NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Review Ft. MSI, GALAX & PNY – $249 Would’ve Made This GPU Perfect

More than two years after the launch of the GeForce RTX 3060, NVIDIA has finally introduced its successor, the GeForce RTX 4060. The graphics card is designed to target the mass consumer & gaming market with a price that's actually lower than its predecessor.

While we will be talking about the GeForce RTX 4060 in this review, we will also be taking a look at how it offers faster shader performance, faster ray tracing performance, & faster AI compute performance. But whether the NVIDIA RTX 4060 holds up to the recent price cuts on older GPUs or if the card stumbles due to its lowly VRAM and bus interface is something that we will be taking a look at within this review.

Today, we will be taking a look at the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card. We will be looking at the reference-priced custom models today which were provided by AIBs since NVIDIA isn't going to offer the 4060 in the Founders Edition variation.

NVIDIA GeForce GPU Segment/Tier Prices

Graphics Segment	2023-2024	2022-2023	2021-2022	2020-2021	2019-2020	2018-2019	2017-2018	2016-2017	2014-2016
Titan Tier	GeForce RTX 4090	GeForce RTX 4090	GeForce RTX 3090 Ti GeForce RTX 3090	GeForce RTX 3090	Titan RTX (Turing)	Titan V (Volta)	Titan Xp (Pascal)	Titan X (Pascal)	Titan X (Maxwell)
Price	$1599 US	$1599 US	$1999 US $1499 US	$1499 US	$2499 US	$2999 US	$1199 US	$1199 US	$999 US
Ultra Enthusiast Tier	GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER	GeForce RTX 4080	GeForce RTX 3080 Ti	GeForce RTX 3080 Ti	GeForce RTX 2080 Ti	GeForce RTX 2080 Ti	GeForce GTX 1080 Ti	GeForce GTX 980 Ti	GeForce GTX 980 Ti
Price	$999 US	$1199 US	$1199 US	$1199 US	$999 US	$999 US	$699 US	$649 US	$649 US
Enthusiast Tier	GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER	GeForce RTX 4070 Ti	GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB	GeForce RTX 3080 10 GB	GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER	GeForce RTX 2080	GeForce GTX 1080	GeForce GTX 1080	GeForce GTX 980
Price	$799 US	$799 US	$799 US	$699 US	$699 US	$699 US	$549 US	$549 US	$549 US
High-End Tier	GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GeForce RTX 4070	GeForce RTX 4070 GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB	GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GeForce RTX 3070	GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GeForce RTX 3070	GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER	GeForce RTX 2070	GeForce GTX 1070	GeForce GTX 1070	GeForce GTX 970
Price	$599 $549	$599 US $499 US	$599 $499	$599 $499	$499 US	$499 US	$379 US	$379 US	$329 US
Mainstream Tier	GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GeForce RTX 4060	GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GeForce RTX 4060	GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB	GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB	GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER GeForce RTX 2060 GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER GeForce GTX 1660	GeForce GTX 1060	GeForce GTX 1060	GeForce GTX 1060	GeForce GTX 960
Price	$449 $299	$399 US $299 US	$399 US $329 US	$399 US $329 US	$399 US $349 US $279 US $229 US $219 US	$249 US	$249 US	$249 US	$199 US
Entry Tier	RTX 3050 8 GB RTX 3050 6 GB	RTX 3050	RTX 3050	GTX 1650 SUPER GTX 1650	GTX 1650 SUPER GTX 1650	GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050	GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050	GTX 950	GTX 750 Ti GTX 750
Price	$229 $179	$249 US	$249 US	$159 US $149 US	$159 US $149 US	$139 US $109 US	$139 US $109 US	$149 US	$149 US $119 US

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series Gaming Graphics Cards

Turing wasn't just any graphics core, it was the graphics core that was to become the foundation of future GPUs. The future is realized now with next-generation consoles going deep in talks about ray tracing and AI-assisted super-sampling techniques. NVIDIA had a head start with Turing & Ampere and its Ada generation will only do things infinitely times better.

