Zoom in / PNY takes the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Base Edition for $299.
Andrew Cunningham
Nvidia’s GeForce 1060, 2060, and 3060 graphics cards are among the most widely used GPUs in all of PC gaming. Four of Steam’s top five GPUs are 60-series cards, and the only one that isn’t is the lower-cost GTX 1650.
All this means that despite all the fanfare of high-end products like the RTX 4090, the new GeForce RTX 4060 is Nvidia’s most important Ada Lovelace-based GPU. History suggests that it will become a baseline for game developers to seek and recommend most PC game designs from entry level to the average PC.
The RTX 4060, which launches this week starting at $299, is mostly up to the task. It’s faster and more power-efficient than the 3060 it replaces, and it doesn’t come with generation-to-generation price hikes like high-end Lovelace GPUs. It’s also a solid value compared to the 4060 Ti, typically offering between 80 and 90 percent of the 4060 Ti’s performance for 75 percent of the money.
This does not mean that there are no small things that justify it. Giving up the 3060’s 12GB of memory to 8GB doesn’t sound like a great idea, especially when your computer’s not badly optimized ports seem to want as much video memory as possible. It’s just a modest speed upgrade compared to the RTX 3060. And the DLSS Frame Generation, the big new 4000-series feature that Nvidia plays in all of its advertising for, is less impressive on mid-range cards than it is on high-end cards.
RTX 4060
| RTX 4090 | RTX 4080 | RTX 4070 Ti | RTX 4070 | RTX 4060 Ti | RTX 4060 | RTX 3060 Ti | RTX 3060 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CUDA cores | 16384 | 9728 | 7680 | 5,888 | 4,352 | 3840? | 4864 | 3,584 |
| clock increase | 2,520 MHz | 2,505 MHz | 2610 MHz | 2,475 MHz | 2,535 MHz | ? | 1,665MHz | 1,777 MHz |
| Memory bus appears | 384 bits | 256 bits | 192 bits | 192 bits | 128 bits | 128 bits | 256 bits | 192 bits |
| memory clock | 1313 MHz | 1400 MHz | 1313 MHz | 1313 MHz | 2250 MHz | ? | 1750MHz | 1,875 MHz |
| memory size | 24 GB GDDR6X | 16GB GDDR6X | 12 GB GDDR6X | 12 GB GDDR6X | 8 GB or 16 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 | 12 GB GDDR6 |
| TGP | 450 watts | 320 watts | 285 watts | 200 watts | 160 watts | 115 watts | 200 watts | 170 watts |
The RTX 4060 Ti was out compared to the 3060 Ti, shipping with fewer Nvidia CUDA cores and half the memory bandwidth and leaning toward boosted clock speeds, additional L2 cache, and other architectural upgrades to bridge the gap. The result was a card that didn’t always feel like an upgrade, especially at higher resolutions.
The RTX 4060 is similar to the 4080 or 4070 Ti, narrowing the memory front slightly compared to the RTX 3060 (from 192-bit to 128-bit) but offering a slight increase in the number of CUDA cores along with an additional L2 cache and boost clocks. This is a more reliable upgrade formula that will make your 4060 feel like an upgrade all the time, not just some of the time.
Like the 4060 Ti, the 4060 uses Nvidia’s AD106 GPU die, but with more CUDA cores and other hardware turned off. There are fewer CUDA cores and less L2 cache (24MB for the 4060, compared to 32MB for the 4060 Ti), among other things. But fewer hardware running at lower speeds means less power is used, and the 4060’s maximum power use is just 115 watts, compared to 160 watts for the 4060 Ti, 170 watts for the old 3060, and 165 watts for AMD’s Radeon RX 7600 — the 4060’s closest competitor in the series. . AMD 7000.
Like other 4000-series cards, the 4060 adds support for Nvidia’s DLSS 3 upscaling and frame rate boost technologies, as well as hardware-accelerated encoding support for the AV1 video codec.
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For mid-range cards, smaller versions like the PNY model might be better than Nvidia’s relatively bulky Founders Edition cards (4060 Ti, bottom) and a 12VHPWR dongle.
Andrew Cunningham
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three DisplayPorts and one HDMI port; Standard arrangement.
Andrew Cunningham
As far as we can tell, Nvidia isn’t making a Founders Edition version of the 4060, leaving the job to its card partners. Our review model is the RTX 4060 8GB Verto offered by PNY, which is the kind of no-frills card you’d expect to get for $299. It’s a reasonably sized card that should fit nicely in any mini ATX case and most mini ITX cases. The dual-fan cooler keeps the GPU running cool and quiet, and it gets all its power from a single 8-pin connector, so don’t do it. You don’t have to worry about a bulky 12VHPWR adapter (or finding a new ATX 3.0 power supply). It doesn’t have LED lights or a particularly flashy design, but it gets the job done.
As with the PNY version of the 4060 Ti, even this relatively modest design hangs a few inches past the end of the physical graphics card; Hopefully this will lead to more compact designs, though it looks like GPU makers have spent most of their time and attention on the three-slot, three-slot versions of the 4060 Ti.
