The Gigabyte RTX 4060 Gaming OC brings another option for those players looking to upgrade their GPU from a preview generation while still not entirely breaking the bank. Sitting around $319, so just slightly above the MSRP of the 4060 series, the Gaming OC GPU provides a small uplift over the base spec, targeted squarely at high-refresh-rate 1080p gaming.
- Graphics Processing Clusters: 3
- Texture Processing Clusters: 12
- Streaming Multiprocessors: 24
- CUDA Cores: 3072
- Shader FLOPS: 15
- Tensor Cores (4th Generation): 96
- RT Cores (3rd Generation): 24
- RT FLOPS: 35
- Texture Units: 96
- ROP Units: 48
- Boost Clock: 2550 MHz (Refernce card: 2460 MHz)
- Memory Clock: 8500 MHz
- Memory Data Rate: 17 Gbps
- L1 Data Cache/Shared Memory: 3072 K
- L2 Cache Size: 24576 K
- Total Video Memory: 8 GB GDDR6
- Memory Interface: 128-bit
- Total Memory Bandwidth: 272 GB/s (453 GB/s Effective)
- Texture Rate (Bilinear): 236 GigaTexels/second
- Fabrication process: 4NM Nvidia Custom Process
- Transistor Count: 18.9 Billion
- I/O:
- 3 x DisplayPort
- 1 x HDMI
- Form Factor: Dual Slot
- Power Connectors: ASUS Dual RTX 4060 OC has single standard 8-pin PSU connector
- Required Power Supply: 550 Watts
- Total Graphics Power: 7W Idle, 11W AV1 Video Playback, 110W Average Gaming Power (AGP), 115 W Total Graphics Power (TGP)
- Cost: $314.99 on Amazon as of the time of writing
First Thoughts and Design
The Gigabyte RTX 4060 Gaming OC is a long card, which I'm not sure why it surprised me as much as it did when I first opened the box, but it did. Since the 4060 line of GPUs from Nvidia doesn't have a Founder's Edtion board to work from, the look of each card is pretty much up to the individual AIB. Compared to the ASUS Dual RTX 4060 OC variant we reviewed earlier this year, the Gigabyte comes out a fair bit longer, with the three-fan design of the card meant to keep everything as cool as possible under pressure.
This is thanks to Gigabyte's Windforce cooling system, which has been a mainstay on many of its GPUs for generations now. The three 80mm fans feature alternate spinning, where the middle fan spins in the opposite direction of the two outside ones, aimed at increasing airflow pressure and reducing turbulence in the card. The Gigabyte RTX 4060 Gaming OC also features a metal backplate that is as stylish as the rest of the gunmetal grey coloring of the GPU.
The Gigabyte RTX 4060 Gaming OC also includes an extended heatsink (hence the long card), meant to allow for better heat dissipation within the card itself.
As a gaming product in the Year of our Lord 2023, the Gigabyte RTX 4060 Gaming OC also features RGB, though ever so slightly. Just the Gigabyte logo across the side of the card lights up, though it's fully adjustable using the company's own Gigabyte Control Center application.
Using the latest Ada Lovelace ship from Nvidia, the RTX 4060 Gaming OC from Gigabyte comes equipped with the full feature set of the 40-series architecture. This includes the third-generation RT cores to power the latest ray tracing-enabled titles, newer streaming multiprocessors, next-generation Tensor cores, and access to the latest DLSS technology, Frame Generation, or DLSS 3.
The RTX 4060 line of GPUs comes with only 8GB of VRAM, which could lead to being a limiting factor in games, especially future-proofing, even at 1080p resolutions. As I mentioned in our ASUS 4060 review, the RTX 4060 is hoping to get around this limitation through the use of an expanded L2 cache. At eight times the capacity of its predecessor, the RTX 3060, the aim here is to allow the extra cache to reduce the overall traffic across the memory bus. As a result, according to Nvidia, the card should have to query the VRAM less, resulting in a more efficient memory subsystem.
The RTX 4060 is capable of taking advantage of the latest DLSS technology as well, namely frame generation, in order to eke out more performance while maintaining high-quality visuals. I've been a big fan of DLSS 3 since its launch with the RTX 4090 earlier this year, and throughout the course of the last year it has been interesting to see, specifically, how DLSS 3 improves performance on the lower end of the stack. For more on DLSS, as well as a deeper dive into the ADA Lovelace architecture, check out our RTX 4090 review.
Gigabyte RTX 4060 Gaming OC Gaming And Synthetic Benchmarks
Nvidia themselves are keen to position the RTX 4060 as an upgrade path over the RTX 1060 and RTX 2060. Targeting 1080p gaming, for those looking to stay within Nvidia's ecosystem, but are looking to upgrade beyond the older GPUs. Acording to the most recent Steam Hardware Survey, 60% of gamers on the primary PC storefront are still gaming at 1080p, with the most widely used GPU still being the RTX 1650. For those players, dropping into the RTX 4060 series might make more sense than spending more money on an RTX 4070 or AMD's 7800 XT, which might also necessitate an upgrade of monitor at the same time.
