Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti (8GB) review: Disappointing for $400

Price When Reviewed

$399 (8GB)

At first blush, Nvidia’s $399 GeForce RTX 4060 Ti (8GB) appears prefer it needs to be a smashing success.

Its predecessor, 2020’s $399 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, was among the finest GPUs in a robust RTX 30-series technology, providing impeccable 1080p and spectacular 1440p gaming efficiency at an affordable worth. The new RTX 4060 Ti sticks to the identical worth whereas weaving in Nvidia’s newest killer RTX 40-series options, like DLSS 3, Reflex, RTX Video Super Resolution, best-in-class ray tracing, AV1 encoding, beautiful energy effectivity, and extra.

But peel again the hood and issues aren’t fairly so clear reduce.

Nvidia made technical selections—decreasing core counts and altering the reminiscence subsystem—that enable the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti to scream at 1080p decision however make it unappealing for 1440p gaming. It additionally makes the 4060 Ti a mediocre generational improve by way of uncooked firepower. The resolution to outfit this card with 8GB of reminiscence means it received’t have the ability to run all video games with eye sweet maxed out even at 1080p, by Nvidia’s personal admission. And whereas the addition of DLSS 3’s AI-generated frames is definitely welcome, picture upsampling applied sciences create noticeable visible artifacts on the much less pixel-packed 1080p decision, rendering DLSS’s performance-boosting benefits much less of an element right here.

So I suppose the underside line is: Are you keen to pay $400 for a 1080p graphics card with 8GB of reminiscence within the 12 months of our lord 2023?

What are the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti’s specs and worth?

Nvidia revealed some high-level particulars for the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB in its announcement (which additionally revealed a $299 RTX 4060 and $499 RTX 4060 Ti 16GB, each coming in July) however didn’t present deeper technical info. Here that’s, in contrast towards the RTX 3060 Ti:

Just a few key particulars leap out immediately. First, the RTX 4060 Ti—constructed upon Nvidia’s new “Ada Lovelace” GPU structure—is tremendously energy environment friendly and presents a lot increased GPU and reminiscence clock speeds than earlier than. Bravo, Nvidia.

Second, this new card really holds considerably fewer CUDA, tensor, and RT cores than the RTX 3060 Ti it replaces. Because of this, the RTX 4060 Ti can really be slower than its predecessor in some conditions, and solely presents a middling efficiency uplift general. Best-case eventualities high out at round 15 to 20 p.c sooner than the RTX 3060 Ti, however you’ll see primarily static gen-on-gen efficiency in lots of extra video games and resolutions. It’s a testomony to Lovelace that this GPU reveals any pace upgrades contemplating what number of fewer CUDA cores it has, particularly given the ultra-low energy draw, nevertheless it’s nonetheless deeply meh as a generational improve.

Brad Chacos/IDG

Third, Nvidia adjusted the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti’s reminiscence subsystem to extra carefully mirror AMD’s Radeon Infinity Cache setup, plopping a giant L2 cache on-die whereas nerfing the reminiscence bus width all the best way all the way down to 128 bits. (The 3060 Ti has a 256-bit bus.) Nvidia additionally saved reminiscence capability equivalent to its predecessor at 8GB of GDDR6, in an period when trendy video games can now eat greater than that even at 1080p decision. And in relation to VRAM capability, both you’ve got sufficient otherwise you don’t.

The reminiscence configuration prevents the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti from being a viable High/Ultra 1440p gaming choice within the long-term, and even in lots of conditions now. We defined why in our evaluation throughout the RTX 4060 Ti’s preliminary reveal:

“The reminiscence bus width is being slimmed down, from 256-bit within the RTX 3060 Ti to only 128-bit within the 4060 Ti. Think of it like site visitors congestion; if reminiscence requests are automobiles, the bus width is the dimensions of the street. 100 automobiles transfer a lot sooner on a four-lane freeway than a single lane dust street, and that pace is analogous to the cardboard’s general reminiscence bandwidth. Ostensibly, the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti presents 288GB per second of general reminiscence bandwidth, in comparison with the 3060 Ti’s 448GB/s—an enormous gulf.

It’s not that easy although.

