The RTX 4060 Ti 8GB is the first in the next family of GPUs from Nivida, bringing its Ada Lovelace architecture to the 60-class of cards. Targeting 1080p, The Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti 8GB is just one of three total 60-class cards Nvidia will be releasing this year, with a 16GB variant and the base RTX 4060 releasing sometime in July. Aiming squarely at those 60-class users who have yet to upgrade, Nvidia homes to deliver high fidelity 1080p gameplay at both regular rasterization as well as ray tracing, but how does it stack up?
Specifications
- Graphics Processing Clusters: 3
- Texture Processing Clusters: 17
- Streaming Multiprocessors: 34
- CUDA Cores: 4352
- Shader FLOPS: 22
- Tensor Cores: 136 (4th Generation)
- RT Cores: 34 (3rd Generation)
- RT FLOPS: 51
- Texture Units: 136
- ROP Units: 48
- Base Clock: 2310 MHz
- Boost Clock: 2535 MHz
- Memory Clock: 9000 MHz
- Memory Data Rate: 18Gbps
- L1 Data Cache: 4352 K
- L2 Cache Size: 32768 K
- Total Video Memory: 8 GB GDDR6
- Memory Interface: 128-bit
- Total Memory Bandwidth: 288 GB/s (554 GB/s Effective Bandwidth)
- Texture Rate (Billinear): 345 GigaTexels/second
- Fabrication Process: 4N Nvidia Custom Process
- Transistor Count: 22.9 Billion
- I/O:
- 3 x DisplayPort 1.4
- 1 x HDMI
- Power Connector: 2 x PCIe 8-Pin Cables (Adapter in box) or 300 W or greater PCIe Gen 5 cable
- Required Power Supply: 550 Watts
- Total Graphics Power: 160 W
- MSRP: $399 for Founder's Edition
First Thoughts And Design
The RX 4060 Ti 8GB is an attractive card, with the Founder's Edition sporting the same look as the other 40-series Founder's GPUs. The familiar silver-hued möbius strip wrapping itself around the body of the board, the RTX 4060 Ti badge emblazoned on the top of the card. I always love the tiny flourishes, such as the engraved RTX 4060 Ti along the length of one of the cross-guards flanking a fan on one side that catches the light whenever I handle the card.
The RTX 4060 Ti 8GB still requires the same power adapter connection that the rest of the 40-series does, however the Octopus cable has been retired for a single 8-pin connection from a standard PSU. Like always I wish I had the ability to just plug the cable in directly from my PSU, and eventually, when I get a PCIe 5th Gen power supply it'll be possible. However, from a cable management standpoint, this is one of the easier adapters to route since multiple PSU cables do not hamper it to stuff into the bowels of my ASUS ROG Helios case.
The elephant in the room with the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB launch is the continued need to denote the memory configuration on this particular board model. As the first of a total of three 60-class cards in the Ada Lovelace GPU stack, the 8GB variant sits in between the standard RTX 4060 and an RTX 4060 Ti 16GB model. However, while those boards will be coming sometime in July, they will not have Founder's Edition boards, instead, they will be built entirely by AIB manufacturers.
The RTX 4060 Ti 8GB Founder's Edition sits right in the middle of them price-wise as well. Indeed, the entire RTX 40-series GPU line feels like it's simply a series of $100 jumps to the next board in the stack, with the RTX 4060 sitting at $299, the 4060 Ti 8GB at $399 and the RTX 4060 Ti 16GB at $499. From there moving right up at $599 is the RTX 4070 and so on.
One major question the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB Founder's Edition has surrounding it has to do with the 8GB configuration. As more and more games push high-resolution textures and higher-quality assets, 8GB can start to feel a bit limiting. This is compounded when we add ray tracing into the mix, as BVH structures required for ray tracing incur a set VRAM cost regardless of game resolution. This means the BVH cost in Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p will utilize the same RAM at 4K, for example.
As games continue to push the envelope, there is the worry that 8GB, even for 1080p gaming, might not be enough down the road. Nvidia's answer to that is pointing to the RTX 4060 Ti's (and really the entire RTX 40-series family of GPUs) increased L2 cache capacity.
At 16 times the capacity of the Ampere 128-bit GPUs, the increased bandwidth and capacity, Nvidia states, allows the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB to use its memory bandwidth more efficiently. Because the cache size is larger, the need for the GPU to look to the VRAM for data is, in theory, reduced. Nvidia's testing showed a reduction in memory bus traffic by half, which in turn doubles the bandwidth. This is why you see the specs Nvidia released for the 4060 Ti as an effective memory bandwidth of 554 GB/s, even though its peak memory bandwidth is just 288 GB/s. That doubling of performance thanks to the L2 increases the effective bandwidth of the GPU, according to the company.
