On May 24th, Nvidia launched its most affordable, mid-ranged graphics card; the RTX 4060 Ti. Now you can finally enjoy the Ada Lovelace architecture at more affordable prices. Today we’re going to rip the covers off the RTX 4060 Ti and leave the 4060 for another day.
First off, you should know that RTX 4060 Ti comes in two different variants; one with 8 GB of GDDR6X memory and the other with 16 GB of VRAM. The 16 GB version isn’t out yet but we’re expecting it sometime in July. So I’ll be covering the 8 GB version here!
Are you thinking if it’s suitable for you? Would the 399$ get you what you need? Well, you’re in the perfect place to find your answers. So keep up with me and by the end of this article, you’ll know whether RTX 4060 Ti is made for you or not.
Here! Take a quick peek at some pros and cons of the 4060 Ti and then we’ll move on to the performance benchmarks.
Pros
- Incredible performance in 1080p and 1440 gaming
- Great power efficiency
- It comes with killer Nvidia features like RTX Video Super Resolution, DLSS 3, Reflex, Broadcast, and much more.
- Thankfully it supports the potent Ada features including ray tracing and AI, and also the latest Ada features like OMM, DMM, SER and DLSS 3 Frame Generation. These features provide you with a next-level gaming experience.
- AV1 encoding
- Priced the same as the RTX 3060 Ti (only 399$)
Cons
- It could only manage to knock off the RTX 3060
- The small 8GB memory and 128-bit interface badly affect the long-term use of the card
- At 1440p and 4K benchmarks it couldn’t even beat the RTX 3060 Ti
- Although DLSS 3 boosts up the FPS, it also increases the latency
- 400$ is a lot of money for 1080 gaming
- You may have to reconsider your decision of buying this GPU in the future. Because you will come across games that don’t support DLSS 3 or haven’t been optimized for an 8GB frame buffer.
Must know the specifications of RTX 4060 Ti and RTX 4060
Before we delve into the performance details, I want you to take a peek at some essential features of the 4060 Ti. So here’s a specs battle between the 4060 Ti and 4060:
| Features | RTX 4060 | RTX 4060 Ti |
|---|---|---|
| CUDA Cores | 3,072 | 4,352 |
| RT Cores | 35 TFLOPS 3rd Gen | 51 TFLOPS 3rd Gen |
| Tensor Cores | 242 TFLOPS 4th Gen | 353 TFLOPS 4th Gen |
| Shaders | 15 TFLOPS | 22 TFLOPS |
| Base Clock (GHz) | 1.83 | 2.31 |
| Boost Clock (GHz) | 2.46 | 2.54 |
| Memory | 8GB GDDR6 | 8GB / 16GB GDDR6 |
| DLSS | 3 | 3 |
| NV Encoder | 8th Gen with AV1 | 8th Gen with AV 1 |
| Memory Bus Width | 128-bit | 128-bit |
| Maximum GPU temps (deg C) | 90 | 90 |
| Video Playback power | 11 W | 13 W |
| Idle Power | 7W | 7 W |
| Average gaming power | 110 W | 140 W |
| TGP | 115 W | 160 / 165 W |
| Recommended System Power | 550 W | 550 W |
| Starting price | 399$/499$ | TBC |
Performance tests
Now that you know everything that’s on paper, it’s time to explore how well it performs in the field. To be honest, I didn’t have to conduct long series of tests to find out that it has a surprisingly poor performance and I was really disappointed with the green team this time.
To put it shortly, you’re getting a similar punch like the RTX 3070, only 100$ cheaper. But the problem with the RTX 3070 was the limited VRAM buffer. And I believe the 8GB version doesn’t solve that issue and there should only be the 16 GB version. But I don’t think, it should cost 500$, at most 400$ is justifiable for the 16 GB variant.
Hard to believe? Don’t take my word for it! See the results for yourself! And you’ll have the same opinion.