Nvidia

Nvidia

Nvidia swiped a web page from AMD’s killer Infinity Cache technology for RTX 40-series choices, dropping a big on-die cache onto the GPU itself, and the RTX 4060 household isn’t any completely different. Not solely does the nearer bodily proximity imply this cache is quicker, however deploying it additionally reduces the necessity to ship many requests out to the reminiscence chips arrayed across the GPU itself, as illustrated within the slides above. While AMD’s Infinity Cache makes use of an L3 cache, Nvidia opted for a 32MB L2 cache as a substitute (versus simply 4MB on the 3060 Ti). The firm says the bigger L2 cache notably helps enhance ray tracing and DLSS efficiency, and ends in the “effective” reminiscence bandwidth proven within the technical specs slide.

Here’s the factor although: As evidenced in our assessment of the last-gen Radeon RX 6600 XT, which had 32MB of Infinity Cache and a 128-bit bus, pairing a giant on-die cache with a neutered bus width helps the GPU carry out exceptionally—each in efficiency and energy—on the show decision it’s focused for, however normally ends in lower-than-expected outcomes at increased resolutions. Higher resolutions have increased reminiscence wants, which leads to fewer profitable on-die cache hits. When that occurs, the reminiscence requests exit to conventional reminiscence—and the RTX 4060 Ti’s a lot smaller 128-bit bus would possibly falter when that occurs.”

Now that we’ve examined the RTX 4060 Ti, we are able to affirm that it certainly slows down on the increased 1440p decision. In reality, it will probably’t even grasp powerful at 1440p with the RTX 3070, which price $500 in 2020. You’d count on a brand new card to no less than rival an older GPU that price simply $100 greater than it 2.5 lengthy years in the past, however the RTX 4060 Ti fails to clear that low bar.

Nvidia appears to be hitching the 4060 Ti’s star to Lovelace’s energy effectivity and the corporate’s GeForce function set, which is admittedly killer: DLSS 3, RTX Video Super Resolution, Nvidia Broadcast, cutting-edge AV1 encoding, class-leading ray tracing, Nvidia Reflex, and extra are on faucet, and so they’re all actually wonderful.

Brad Chacos/IDG

We’re testing Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition, a manageable two-slot iteration of the corporate’s tried-and-tried and attractive in-house design. It’s extra silver than upper-tier fashions, coming with a single HDMI slot and three DisplayPorts.

Brad Chacos/IDG

One quibble: Despite solely requiring a single 8-pin connector for energy, Nvidia nonetheless outfit the cardboard with a 12VHPWR cable, necessitating the usage of a brief adapter included in field. It appears awkward and fugly for those who’re utilizing a case with a windowed aspect. The fan blades are additionally a lot much less densely packed than earlier FE fashions, although it doesn’t have an effect on cooling efficiency, as you’ll see afterward.

Brad Chacos/IDG

Enough chatter. Let’s get to the video games!

Our take a look at system

We take a look at graphics playing cards on an AMD Ryzen 5900X PC used solely for benchmarking GPUs. We now take a look at with PCIe Resizable BAR (also called Smart Access Memory on Ryzen techniques) lively, as most trendy gaming PCs launched within the final 4 years assist the performance-boosting function, both natively or through a motherboard firmware replace. Nvidia additionally recommends turning on the non-obligatory “Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling” in Windows to let the RTX 40-series stretch its legs to the fullest, so we’ve made that tweak as nicely. Most of the {hardware} was supplied by the producers, however we bought the storage ourselves.

We take a look at a wide range of video games spanning numerous engines, genres, vendor sponsorships (Nvidia, AMD, and Intel), and graphics APIs (DirectX 9, 11, DX12, and Vulkan), to attempt to signify a full vary of efficiency potential. Each recreation is examined utilizing its in-game benchmark, sanity checked by Nvidia’s FrameView tool, on the highest potential graphics presets until in any other case famous, with VSync, body fee caps, real-time ray tracing or DLSS results, and FreeSync/G-Sync disabled, together with another vendor-specific applied sciences like FidelityFX instruments or Nvidia Reflex. We’ve additionally enabled temporal anti-aliasing (TAA) to push these playing cards to their limits.

We run every benchmark no less than thrice and checklist the common consequence for every take a look at. Outside of esports, we’ve restricted our benchmarks to 1440p and 1080p resolutions, because the 4060 Ti actually isn’t constructed for 4K gaming. We take a look at options like ray tracing and DLSS in a separate part, as upscaling options like DLSS and AMD’s rival FSR tweak the look of video games to assist them run sooner. 

Usually we current our knowledge in a sequence of per-game bar charts, however given some extreme time constraints, we’re operating our knowledge in uncooked charts at this time and supplementing it with extra efficiency commentary as a substitute. (Hit me up on Twitter to let me know for those who like it or hate it!) Those time restrictions additionally prevented us from operating new benchmark knowledge for the $330 16GB Intel Arc A770, alas, which is one other sturdy contender on this worth section.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 1080p gaming efficiency

Nvidia itself calls the RTX 4060 Ti “a 1080p performance champ,” so let’s begin there.