We put the Gigabyte RTX 4060 Gaming OC through its paces in a series of both gaming and synthetic benchmark tests, testing an array of games and engines at 1080p and 1440p resolutions. We chose ray-tracing heavy games as well, looking at how the RTX 4060 handles this technology gen-on-gen, while also testing out the performance boost with DLSS 3 when possible.
Where we could, we used in-game benchmark tools to create as consistent a test as possible across the board (Cyberpunk 2077, Hitman 3, and Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker). In games with no benchmark tool (New World and The Witcher 3), we replicated the same circuit around the world as consistently as possible, reloading saves in TW3 in order to get even the time of day as consistent as we could. New World sees us running around the starter town of Prydwyn and into the jungle nearby. With The Witcher 3, we ran a circuit around the city of Oxenfurt, passing over the Pontar river to highlight the reflections on the water, transparencies in the nearby brush, and more.
For ray tracing applications, we tested them using reconstruction, as this is how gamers using the card are going to do it in real-world gameplay. For AMD's GPUs in our suite, we tested using their AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution, or FSR, when possible, and on Intel we tested using their proprietary XeSS when the game allowed. DLSS was used for Nvidia GPUs, and when we tested with Frame Generation, we clearly marked this on the corresponding graph. All of these tests were used with the Performance setting.
While many users will be upgrading from either a GTX 1060 or RTX 2060 GPU, we unfortunately did not have any cards in our bench that we could test. As such, we tested the 30-series Nvidia cards, RX 6600 family of AMD, and the Intel A750 Limited Edition GPU.
You can check out our full post about our test bench and the various parts we’ve chosen to put GPUs and other PC hardware through their paces. Here it is broken down for quick reference:
Test Bench:
- CPU: Intel i9-13900K
- Motherboard: MSI MPG Carbon Wifi Z790
- RAM: XPG DDR5 32GB RAM @ 5200Mhz
- Cooling: Corsair H150i Elite LCD 360mm Liquid Cooler
- Storage: Intel 760p 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD; Samsung 970 EVO 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD
- PSU: Gigabyte P1200 80+ 1200W Platinum
- Case: ASUS ROG Strix Helios
Nvidia Cards Included:
- EVGA Nvidia RTX 3060 XC Black
- Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition
- ASUS Dual RTX 4060 OC
- RTX 4060 Ti 8GB Founders Edition
AMD:
Intel:
Gigabyte RTX 4060 Gaming OC Synthetic Benchmarks
As always we start with our synthetic benchmarks, using 3DMark's suite of tests. While synthetics don't tell the full story, they do give some insight into relative performance across the roster of tests we have going on. We used TimeSpy, FireStrike and Port Royal to test DX12, DX11, and Ray Tracing, respectively. Additionally, we tested the RTX 4060 using the latest DLSS 3 test on 3DMark to show the uplift when using the next-generation technology.
In FireStrike's 1080p test, we can see the Gigabyte RTX 4060 Gaming OC sit behind both the ASUS Dual RTX 4060 OC, as well as the reference version of AMD's RX 7600. TimeSpy's test shows similar results, though ever so slightly. However, compared to the last gen offerings from both Nvidia and AMD, the Gigabyte RTX 4060 sits above them all, except for the RTX 3060 Ti, which holds a slight lead as well.
Gigabyte RTX 4060 Gaming OC Gaming Benchmarks
When looking at the two RTX 4060s on our bench, we can see the tea leaves we read with the synthetic testing bear out - they are really close. Not much separates the two, despite the $20 difference in price. In fact, on average across our testing suite, the RTX 4060s both averaged 117fps at 1080, while the Gigabyte averaged just slightly ahead at 1440 - 78fps average to the ASUS' 77fps. This is negligible overall.
Compared to last generation's 30-series cards, the RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition puts in some work, giving the Gigabyte RTX 4060 Gaming OC a run for its money in some tests. In Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker, the last-gen card performs on average 6% better at 1080p than the RTX 4060 Gaming OC. However, games like Hitman 3 and New World push the RTX 4060 from Gigabyte ahead of the last-gen card by wide margins at 1080p. On average, though, the newer card does perform about 5% better overall at 1080p, though that gap is made smaller at 1440p, with the RTX 4060 performing 3% better on average.
When compared to the 3060, however, we do see more uplift, with the RTX 4060 Gaming OC performing 18% better at 1080p, while at 1440p the Gigabyte RTX 4060 Gaming OC bests our EVGA RTX 3060 Black OC by 21%. Against AMD's current and last-generation offerings, the RTx 4060 comes out on top, with the RX 7600 Reference Card 6% slower on average at 1080p, while the RX 6600 in our bench is 25% slower overall at 1080p. This gap widens further when we throw 1440p in the mix, with the RX 6600 at 31% slower, while the RX 7600 now sits 10% slower on average.