The Ada GPU does many traditional things which we would expect from a GPU, but at the same time, also breaks the barrier when it comes to untraditional GPU operations. Just to sum up some features:

• New Streaming Multiprocessor (SM)
• New Turing Tensor Cores
• New Real-Time Ray Tracing Acceleration
• New Shading Enhancements
• New Deep Learning Features For Graphics & Inference
• New GDDR6X High-Performance Memory Subsystem
• New HDMI 2.1 Display Engine & Next-Gen NVENC/NVDEC

The technologies mentioned above are some of the main building blocks of the Ada GPU, but there's more within the graphics core itself which we will talk about in detail so let's get started.

Let's take a trip down the journey to Ada. In 2016, NVIDIA announced their Pascal GPUs which would soon be featured in their top-to-bottom GeForce 10 series lineup. After the launch of Maxwell, NVIDIA gained a lot of experience in the efficiency department which they put a focus on since their Kepler GPUs.

Four years ago, NVIDIA, rather than offering another standard leap in the rasterization performance of its GPUs took a different approach & introduced two key technologies in its Turing line of consumer GPUs, one being AI-assisted acceleration with the Tensor Cores and the second being hardware-level acceleration for Ray Tracing with its brand new RT cores.

Then came Ampere with its brand new Samsung 8nm fabrication process, and NVIDIA added even more to its gaming graphics lineup. In the Ampere GPU architecture, NVIDIA provided its latest Ampere SM along with next-gen FP32, INT32, Tensor Cores, and RT cores. The focus was to boost both rasterization and ray tracing capabilities to new heights.

Now enter Ada, a brand new architecture that aims to take everything from the first two RTX GPUs and perfect it. The graphics architecture is designed for speed and that it excels at. So let's see the architecture in detail. Following are the few main highlights of the Ada Lovelace GPU architecture:

• Revolutionary New Architecture: NVIDIA Ada architecture GPUs deliver outstanding performance for graphics, AI, and compute workloads with exceptional architectural and power efficiency. After the baseline design for the Ada SM was established, the chip was scaled up to shatter records. Manufacturing innovations and materials research enabled NVIDIA engineers to craft a GPU with 76.3 billion transistors and 18,432 CUDA Cores capable of running at clocks over 2.5 GHz while maintaining the same 450W TGP as the prior generation flagship GeForce RTX 3090 Ti GPU. The result is the world’s fastest GPU with the power, acoustics, and temperature characteristics expected of a high-end graphics card.
• New Ada RT Core for Faster Ray Tracing: For decades, rendering ray-traced scenes with physically correct lighting in real-time has been considered the holy grail of graphics. At the same time, the geometric complexity of environments and objects continues to increase as 3D games and graphics continually strive to provide the most accurate representations of the real world. The Ada RT Core has been enhanced to deliver 2x faster ray-triangle intersection testing and includes two important new hardware units. An Opacity Micro map Engine speeds up ray tracing of alpha-tested geometry by a factor of 2x, and a Displaced Micro-Mesh Engine generates Displaced Micro-Triangles on-the-fly to create additional geometry. The Micro-Mesh Engine provides the benefit of increased geometric complexity without the traditional performance and storage costs of complex geometries.
• Shader Execution Reordering: NVIDIA Ada GPUs support Shader Execution Reordering which dynamically organizes & reorders shading workloads to improve RT shading Introduction efficiency. This improves performance by up to 44% in Cyberpunk 2077 with Ray Tracing Overdrive Mode.
• NVIDIA DLSS 3: The Ada architecture features an all-new Optical Flow Accelerator and AI frame generation that boosts DLSS 3’s frame rates up to 2x over the previous DLSS 2.0 while maintaining or exceeding native image quality. Compared to traditional brute-force graphics rendering, DLSS 3 is ultimately up to 4x faster while providing low system latency.