Brad Chacos/IDG

All of those graphics playing cards ship nice 1080p graphics efficiency with eye sweet maxed out, even the last-gen Radeon RX 6600, which will be discovered hovering round $200 as of late. We additionally included outcomes for the Radeon RX 6700 XT. This AMD GPU options 12GB of VRAM and a 256-bit bus, sidestepping considerations with the RTX 4060 Ti’s reminiscence configuration. It will be discovered for roughly $350 as of late.

The new RTX 4060 Ti typically leads its RTX 3060 Ti predecessor, albeit by a slim to negligible margin in most video games, as evidenced by the common FPS proven on the finish of the chart.

The one exception? The legendary Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, one of many most-played video games on the planet. GeForce RTX 40-series GPUs have persistently did not beat their predecessors in CSGO, possible because of the a lot narrower reminiscence bus widths that Nvidia slapped on this technology. If you exclude CSGO and its ultra-high body charges from the averaged outcomes, the RTX 4060 Ti’s lead widens, hitting 130fps on common versus the RTX 3060 Ti’s 119—nonetheless a paltry 9 p.c uplift general.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 1440p gaming efficiency

We additionally examined these playing cards at 1440p decision, including within the $500 RTX 3070 from final technology and the new $599 RTX 4070 for good measure (actually).

Brad Chacos/IDG

Once once more, all these graphics playing cards flip in a decent displaying, and as soon as once more, the brand new RTX 4060 Ti lands uncomfortably near its predecessor. Factoring in CSGO’s excessive body charges and slower RTX 40-series efficiency, the 3060 Ti really holds the lead within the averaged body fee right here. Oof. That’s a bit deceptive although, as a result of the RTX 3060 Ti is a lot sooner than the RTX 4060 Ti at 1440p that it skews the general image. Exclude CSGO and the RTX 4060 Ti is roughly 7 p.c sooner than the RTX 3060 Ti. Still oof.

That oof turns into an OOF when you think about the RTX 3070’s efficiency. It smashes the RTX 4060 Ti to the tune of a 13.7 p.c common with CSGO included, or by 5 p.c with CSGO excluded. Not having the ability to beat a card that price simply $100 extra 2.5 years in the past is deeply embarrassing for Nvidia’s new GPU, and a sign of why the RTX 4060 Ti’s new technical configuration makes it unsuitable for long-term 1440p gaming efficiency.

Speaking of, peep that Radeon RX 6700 XT at each resolutions. It performs equally on common to the RTX 3060 Ti, which as we simply established is inside spitting distance of the RTX 4060 Ti, however comes with 12GB of reminiscence and a wider 256-bit bus for $350. If you’re nervous about 8GB not being sufficient VRAM for contemporary video games, or need to dabble in 1440p gaming and don’t thoughts giving up DLSS and different Nvidia options, it’s value contemplating—particularly at $50 lower than Nvidia’s new GPU. When it involves VRAM capability, both you’ve got sufficient otherwise you don’t.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti ray tracing, DLSS, and DLSS 3 efficiency

So the RTX 4060 Ti is a mediocre generational improve in relation to conventional gaming horsepower. Nvidia is seemingly hitching this GPU’s hat on energy effectivity (extra on that later), ray tracing, and—given the character of the efficiency metrics Nvidia unveiled within the card’s announcement—the ability of AI-enhanced DLSS efficiency enhancements.

Fortunately, lots of the video games in our fastidiously chosen take a look at suite embody ray tracing and picture upscaling (Nvidia DLSS/AMD FSR) choices. We take a look at the video games at native, native with RT on Ultra, and with RT on Ultra and DLSS/FSR on Balanced to guage every expertise.

BUT!

It’s value noting that I feel DLSS/FSR picture upscaling appears horrible on the 1080p decision this graphics card was constructed for. Image upscaling works by internally rendering a body at a decrease decision, then utilizing AI and/or software program tips to upscale the ultimate picture to match your chosen decision. It allows you to get sooner efficiency with minimal to no loss in picture high quality—no less than at increased pixel-packed 1440p and 4K resolutions.

