Review Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Review: Truly Mainstream at $299

[Admin]

The Nvidia RTX 4060 marks the return to true mainstream pricing, starting at $299. Balancing specs and performance against price, this is a compelling near-budget graphics card option that works great at 1080p.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Review: Truly Mainstream at $299 : Read more

 

[healthy Pro-teen]

Nvidia's marketing be like: In germany you could maybe save $132 over 4 years if you play 20hours/week due to energy costs compared to the 3060. That is hilarious and obviously the tiny 50 tier die is efficient lol.

 

[tennis2]

@JarredWaltonGPU I feel compelled to give you huge props for the stellar write-up!

Only made it halfway through the article, so I'll have to come back when I have time to finish, but wow....there's so much good stuff here. I hope everyone takes the time to fully read this article. I know that can get tricky once the "architecture launch" article is done for a generation. It's nice to be able to learn some new things from a "standard" GPU review even after I've been reading reviews from multiple sites of every [gaming] GPU launched for the past.....10+ years.

 

[oofdragon]

DOA, weaker than a $200 last gen card like the 6700XT 12GB

 

[lmcnabney]

The expectations for GPUs going back decades is that the new generation will provide performance in-line with one or sometimes two tiers above it from the prior generation. That means the 4060 should perform somewhere between a 3060ti and 3070. It doesn't. It can't even meet the abilities of the 3060ti. This card should not receive a positive review because it fails at meeting the minimum performance standard.

 

[oofdragon]

Utterly crap.. can't even match a 3060Ti, but of course since that amazing accomplishment goes to the failure 4060Ti. Meanwhile anyone can get a 6700XT with 12GB VRAM for half the price. FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL

 

[Elusive Ruse]

Thanks for the review, however your test suite is outdated. You need to consider bringing a host of newer releases.

 

[DSzymborski]

Utterly crap.. can't even match a 3060Ti, but of course since that amazing accomplishment goes to the failure 4060Ti. Meanwhile anyone can get a 6700XT with 12GB VRAM for half the price. FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL

You're comparing a used GPU to a new GPU. That increased risk is a fundamental difference which has to be addressed in any comparison.

 

[Elusive Ruse]

You're comparing a used GPU to a new GPU. That increased risk is a fundamental difference which has to be addressed in any comparison.

You can get a new one around $310-$320

 

[DSzymborski]

You can get a new one around $310-$320

He's literally quoting $200 above as his point of comparison. That's a used card.

 

[randyh121]

Utterly crap.. can't even match a 3060Ti, but of course since that amazing accomplishment goes to the failure 4060Ti. Meanwhile anyone can get a 6700XT with 12GB VRAM for half the price. FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL

lol the 6700XT is nearly 500$ and the 4060 runs better
keep lying to yourself amd-cope

 

[tennis2]

Thanks for the review, however your test suite is outdated. You need to consider bringing a host of newer releases.

Games for GPU or CPU reviews are primarily selected for what performance differences they show/highlight. Sure, release date and popularity are factors, but you're never going to be able to test every game that every reader plays. The GPU review gives a general sense of what FPS you can expect at a given resolution and detail settings for a number of games as an average.
Also consider the amount of "back-testing" that would need to take place to preserve backward compatibility with conglomerate tools like TH's GPU Hierarchy Comparison if/when the test suite changes.

 

[tennis2]

lol the 6700XT is nearly 500$ and the 4060 runs better
keep lying to yourself amd-cope

Depends on what country you're in I suppose, but around $320 in the US.

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#c=501&sort=price&page=1

 

[AndrewJacksonZA]

You're comparing a used GPU to a new GPU. That increased risk is a fundamental difference which has to be addressed in any comparison.

In my country they're priced like that, new vs new.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

The problem is it's not going to be $300 after all the variant surcharges are attached. When it hits $250-$300 for a card capable of native 1920x1080 60fps max detail (generally), and with DLSS capability, anyone with a GTX 1000 series card, and that is a big chunk of the Steam Hardware Survey at about 20% combined with the 1660, 1650, 1060, and 1050 will be likely grabbing this card.

3.5 stars I'd agree with. It's not a powerhouse, but paired with a 5800x3d it's a great budget card, until the 4060Ti drops to $300.

 

[-Fran-]

Thanks for the review!