The NVIDIA Ada Lovelace AD107 GPU features up to 3 GPC (Graphics Processing Clusters). These are the same SM count as the GA106 GPU. Each GPU will consist of 6 TPCs and 2 SMs which is the same configuration as the existing chip. Each SM (Streaming Multiprocessor) will house four sub-cores which is also the same as the GA102 GPU. What's changed is the FP32 & the INT32 core configuration. Each sub-core will include 64 FP32 units but combined FP32+INT32 units will go up to 128. This is because half of the FP32 units don't share the same sub-core as the IN32 units. The 64 FP32 cores are separate from the 128 INT32 cores.

So in total, each sub-core will consist of 16 FP32 plus 16 INT32 units for a total of 32 units. Each SM will have a total of 64 FP32 units plus 64 INT32 units for a total of 128 units. And since there are a total of 24 SM units (8 per GPC), we are looking at a total of 3,072 cores.

Moving over to the cache, this is another segment where NVIDIA has given a big boost over the existing Ampere GPUs. The L2 cache will be increased to 24 MB. This is a 12x increase over the Ampere GA107 GPU that hosts just 2 MB of L2 cache. The cache will be shared across the GPU. The GPU will also feature up to 80 ROPs for the full-die.

There are also going to be the latest 4th Generation Tensor and 3rd Generation RT (Raytracing) cores infused on the Ada Lovelace GPUs which will help boost DLSS & Raytracing performance to the next level. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 makes use of the full AD107 die.

NVIDIA AD107 'RTX 4060' Gaming GPU Block Diagram:

NVIDIA AD107 'Ada Lovelace' Gaming GPU 'SM' Block Diagram:

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060

• 15 TFLOPS of peak single-precision (FP32) performance
• 30 TFLOPS of peak half-precision (FP16) performance
• 242 Tensor TFLOPs with sparsity
• 35 RT-TFLOPs

At the heart of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card lies the Ada Lovelace AD107 GPU. The GPU measures 146.0 mm2 and will utilize the TSMC 4N process node which is an optimized version of TSMC's 5nm (N5) node designed for the green team. The GPU features 18.9 Billion transistors.

Massive L2 Cache Resolves Memory Bandwidth Bottlenecks

Coming back to the memory, the 128-bit bus interface might seem like a downgrade over the 192-bit bus on the previous-gen 60 cards but NVIDIA states that the effective bandwidth of the RTX 4060 is increased to 453 GB/s, an increase of 25.8% over the 3060 12 GB. This is made possible by upgrading the L2 cache from 3 MB to 24 MB, an 8x increase.

Increasing the L2 cache allows NVIDIA to overcome some of the bandwidth limitations & memory bottlenecks associated with using a narrower bus interface. You see, when the cores work, they're required to have a fast and effective channel to transfer data through and L1 is the closest and low latency lane that sits right next to them. But sitting close to the cores means you can't increase their size by a lot and if the cores can't find the data that they want on the L1 cache, they move over to the L2 cache which is right next to the L1 cache and has a larger capacity. The memory resides on the same GPU die and is connected via a high-speed interconnect across all GPCs to send data through and forth.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Prototype With 2 MB L2 Cache (128-bit bus):

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Reference With 32 MB L2 Cache (128-bit bus):

If the data is found on the L2 cache, then that's considered a cache hit but if the cores still can't find the data on the L2 cache, that's considered a cache miss and the cores need to go out of the GPU & access the main memory pool (VRAM) to find the data. This taxes the memory subsystem leading to bandwidth bottleneck. NVIDIA's solution to address this bottleneck is to increase the L2 cache. This allows the GPU cores to have more room to travel before burdening the VRAM with a limited 128-bit bus interface.

NVIDIA showcases how the increased L2 cache helps the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti by demonstrating the memory subsystem load on a reference 32 MB L2 variant against a prototype 2 MB L2 variant against each other. Both cards have the same 128-bit bus interface with 512 KB of L2 cache tied to each 32-bit memory controller.