All this is to say that Nvidia is confident 8GB will be plenty for 1080p gaming with high-fidelity graphics and framerates, even when ray tracing. And thanks to all the various architectural improvements made since Ampere on the Ada Lovelace GPU, the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB Founder's Edition can take advantage of all of the bells and whistles the 40-series has come to be known for. This includes leveraging its 3rd Generation RT Cores for ray tracing applications, made more efficient thanks to Shader Execution Rendering. The RTX 4060 Ti 8GB is also able to use the latest in Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling technology, namely its Frame Generation (DLSS 3) which boosts framerates in games that support the feature. The RTX 4060 Ti 8GB also benefits creators with its AV1 encoders and Nvidia Studio benefits for those who use their PCs as creative powerhouses.
Check out our review of the RTX 4090 Founder's Edition for a detailed breakdown of the Lovelace features.
The RTX 4060 Ti Founder's Edition lines up at $399, the same price the last-gen RTX 3060 Ti Founder's Edition launched at a few years ago. This marks the first time we've seen the price gen-on-gen stay consistent, albeit for the 8GB model. The RTX 4060 Ti 8GB is manufactured using Nvidia's Custom 4NM process, sports more transistors, faster clock speeds and more than its Ampere cousin. However, as always, one-to-one specification comparisons across generations are not the end all, be all, especially with both running on totally different architectures.
Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti 8GB Founder's Edition Synthetics And Gaming Benchmarks
The RTX 4060 Ti 8GB Founder's Edition aims to provide a gen-on-gen uplift over its Ampere cousins at 1080p gaming, especially when ray tracing is enabled. We put it through its paces, comparing the new Ada Lovelace GPU against the Ampere variant, but also against the competition with both AMD and Intel we had in our bench.
We put the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB Founder's Edition through its paces in a series of gaming and synthetic benchmarks, testing an array of game engines both at 1080p and 1440p. We chose ray tracing-heavy games as well, looking at how the new Lovelace card handles RT performance, especially gen-on-gen, with and without DLSS 3.
Where we could, we used in-game benchmark tests (Hitman 3, Cyberpunk 2077 , and Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker) to provide the most consistent result possible. In games with no benchmark tool, we would play a repeatable path through the game world, attempting to push the limits of the card in as consistent a run as possible. This involved swinging through the same streets in Miles Morales, playing through the very beginning of the game, or running around Prydwyn in New World and the surrounding jungle in a circuit. In The Witcher 3, we ran a predefined path around the city of Oxenfurt, passing over the Pontar to highlight reflections, transparencies, and more. When possible we reloaded the same save file each time to match time of day as close as we could in each pass.
Each one of the games we tested shows the ray tracing using some sort of reconstruction, whether it be DLSS for the Nvidia cards, FidelityFX Super Resolution for AMD and Intel's own AI-driven XeSS technology. We opted to test with these reconstructions used to show real-world performance as players would actively use ray tracing while gaming. If you're toggling on RT effects, chances are you're using some sort of reconstruction to make it playable at higher framerates.
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 new kid on the block, 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:
AMD:
Intel:
RTX 4060 Ti 8GB Founder's Edition Synthetic Benchmarks
At the outset, we tested the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB in 3DMark's suite of synthetic benchmarks, aimed at pushing the GPUs in DX11, DX12, and Ray Tracing workloads.
In FireStrike's Direct11 test, we see the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB come out on top amongst the crowd, topping 30K in its overall score. The RTX 3060 Ti Founder's Edition takes the second place spot, with the AMD MSI RX 6600 XT Gaming X GPU fast on its heels (though with Intel's A750 Limited Edition board sandwiched in-between).
TimeSpy's DirectX 12 test follows a similar pattern, with the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB Founder's Edition again coming away with a win here compared to the rest of the pack, with the Intel Arc A750 Limited Edition taking a second-place win against the rest of the board. The RTX 3060 Ti Founder's Edition isn't a slouch here, but it's beaten by the ADA Lovelace GPU to the tune of a 14% increase for the newer board.
RTX 4060 Ti 8GB Founder's Edition Gaming Benchmarks
Since the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB is targeting 1080p users, we tested each of our games at max settings for 1080p, but also tested 1440p for those users looking to push the limits of the card a bit. And we came away impressed by nearly all of the cards in our bench, especially when you consider they are all meant to be 1080p performers, not necessarily 1440p.
The RTX 4060 Ti consistently came out on top of the pack at both 1080p and 1440p, though the results compared to the RTX 3060 Ti were sometimes closer than expected. Final Fantasy XIV only sees the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB edging out the Ampere card by a mere 4%, while the comparison to the EVGA RTX 3060 Black XC was more striking with a 25% increase in performance.
