measured categories, the specific utility of the latter's encoding hardware makes it a specialized alternative for users focused on modern media processing rather than raw memory overhead.