The 32 MB L2 variant was able to reduce traffic by 40% to 60% over the performance of the 2 MB variant. The 2 MB variant was able to fill up its entire pool of L2 cache quickly and that meant that more data was going to the VRAM, causing additional traffic burden compared to the 32 MB cache variant which not only had fewer cache misses but also led to fewer traffic going to the VRAM. So even with a 128-bit bus interface, you are getting far higher bandwidth resulting in far better GPU performance than a traditional 128-bit card.

For the GeForce RTX 4060, NVIDIA is expected to utilize the AD107-400-A1 GPU, the fully enabled AD107 Ada die. Do note that the same configuration is used by the GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU. The chip is expected to feature 3072 CUDA cores and 8 GB of GDDR6 memory running at 17 Gbps memory speeds across a 128-bit bus interface. That gives the card 272 GB/s bandwidth which is effectively rated at 453 GB/s or 26% more than the RTX 3060. That's all thanks to the 24 MB of L2 cache.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 should end up with a 35% lower TGP than its predecessor, the RTX 3060 12 GB. The card is said to feature a 115W TGP but actual gaming power consumption should be around 110W with idle power rated at 7W and video playback power rated at 11W. The card will be available in various custom models at launch but there will be no Founders Edition variant for it.

• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 8 GB "Official" TBP - 115W
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB "Official" TBP - 170W

 

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Graphics Cards Performance

NVIDIA plans to bring the RTX and DLSS advantage to a wider audience. In one of the recent slides, the company illustrates how 79% of RTX 40 gamers play their games with DLSS On, and 83% of RTX 40 gamers play their games with RT On. That means that every 8 out of 10 RTX 40 GPU owners are benefitting from Ada's latest technologies & there are 400 RTX games and applications that users can take advantage of.

However, these premium features come at a cost and during the pandemic, we saw heightened prices across all GPUs. That is why the very older GTX 16, GTX 1060, and RTX 2060 series still show up at the top of the lists at Steam Hardware Survey with 77% of the gaming base playing at 1080p or less. So NVIDIA is deciding that they want to give the mainstream gamer the value back & make them upgrade to a better GPU in the form of the RTX 4060 which also delivers a nice 20% boost vs the RTX 3060 in standard rasterization and up to a 70% boost with DLSS 3 enabled.

But another major factor discussed by NVIDIA is the power savings that come with the RTX 4060. Anyone using a GeForce RTX 4060 will reduce their power bills by a large fraction thanks to Ada's highly efficient design. This will allow users to rack up to $130+ US in savings (depending on the region) over a period of 4-years. And since most of the 60-series gamers have an upgrade cycle of 4-5 years, that would mean that they will have enough savings in their hands to cover a quarter or even up to half the cost of the next-gen mainstream purchase.

For $299 US, you are getting up to a 70% increase (with DLSS 3) and a 20% increase (without DLSS) over the RTX 3060. Now the thing about the RTX 3060 is that while it did pack a higher VRAM of 12 GB & a wider bus interface, all the memory management technologies we talked about in the RTX 4060 Ti article apply to the RTX 4060 which means it carries up to 24 MB of L2 cache which is once again, an 8x uplift over the RTX 3060.

So while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 did pack more VRAM & a wider bus, the RTX 4060 is still faster at 1080p, & the difference that the higher L2 cache makes really shows in the 1% Low FPS where the lead over the RTX 3060 widens even more.

A Great 1080p Package With All The RTX Features You'd Ever Want

So summing up today's announcement, I think the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 graphics cards are really for users who are looking to upgrade their older GTX 1060 or RTX 2060 series cards. They do offer some amazing features with over 400 RTX titles and 300+ DLSS titles including 50 DLSS 3 titles and more that are on the way.