Cyberpunk 2077 saw one of the larger performance increases at both 1080p and 1440p compared to the RTX 3060 Ti. The RTX 4060 Ti 8GB performed 19% faster than the RTX 3060 Ti at 1080p, while at 1440p we see a 14% improvement in performance. Compared to the AMD 1080p performer, the MSI AMD RX 6600 XT Gaming X, we see that gap widen a bit more, with the RTX 4060 Ti holding a 25% increase at 1080p, while edging out the AMD card by 26% at 1440p.
Hitman 3 performs extremely well across our whole bench, with the RTX 4060 Ti clocking in a 144fps average at 1080p at max settings. It holds only a 9% edge against the RTX 3060 Ti, though the gap widens with the EVGA RTX 3060 Black XC (18% increase). The MSI RX 6600 XT Gaming X only lags behind by 7%, while the Intel card fails to reach over 100fps to sit amongst the rest of the bench here.
1440p sees the trend continue with the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB coming out again on top, though the RTX 3060 Ti Founder's Edition also ekes out over 100 fps at the resolution. Compared to the RX 660XT in our bench, the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB holds a 23% advantage on average, with that gap widening compared to the EVGA RTX 3060 Black XC (43% increase in performance). The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, despite being an older game in this bench, still pushes visuals - especially the recent Complete Edition upgrade. Here we see the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB again hanging above the pack at 89fps at 1080p using the game's Ultra preset. At 1440p this continues with the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB being the only card to average over 50fps at full Ultra, beating the RTX 3060 Ti by 14%, while it holds a wider edge over the RX 6600 XT in our bench at a 57% increase in performance.
Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti 8GB Founder's Edition Ray Tracing Synthetics and Benchmarks
Let's start first with the Port Royal graph. Here we see the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB take its place at the top of the graph, showing a 16% performance gain here over the RTX 3060 Ti. Compared with the RTX 3060 it's even wider, with the more powerful RTX 4060 Ti leveraging its 3rd Generation RT Cores to the tune of a 62% increase in overall score.
The DLSS 3 test is a new test on 3DMark's suite of benchmark tools aiming to show the relative gain in performance when using DLSS 3's frame generation in ray tracing applications. Since the only cards leveraging this technology right now are Nvidia's we tested the suite of 40-series cards we've reviewed so far, from the RTX 4090 down to the new RTX 4060 Ti 8GB. As expected it's almost like watching a step ladder all the way down the graph, and the 60fps result with DLSS 3 on at 4K is nothing to slouch at either here.
In Spider-Man: Miles Morales, we see the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB take a commanding lead above the rest of the pack, especially when frame generation is enabled. With an impressive 116fps at 1080p maxed using DLSS Performance, the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB is on average 41% faster than the EVGA RTX 3060 Black XC, while that gap widens with the RTX 3060 Ti (75%). Not completely surprising, it seems extra VRAM on the RTX 3060 here might be giving it an edge over its lower memory-equipped brother. When frame generation is enabled, the RTX 4060 Ti's gap widens, performing on average 58% faster than the RTX 3060 here at 1080p.
Cyberpunk 2077 is the most visually impressive game on the market now when ray tracing is unleashed. While its experimental path tracing mode is a true generational leap for ray tracing, we tested this with the standard Ultra preset on the cards at our disposal here.
Here we see the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB sit above the RTX 3060 Ti Founder's Edition at 1080p to the tune of 15% (87fps vs 55fps respectively). Interestingly, we see the RTX 3060's 12GB of VRAM doing some work here as well, coming in second in our testing at 61fps at 1080p. AMD's first-generation ray tracing performance is evident here as it lags behind the Ampere and Lovelace card in our bench, with the 4060 Ti 8GB enjoying a 97% increase in performance at 1080p compared to the MSI RX 6600 XT Gaming X, even without frame generation.
However, that gap widens even more when frame generation enabled, seeing the RTX 4060 Ti on average 159% faster than the 6600 XT at 1080p, while it beats the EVGA RTX 3060 Black XC to the tune of 86%.
At 1440p, the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB Founder's Edition still edge out its Ampere cousins, with the RTX 3060 lagging behind by 44%. Intel's A750 Limited Edition GPU here doesn't really hang at all, with 10fps average using XeSS at 1440p.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's ray tracing implementation is also incredibly well done, but also demanding even when using reconstruction like FSR and DLSS. Another title that supports DLSS 3, we see the RTX 4060 Ti take out the top spot across our graphs, whether using frame generation or not. AMD's cards struggle here, especially at 1440p, with the PowerColor RX 6600 sitting at 18fps average.
Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti 8GB Founder's Edition - Thermals And Acoustics
The Ada Lovelace architecture this generation has proven to be both cool and power efficient, and that bears out with the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB Founder's Edition. In our testing, we saw the temps barely eclipse 60 degrees Celsius throughout the suite, peaking during our Cyberpunk 2077 1440p ray traced test. As someone who is used to hearing the fans of the RTX 4090 blow when under intense load during the path tracing goodness of Cyberpunk, the RTX 4060 Ti barely made a whisper.
As far power consumption, the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB is also pretty efficient, sitting at just 151 W peak, below the rated 160 W TGP for the card.
Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti 8GB Founder's Edition - Final Thoughts And Conclusion
So what an we make of this? For starters, the inclusion of frame generation continues to allow the mid-range 40-series cards to punch above their weight class. I mentioned back in my review of the ASUS TUF RTX 4070 Ti OC that DLSS 3 would benefit most the middle-of-the-stack cards, and that holds true here at the lower end as well.
While nothing here was inherently unplayable on the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB, it did boost those framerates to even higher heights, providing an even more performant result. Since half of our games were done without the use of an in-game benchmark tool, I controlled the action in every single pass. Nowhere was latency felt, whether it was a web-sling by Miles Morales as he patrolled New York City or a camera pan across the Pontar at sunset in The Witcher 3.
Indeed, playing titles on the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB that utilize the tech such as Warhammer 40K: Darktide feels fast, fluid, and responsive. Much of the concern with frame generation is whether or not there would be that inclusion of latency with the generated frame. In my experience using the feature since the 4090 dropped through these tests, it's not been noticeable. Though, obviously, your mileage might vary here if you're incredibly sensitive to latency.
And at these lower-end cards, it's a true value-add to the equation that allows you to punch above its weight class in some of the more demanding games. With DLSS 3, Nvidia claims it has the "fastest" adoption of any Nvidia tech to date, the library of games that take advantage is only going to grow.
Just for the science I tested DLSS 3 performance using the path tracing preset in Cyberpunk 2077. At the full ultra preset, with path tracing enabled, using DLSS Performance, the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB netted a nice 69fps average. 1440p saw a 53fps average. DLSS 3 is black magic that just gives free performance. And as the technology matures, it's simply going to get better.
That said, I do have concerns about the long-term outlook of this variant of the card and its pricing on the market.
It's refreshing to see a 40-series card enter the stack at the same price as the same class of card it's replacing. And on average the RTX 4060 Ti performs about 10% faster than the RTX 3060 Ti Founder's Edition at 1080p in our test at raster. The gap there widens a bit when we add ray tracing into the mix, with the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB holding a 37% lead on average. For the same retail price, getting better performance across the board, plus future-facing tech as part of the package is a no-brainer if you're looking for an upgrade. Especially if you've been holding onto a card for years at this point.
As part of our testing, we used MSI Afterburner to gauge the Memory usage and how much it's actually processing. Specifically, I was interested in just how much VRAM was being drawn when using ray tracing without reconstruction versus without ray tracing enabled.
In games like Cyberpunk 2077, the results came back with about a GB more of VRAM being used when RT was enabled, getting close to that 8GB on board the card at times. The Witcher 3 saw a whole 2GB of VRAM extra being used according to MSI Afterburner when using ray tracing at native 1080 versus without ray tracing enabled. That's a lot of VRAM tied up in BVH, and it could rear its head in the long run with the 8GB card as games just get more advanced and push more visually.
That said, I didn't notice the telltale stutter that usually is encountered when running up against VRAM limits, whether using DLSS 3 or not. The 8GB combined with the L2 cache's increased capacity for now, at least in our tests, was enough, but since so many people who buy cards at this entry-level price keep those cards for years and years, 8GB might start to show its age sooner than later.
Finally, as much as I appreciate the pricing restraint here, it does make both the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB feel a bit odd in its own GPU family. If you're concerned about the VRAM here on the current RTX 4060 Ti 8GB, the 16GB variant is on the horizon for $100 more. But then, you might consider jumping into the RTX 4070 class of GPU, which is its own animal of card and performance.
Additionally, if $399 is too much for a 1080p performer, you might be inclined to wait for the $299 RTX 4060 cards to drop in July also. As such, it feels like it's in a bit of a pricing No Man's Land, with some potentially choosing the 16GB variant because of future-proofing on the VRAM or choosing the $299 base-level 4060 because it's simply cheaper.
That said, if you're in the market today for an upgrade to your rig, the RTX 4060 Ti Founder's Edition is definitely worth a look. It's a great 1080p performer that punches well above its weight class even before you enable the black magic that is DLSS 3 in games that support the feature. Drop a few settings at 1440p and you're likely going to have a decent experience in most games. Add DLSS 3 and that experience only gets better.
Full Disclosure: The product discussed was provided by PR for the purposes of this review.