For all of the tests, I used the Ryzen 7 7800X3D processor with the Gigabyte X670E Auros Master which employs a 32 GB of DDR5-600 CL30 memory. I tried plenty of games at different resolutions like 1080p, 1440p, and 4K. But here I’ll only be sharing the 1080p and 1440p results because nobody’s going to use this GPU for 4K gaming.
| Games | RTX 3070 Average FPS | RTX 3060 Ti Average FPS | RTX 4060 Ti Average FPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fortnite [DX11](1080p) Epic Quality, TAA, Native Resolution | 134 | 123 | 130 |
| Fortnite [DX11](1440p) Epic Quality, TAA, Native Resolution | 101 | 90 | 89 |
| Resident Evil 4 (1080p) | 128 | 118 | 135 |
| Resident Evil 4 (1440p) | 93 | 81 | 92 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p) high quality | 105 | 95 | 103 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 (1440p) high quality | 68 | 61 | 63 |
| A Plague Tale: Requiem (1080p) | 94 | 86 | 91 |
| A Plague Tale: Requiem(1440p) | 72 | 67 | 68 |
| Watchdogs Legion (1080p) Very High Quality | 133 | 122 | 140 |
| Watchdogs Legion (1440p) Very High Quality | 99 | 90 | 100 |
| Forza Horizon 5 (1080p) Extreme quality | 117 | 106 | 130 |
| Forza Horizon 5 (1440p) Extreme quality | 100 | 91 | 107 |
| Hogwarts Legacy (1080p) Ultra Quality | 89 | 82 | 78 |
| Hogwarts Legacy (1440p) Ultra Quality | 66 | 64 | 57 |
Fortnite [DX11]
The first game on my list was Fornite which I tested in DirectX 11 mode. I set the graphic settings to the max for the sake of testing but normally you wouldn’t need them even in a semi-competitive setting. At 1080p, the 4060 Ti scored only 130 FPS making it a mere 6% quicker than the 3060 Ti which was quite disappointing for me. And not only that, it was 3% slower than RTX 3070. I mean, how is that an improvement?
The results were more awful at 1440p. RTX 4060 Ti could hardly match the performance of the 3060 Ti making it 14% slower than RTX 3070. Would you believe that? Well, I didn’t so I ran the test multiple times but no luck! I think it was because of the 56% narrower 128-bit wide bus of 4070 Ti in contrast to the 256-bit wide bus of the 3060 Ti. However, Nvidia claimed that the larger L2 cache would boost up the bandwidth of 4060 Ti to 554 GB/s; a 24% increase over 3060 Ti. But sadly, the results told a different story.
Resident Evil 4
Next up I tried the Resident Evil 4. At 1080p, the results were quite consoling, especially at the “Prioritize Graphics Quality” preset that doesn’t trigger the ray tracing. Here the RTX 4060 Ti performed 5% and 14% better than the RTX 3070 and 3060 Ti respectively. Still, it was not much but it did give me the courage to continue the tests.
Although when I ramped it up to 1440p, the 4060 Ti showed similar performance to the 3070, still it was 14% faster than the 3060 Ti. But I expected a lot more considering 3060 Ti is two years.
Cyberpunk 2077
In Cyberpunk 2077, I observed quite the same results. At 1080p, the 4060 Ti was either as good as the 3070 or fell slightly behind. But it showed single-digit improvements over the 3060 Ti.
Following the trend, at 1440p, it couldn’t even knock off the 3070, rendering frames only as quickly as the 3060 Ti.
Later on, I tested plenty of games Forza Horizon 5, Watchdogs Legion, and A Plague Tale: Requiem at different resolutions, and the results were no different. So I won’t bore you with any more stats, Long story short, at 1080p RTX 4060 Ti could only pull up frames as fast as the RTX 3070. But on higher resolution (1440p) it choked up and ended up on the ranks of RTX 3060 Ti.
Sadly I had much higher expectations from RTX 4060 Ti but it is what it is! What can we do?
Is RTX 4060 Ti a worthy upgrade?
Coming down to the heart of our discussion; should you go for it? Well as you’ve seen, the RTX 4060 Ti takes the edge at 1080p gaming. So if you’re looking for an economical 1080 GPU that has the latest ray tracing and DLSS3 features then it might be a good choice for you. But still, I don’t think a 1080p graphics card with an 8 GB VRAM is justifiable at 399$. I’d recommend you wait for the 16 GB version of 4060 Ti and don’t waste your money on this one.
As for those who’re planning to go for higher resolutions (1440p) and hunting for a card that’ll remain potent for years to come then it’s clearly not made for you.
Muhammad Allayhan, a gaming and PC hardware virtuoso, breathes life into pixelated worlds. A legendary overclocker, he unlocks hidden power in gaming rigs. Navigating from 8-bit realms to today’s masterpieces, Muhammad’s words immerse readers in an ever-evolving digital odyssey. Join him as he reveals the secrets of gaming’s cutting edge.