You get NVIDIA Studio support for content creation readiness, AV1 hardware & great AI generative performance thanks to those powerful tensor cores. NVIDIA will be leveraging its AI hardware for more advanced features such as Neural Rendering in future DLSS 3 updates, Neural Textures, and much more to come. The NVIDIA GeForce ecosystem & Game Ready driver updates are a major plus to recommending an RTX card to gamers too.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series Official Specs:

Graphics Card Name	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 D	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060
GPU Name	Ada Lovelace AD102-300	Ada Lovelace AD102-250	Ada Lovelace AD103-300	Ada Lovelace AD104-400	Ada Lovelace AD104-250	Ada Lovelace AD106-350	Ada Lovelace AD107-400
Process Node	TSMC 4N	TSMC 4N	TSMC 4N	TSMC 4N	TSMC 4N	TSMC 4N	TSMC 4N
Die Size	608mm2	608mm2	378.6mm2	294.5mm2	294.5mm2	190.0mm2	146.0mm2
Transistors	76 Billion	76 Billion	45.9 Billion	35.8 Billion	35.8 Billion	22.9 Billion	TBD
CUDA Cores	16384	14592	9728	7680	5888	4352	3072
TMUs / ROPs	512 / 176	TBD	320 / 112	240 / 80	184 / 64	136 / 48	TBD
Tensor / RT Cores	512 / 128	456 / 128	304 / 76	240 / 60	184 / 46	136 / 34	TBD
L2 Cache	72 MB	72 MB	64 MB	48 MB	36 MB	32 MB	24 MB
Base Clock	2230 MHz	2280 MHz	2210 MHz	2310 MHz	1920 MHz	2310 MHz	1830 MHz
Boost Clock	2520 MHz	2520 MHz	2510 MHz	2610 MHz	2475 MHz	2535 MHz	2460 MHz
FP32 Compute	83 TFLOPs	TBD	49 TFLOPs	40 TFLOPs	29 TFLOPs	22 TFLOPs	15 TFLOPs
RT TFLOPs	191 TFLOPs	TBD	113 TFLOPs	82 TFLOPs	67 TFLOPs	51 TFLOPs	35 TFLOPs
Tensor-TOPs	1321 TOPs	TBD	780 TOPs	641 TOPs	466 TOPs	353 TOPs	242 TOPs
Memory Capacity	24 GB GDDR6X	24 GB GDDR6X	16 GB GDDR6X	12 GB GDDR6X	12 GB GDDR6X	8-16 GB GDDR6	8 GB GDDR6
Memory Bus	384-bit	384-bit	256-bit	192-bit	192-bit	128-bit	128-bit
Memory Speed	21.0 Gbps	21.0 Gbps	23.0 Gbps	21.0 Gbps	21.0 Gbps	18.0 Gbps	17.0 Gbps
Bandwidth	1008 GB/s	1008 GB/s	736 GB/s	504 GB/s	504 GB/s	288 GB/s (554 GB/s Effective)	272 GB/s (453 GB/s Effective)
TBP	450W	425W	320W	285W	200W	160-165W	115W
Price (MSRP / FE)	$1599 US / 1949 EU	12,999 RMB (China-Only)	$1199 US / 1469 EU	$799 US	$599 US	$399-$499 US	$299 US
Price (Current)	$1599 US / 1859 EU	12,999 RMB (China-Only)	$1199 US / 1399 EU	$799 US	$599 US	$399-$499 US	$299 US
Launch (Availability)	12th October 2022	28th December 2023	16th November 2022	5th January 2023	13th April 2023	24th May / 18th July 2023	29th June 2023

The MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Gaming X graphics card comes inside a standard cardboard box. The front of the package has a large "GeForce RTX" brand logo along with the "MSI" logo in the top left corner and the "Gaming X" series branding in the lower-left corner. A large picture of the graphics card itself is depicted on the front which gives a nice preview of the Gaming X design.

The packaging has put a large emphasis on the RTX side of things as the first feature enlisted by AIBs will be NVIDIA Ada architecture, Ray Tracing & DLSS support. NVIDIA has bet the future of their gaming GPUs on Ray Tracing support as these are the first cards to offer support for the new feature.

The back of the box is very typical, highlighting the main features and specifications of the cards. The three key aspects of MSI's top-tier custom cards are its blazing performance which is achieved by a fully custom design, the new Twin Frozr 9 cooling system, and a new Torx Fan 5.0 fan and Core Pipe design which will offer better cooling performance.