Activating picture upscaling isn’t so easy at 1080p. At this decrease finish of the size, the picture upscaling know-how is pulling from so many fewer pixels that the visuals that seem onscreen can look blurry and jagged, even at higher-quality DLSS/FSR presets. The inside picture getting used to render video games at 1080p decision with DLSS Balanced on is underneath 720p—and it appears prefer it, for my part, although DLSS appears superior to AMD’s FSR at this decision.

I wouldn’t purchase a 1080p graphics card with upscaling in thoughts, full cease. Unfortunately, the decrease upscaled picture constancy additionally makes operating ray tracing harder at 1080p, because it takes away from the improved visuals that ray tracing can present. The finest lighting on the earth doesn’t look nice when it’s paired with jagged, blurry fashions, alas. It’s superb sufficient if want be, although.

Image upscaling is simply a part of the DLSS worth proposition with the RTX 40-series nevertheless. This technology additionally marks the introduction of DLSS 3 Frame Generation, which leverages the tensor cores and enhanced optical circulate accelerator inside Nvidia’s Lovelace GPUs to insert totally AI-generated frames between each historically rendered body.

This is a real potential feather within the cap of the RTX 4060 Ti. You don’t must activate DLSS 2 picture upsampling and downgrade picture constancy to run DLSS 3—you possibly can simply flip on Frame Generation and watch the body fee fly, particularly in CPU-bound video games like Microsoft Flight Simulator. It’s improbable.

That stated, DLSS 3 isn’t fairly set-and-forget both. Inserting AI frames can typically end in visible artifacts in choose video games, particularly round UI parts. And since you possibly can’t really management inputs throughout these AI-generated frames, latency is added. DLSS 3 requires builders to additionally combine Nvidia Reflex to fight these considerations, which regularly helps video games be barely extra responsive than when rendering natively, nevertheless it doesn’t consequence within the leap in responsiveness you’d usually count on when supercharging your body charges. That means the really feel of the sport won’t match what your mind and palms count on—a recreation is likely to be operating 50 percent-plus sooner with body technology on, for instance, however solely really feel 10 to 20 p.c sooner in responsiveness.

DLSS 3 makes video games look wonderful to make certain, however that element is type of bizarre, and value noting. Our DLSS 3 deep dive goes into every thing concerning the know-how in a lot better element.

Brad Chacos/IDG

We examined ray tracing and DLSS at each 1440p and 1080p decision, however are solely revealing the 1080p outcomes above, given a mix of time constraints and the truth that you must solely actually contemplate the RTX 4060 Ti for 1080p gaming.

As you possibly can see from these numbers, the RTX 4060 Ti maintains Nvidia’s ray tracing lead on this section, although it doesn’t functionally lengthen it past what the 3060 Ti was already able to years in the past for a similar worth. We take a look at at Ultra, however for those who dial some graphics settings again to High or Medium, you possibly can come near 60fps efficiency at 1080p in lots of video games even with ray tracing enabled and DLSS off. DLSS 3 is a recreation changer when it’s out there, however observe that it’s solely presently out there in about 50 titles.

How are the RTX 4060 Ti’s energy effectivity and thermals?

Excellent.

We take a look at energy draw by looping the F1 22 benchmark at 4K for about 20 minutes after we’ve benchmarked every thing else (to heat up the GPU) and noting the best studying on our Watts Up Pro meter, which measures the ability consumption of our total take a look at system. The preliminary a part of the race, the place all competing automobiles are onscreen concurrently, tends to be probably the most demanding portion. This isn’t a worst-case take a look at; it is a GPU-bound recreation operating at a GPU-bound decision to gauge efficiency when the graphics card is sweating onerous. If you’re taking part in a recreation that additionally hammers the CPU, you possibly can see increased general system energy attracts. Consider your self warned.

The GeForce RTX 4060 Ti completely sips energy regardless of flinging out quick body charges, drawing 83 fewer watts than the RTX 3060 Ti regardless of being 7 to 9 p.c sooner in efficiency. And that idle energy is totally bonkers.

Brad Chacos/IDG

We take a look at thermals by leaving GPU-Z open throughout the F1 22 energy draw take a look at, noting the best most temperature on the finish.

No shock right here. The tiny two-slot Founders Edition design does a superb job preserving this ultra-efficient GPU operating chilly. Custom 4060 Ti fashions with mammoth coolers would possibly run quieter—the FE delivers superb noise ranges, albeit not silent—however there’s no want to enhance on temperatures alone.  

Should you purchase the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti?

It all depends upon your reply to the query posed proper up high: Are you keen to pay $400 for a 1080p graphics card with 8GB of reminiscence within the 12 months of our lord 2023?