Gigabyte RTX 4060 Gaming OC Ray Tracing Benchmarks
The Gigabyte RTX 4060 Gaming OC benefits from the ADA Lovelace architecture's 3rd generation RT cores, carrying it beyond both last generation's offerings, but the AMD and Intel competition. At 1440p, playing Cyberpunk 2077 sees the RTX 4060 from Gigabyte average 57fps at the full ultra RT preset (so everything but path tracing), compared to just 29fps for the RX 7600 Reference card from AMD.
At 1080p, which is where this card wants to live, games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's incredible RT implementation shines on the RTX 4060, averaging 48fps at full ultra RT. This sits 22% faster than AMD's 37fps on the RX 7600, though the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB model sits 33% better at 64fps. The 40-series GPUs continue to show the strangehold that Nvidia has on ray tracing applications, making it hard to look away from their products if this technology is important to you overall.
When you add in frame generation in all three games we tested that have it as a feature today, the argument becomes even more compelling. At 1080p with frame generation enabled in Cyberpunk 2077, that 72fps average turns into 131fps, while games like Hitman 3 see similar gains, with the RTX 4060 Gaming OC going from 78fps to 114fps when frame generation is flipped on.
Gigabyte RTX 4060 Gaming OC Temps And Power
Thanks to the Windforce design, and the fact that this 1080p card has three large fans adorning the front of the GPU, the RTX 4060 Gaming OC kept incredibly cool. In all of our testing, including high performance ray tracing applications that push the limits of the silicon, the Gigabyte RTX 4060 Gaming OC didn't even crack 60 degrees Celsius.
Given that the board is rated for a TGP of 115 watts, it also highlights how efficient this architecture truly can be. In all our testing, using Nvidia's PCAT with Frameview to measure the real power being drawn by the GPU, we never saw the wattage hit 115W, coming closest at 114 during a 1440p path tracing DLSS 3 run on Cyberpunk 2077.
Gigabyte RTX 4060 Gaming OC - Final Thoughts And Conclusion
As I mentioned in my review of the RTX 4060 by ASUS, the Gigabyte RTX 4060 Gaming OC is a great upgrade if you're coming from even the last-generation RTX 3060. If you're looking for better ray tracing performance, the addition of technologies like DLSS 3 to push the boundaries of the card, as well as the incredible efficiency of the Ada Lovelace architecture, the RTX 4060 is a good grab.
However, $314 isn't cheap for 1080p gaming, especially for gamers already on a budget. However, even at the time of this writing, the cheapest new RTX 3060 I could find on the market was almost $300, with an MSI variant sitting at $289 on sale. This is a compelling buy if you're looking to do regular rasterized games and some ray tracing, especially given the gains DLSS 2 gives even on the last-gen Ampere boards.
For me, anyone looking at this price range should be giving serious thought to the RTX 40-series GPUs, if for no other reason than DLSS 3 and how it can truly help to push performance even at these lower resolutions. Remember how I mentioned we tested this card using Cyberpunk 2077's forward-facing path tracing ray tracing mode? This would not be playable without frame generation, but with full ultra, DLSS 3 enabled, we're averaging well over 80fps on the RTX 4060.
This makes even the lower-end 40-series cards a compelling upgrade over the competition. While we do know AMD is working on its own version of frame generation, one that will be platform agnostic and useable on even Nvidia hardware, both present and past cards, we don't actually have that to test today. It's hard to recommend something based on future promises, especially when I can point to hard data today.
This is compounded by the fact that the RTX 4060 by Gigabyte performs on average 46% faster in ray tracing applications compared to our RX 7600 Reference sample, and though that gap closes to just 6% faster when ray tracing is turned off.
However, it should be noted that the Gigabyte RTX 4060 Gaming OC costs 22% more money compared to the RX 7600, which, as of this writing, we were able to find on sale for $259. Personally, though, the value add of DLSS 3, which is useable today, makes up for the price gap.
The lingering concern I have right now is still the 8GB of VRAM. Since the BVH structure of ray tracing applications will take as much memory as it needs, regardless of resolution, we might hit a point where the L2 cache cannot keep up. In our testing, we could see about 2GB being allocated when ray tracing was turned on, so for future games this could start to run right up to that limit of 8GB and induce stuttering and other issues that affect performance down the road.
In the end, the Gigabyte RTX 4060 Gaming OC is a compelling upgrade path if coming from the 30-series card, and is a viable option compared even to its current-generation competition. With the features of the Ada Lovelace architecture in hand, it punches a bit above its weight class, especially when you turn on the black magic that is DLSS Frame Generation. At $314 (as of the time of writing), it's a great option that can lean into some 1440p applications if you're looking to jump into the extra pixel count, though it should be noted that VRAM will start to really limit you there.
Full Disclosure: The product discussed was provided by PR for the purposes of this review.