There's also a focus towards GeForce.com on each AIB card through which users can download the latest drivers and GeForce Experience application which are a must for gamers to access all feature sets of the new cards.

The sides of the box once again greet us with the large GeForce RTX branding. There's also the mention of 8 GB GDDR6 (RTX 4060) memory available on the card. Outside of the box, the graphics card and the accessory package are held firmly by foam packaging.

The card is nicely wrapped within an anti-static cover which is useful to prevent any unwanted static discharges on various surfaces that might harm the graphics card. After the package is taken care of, I can finally start talking about the card itself. This thing is a beast and I can't wait to test it out to find what kind of performance improvement I get over current-gen cards.

For the RTX 4060, MSI has considered going with dual-fan and dual-slot designs which makes a lot of sense since the GPU doesn't require a lot of cooling. Making the card any bigger isn't going to be a wise decision considering you are going to get the same amount of performance but waste extra space for nothing.

The MSI GeForce RTX 4060 measures 247 x 130 x 41mm, making it a very compact design, and weighs 587 grams. The card looks very nice with its gaming theme in an all-black design. I would love to see MSI going for a single-fan ITX variant of its Gaming design at some point.

The cooling shroud extends all the way to the back of the PCB. The back of the card features a solid backplate that looks stunning. The backplate offers a lot more functionality than just looks which I will get back to in a bit.

In terms of design, we are looking at an updated version of the Twin Frozr 9 heatsink. The Gaming X series has now been around for a while but the Twin Frozr series pre-dates it with the first design going far back to the GeForce 200 series.

The main changes include the shroud and heatsink design that features a neater shroud design on the front which features the claw-shaped pattern on the front and a carbon-fiber touch across the sides of the cards.

Coming to the fans, the card actually features the latest fan designs based on the Torx 5.0 system. Both fans feature a ring-based design to allow for higher airflow to be channeled within the main heatsink. All fans deploy a double ball bearing design and can last a long time while operating silently. Each fan has three blades that form three sets and each fan has three sets of them that make up a total of 9 fan blades. Each blade is tilted at a 22 degrees angle to the main high-pressure airflow.

MSI also features its Zero Frozr technology on the Twin Frozr heatsink. This feature won’t spin the fans on the card unless they reach a certain threshold. In the case of the Twin Frozr heatsink, that limit is set to 60C. If the card is operating under 60C, the fans won’t spin which means no extra noise would be generated.

I am back at talking about the full-coverage, full metal-based backplate that the card uses. The whole plate is made of solid metal with rounded edges that add to the durability of this card. The matte-black finish on the backplate gives a unique aesthetic. The graphics card also comes with a compact PCB design which means that the shroud, heatsink, and backplate are all extended beyond the PCB. The second fan blows air through the heatsink and blows it out from the cutouts that are situated at the very end of the backplate.

There are cutouts in screw placements to easily reach the points on the graphics card. We can also see the iconic MSI Dragon logo.

With the outside of the card done, I will now start taking a glance at what's beneath the hood of the graphics cards.

The large fin stack runs all the way from the front and to the back of the PCB and is so thick that you can barely see through it. It also comes with the wave-curved 2.0 fin stack design which I want to shed some light on as it is a turn away from traditional fin design.

The heatsink has been designed to be denser by using a wave-curved and filled-fin design. It allows more air to pass through the fins smoothly, without causing any turbulence that would result in unwanted noise.

Talking about the heatsink, the block is comprised of 3 Core Pipes with a more concentrated design to transfer heat from the copper base to the heatsink more effectively. The base itself is a solid nickel-plated base plate, transferring heat to the heat pipes in a very effective manner. I/O on the graphics card sticks with the reference scheme which includes three Display Port 1.4a & a single HDMI 2.1 port.

The card ships with a single 8-pin connector so you don't have to worry about using a Gen5 power adapter.

The GALAX GeForce RTX 4060 EX graphics card comes inside a cardboard box. The front of the package has a large "GeForce RTX" brand logo along with the "GALAX" logo in the top left corner and a large hooded figure in the middle which is part of the new 'EX Gamer' brand. You can see similar hooded figures on the Serious Gaming packages too.