The GeForce RTX 4060 Ti delivers completely excellent energy effectivity, main ray tracing efficiency, modern AV1 encoding, and quick 1080p gaming for top refresh fee screens, backed by Nvidia’s knockout software program suite: DLSS 3 Frame Generation, Nvidia Reflex, RTX Video Super Resolution, and Nvidia Broadcast are simply some of the killer options out there to the RTX 4060 Ti, with DLSS 3 solely being out there on Nvidia’s latest GPU on this worth section. If you’re nonetheless on a GTX 1060 or RTX 2060, the RTX 4060 Ti will likely be a improbable improve (albeit costly).

It’ll be a tough promote for a lot of people, although—similar to the RTX 4080, 4070 Ti, and 4070 have been to this point this seemingly misplaced technology.

Brad Chacos/IDG

Nvidia pitches the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti as “a 1080p performance champ,” and for those who’ve adopted together with our technical dissection and benchmarks, that’s precisely what it’s. Memory and GPU configuration selections made by Nvidia maintain this GPU from flexing its muscle tissues at 1440p (although you possibly can definitely recreation at 1440p for those who don’t thoughts tweaking graphics settings). That’s exacerbated by its 8GB of onboard reminiscence.

As Hardware Unboxed recently chronicled, 8GB of reminiscence isn’t sufficient to run all trendy video games maxed-out now that builders are benefiting from the 16GB shared reminiscence swimming pools within the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. In Nvidia’s personal early RTX 4060 Ti performance teasers, it needed to scale back graphics settings in A Plague Tale: Requiem and Resident Evil Remake even at 1080p, whereas latest video games like The Last of Us and Hogwarts Legacy additionally wrestle with 8GB on the decrease decision until you drop settings.

Frame Generation is fairly damned cool, however Nvidia’s vaunted DLSS upsampling loses fairly a little bit of its luster at 1080p (together with AMD’s rival FSR) due to the restricted quantity of pixels out there at this decision. I wouldn’t run 1080p video games with DLSS or FSR lively apart from the particular DLSS 3 Frame Generation function. Even then, whereas DLSS 3 is off to a hot start, it’s solely presently out there in round 50 video games.

The RTX 4060 Ti can also be a deeply uninspiring improve gen-on-gen in relation to uncooked GPU horsepower, solely besting the RTX 3060 Ti by 9 p.c at 1080p decision and 7 p.c at 1440p. It has fewer CUDA, RT, and tensor cores than its predecessor, which is disappointing. It flat-out loses to the RTX 3070 at 1440p, which is much more disappointing.

So: Are you keen to pay $400 for a 1080p graphics card with 8GB of reminiscence within the 12 months of our lord 2023? I’m not, particularly with DLSS/FSR benefits minimized on this section. (Given the RTX 4060 Ti’s general efficiency, I don’t assume the $500 16GB model will likely be very interesting when it launches in July both.)

If you have to purchase proper now, I’d relatively spend my cash on a Radeon RX 6600 for round $200 if I used to be gaming on a 1080p/60Hz monitor, or go for the Radeon RX 6700 XT and its 12GB of reminiscence on a 256-bit bus for $350 for those who’re enthusiastic about dabbling in 1440p, nervous about 8GB of VRAM being sufficient at 1080p, and don’t thoughts giving up DLSS 3. (Intel’s $330 Arc A770 presents 16GB of VRAM, on that observe.) Since the RTX 4060 Ti doesn’t present a tangible efficiency improve over the RTX 3060 Ti and is slower than the RTX 3070, you may also have the ability to snap up both of these on sale to benefit from Nvidia’s superior options, although observe that these each lack DLSS 3 assist and are additionally restricted to 8GB of reminiscence, so search for steep gross sales.

That stated, I’d maintain my horses if I might. Nvidia already teased a $299 RTX 4060 with DLSS 3, AV1, and excessive energy effectivity for July. Plus, the rumor mill is screaming that AMD might launch a $300 Radeon RX 7600 any minute now. That worth level is much more palatable for 1080p gaming on 8GB for those who don’t want Nvidia’s deep function set.

The GeForce RTX 4060 Ti would have been extra interesting if it supplied 16GB of reminiscence for $399 and ditched the 8GB choice, or supplied 8GB of reminiscence with the identical degree of efficiency for $300 to $325. As it stands, Nvidia’s RTX 40-series upgrades stay uninspiring at finest and this GPU sadly falls right into a no-man’s land of kinds. Look elsewhere.