Nice RTX4050 card, but too bad it's priced so high.

Not that nVidia cares, anyway. Jensen be all "but we do love gamers and we're releasing cards!" with these... Things...

As I've read in other places: "I want out of this timeline; it sucks", heh.

EDIT: I forgot to comment on the "power" argument from nVidia. I find it kind of funny how it works both ways for them: while the average power consumption of the 4090 is acceptable (hovers at ~300W or under for most games), if can go all the way to 450W, which is going to be the norm with new games and better CPUs, being the hungriest GPU of this gen, not even counting OC models that can go easily to 550W. Obviously the reason is "price conscious buyers" in this segment, or potential net cafe owners? Individual users, much with Intel, as long as the power is manageable and not an oven, it's mostly ok. Also, let's ignore nVidia drivers use more CPU (and in turn, power), but for this card, let's completely ignore it!

Regards.

 

[salgado18]

I disagree with the majority. It doesn't have to match or beat anything in previous gen, it only needs to be a good product for the price. Except for the memory choices, it is a good card compared to the competition.

It's not a fail against the 6700 XT because it's slower in rasterization, but better in other metrics at the same price range. So it's more of a choice of which features matter most to you.

 

[DougMcC]

The expectations for GPUs going back decades is that the new generation will provide performance in-line with one or sometimes two tiers above it from the prior generation. That means the 4060 should perform somewhere between a 3060ti and 3070. It doesn't. It can't even meet the abilities of the 3060ti. This card should not receive a positive review because it fails at meeting the minimum performance standard.

But that isn't going to sustain. Generational improvements in the underlying process nodes aren't moving that fast any more. Get used to just having to compare value based on FPS/$.

 

[lmcnabney]

But that isn't going to sustain. Generational improvements in the underlying process nodes aren't moving that fast any more. Get used to just having to compare value based on FPS/$.

Malarkey.
This is a deliberately crippled card. Inadequate memory, which is now cheap. Reduced bus speed. Cut-down chip. If they just equiped this card with the same basic features as 3060 it would perform between the 3060ti and 3070. They didn't because they know their customers are dumb enough to pay $300 for a card that costs under $80 to make.

 

[mwm2010]

lol the 6700XT is nearly 500$ and the 4060 runs better
keep lying to yourself amd-cope

bro the 6700 xt costs $350 on newegg. Stop stanning Nvidia

 

[DougMcC]

Malarkey.
This is a deliberately crippled card. Inadequate memory, which is now cheap. Reduced bus speed. Cut-down chip. If they just equiped this card with the same basic features as 3060 it would perform between the 3060ti and 3070. They didn't because they know their customers are dumb enough to pay $300 for a card that costs under $80 to make.

Everything that isn't a 4090 is a deliberately crippled card. The choices they make in the crippling determine the performance. The performance and the price determine the value. The price relative to the BOM is irrelevant, as that's how profit is made.

 

[Amdlova]

That moment you think I can play games with the HD 770...

 

[Detonator1777]

One thing to note is that the RTX 4060 comes with an x8 PCIe interface, where the RTX 4060 Ti and above use an x16 link width.

The MSI product page for the GeForce RTX™ 4060 Ti GAMING X 8G states "PCI Express® Gen 4 x16 (uses x8)". Does this mean it's a physical x16 bus but is software limited to x8? Couldn't find other explicit confirmations of this.

 

[mwm2010]

DOA, weaker than a $200 last gen card like the 6700XT 12GB

its 350 not 200
but yea i agree with you

 

[-Fran-]

The MSI product page for the GeForce RTX™ 4060 Ti GAMING X 8G states "PCI Express® Gen 4 x16 (uses x8)". Does this mean it's a physical x16 bus but is software limited to x8? Couldn't find other explicit confirmations of this.

The review explains this in more detail, so I suggest reading the review, but to reply here: it's a hardware limitation. It's simply nVidia making the chip not use the full X16 pins from the socket and just use the X8 equivalent.

Does this really affect the GPU? Yes, but I'd argue it's not a massive problem in PCIe4. Maybe there will be an impact with PCIe3, but I'd say it at worst 10%? Maybe it'll be bad if you saturate the VRAM on a PCIe3 link, though. I'd like seeing that tested. I can't even imagine how bad it would hit the performance in that scenario.

Regards.