The packaging has put a large emphasis on the RTX side of things as the first feature enlisted by AIBs will be NVIDIA Ada architecture, Ray Tracing & DLSS support. NVIDIA has bet the future of their gaming GPUs on Ray Tracing support as these are the first cards to offer support for the new feature. The back of the box is very typical, highlighting the main features and specifications of the cards.

There's also a focus towards GeForce.com on each AIB card through which users can download the latest drivers and GeForce Experience application which are a must for gamers to access all feature sets of the new cards.

The sides of the box once again greet us with the large GeForce RTX branding. There's also the mention of 8 GB GDDR6 (RTX 4060) memory available on the card.

Outside of the box, the graphics card and the accessory package are held firmly by foam packaging. The graphics card comes with a few accessories and manuals which might not be of much use for hardcore enthusiasts but can be useful for the mainstream gaming audience. After the package is taken care of, I can finally start talking about the card itself. The GALAX GeForce RTX 4060 EX is definitely a looker!

The graphics card is massive in terms of size and weighs around 1kg. The card measures 264 x 145 x 41 mm and takes up 2 slots worth of space for installation.

The cooling shroud extends all the way beyond the PCB and it requires a casing with good interior space for proper installation.

The back of the card features a solid backplate that looks stunning. The backplate offers a lot more functionality than just looks which I will get back to in a bit.

In terms of design, the graphics card rocks a singular color scheme which is black and along with some white linings on the front, sides, and back.

The card features RGB lighting on the side and within the fans which should look great.

Coming to the fans, the card rocks a dual 102mm Wings fan design. Each fan is comprised of 11 blades which have a very angular shape that is made to disperse hot air out of the card faster than standard designs.

GALAX also features a 0db fan technology on the fans which isn't explicitly mentioned. This feature won’t spin the fans on the card unless they reach a certain threshold. In the case of the GALAX heatsink, that limit is set to 60C. If the card is operating under 60C, the fans won’t spin which means no extra noise would be generated.

I am back at talking about the full-coverage, full metal-based backplate that the card uses. The whole plate is made of solid metal with that add to the durability of this card. The matte white finish on the backplate gives a unique aesthetic. The graphics card also comes with a compact PCB design which means that the shroud, heatsink, and backplate are all extended beyond the PCB. The second fan blows air through the heatsink and blows it out from the cutouts that are situated at the very end of the backplate.

With the outside of the card done, I will now start taking a glance at what's beneath the hood of these monster graphics cards. The first thing to catch my eye is the humungous fin stack that's part of the beefy heatsink that the cards utilize.

The large fin stack runs all the way from the front and to the back of the PCB and is so thick that you can barely see through it.

Talking about the heatsink, there are two blocks of aluminum fins that are interconnected by six heat pipes running through the copper base plate and heading out toward the dual heatsink blocks.

There are several heat pads included for the VRMs and memory chips. They are full-sized, making full contact with the components to offer stable and efficient heat transfer.

There's not a lot of memory chips and the die isn't that huge either so the thermal performance of this heatsink should be very good.

I/O on the graphics card sticks with the reference scheme which includes three Display Port 1.4a & a single HDMI 2.1 port. Power is provided through a single 8-pin connector.

The PNY GeForce RTX 4060 VERTO Dual-Fan graphics card comes inside a standard cardboard box. The front of the package has a large "GeForce RTX" brand logo along with the "PNY" logo in the top left corner. A large picture of the graphics card itself is depicted on the front which gives a nice preview of the VERTO design.

The packaging has put a large emphasis on the RTX side of things as the first feature enlisted by AIBs will be NVIDIA Ada architecture, Ray Tracing & DLSS support. NVIDIA has bet the future of their gaming GPUs on Ray Tracing support as these are the first cards to offer support for the new feature. The back of the box is very typical, highlighting the main features and specifications of the cards.

There's also a focus towards GeForce.com on each AIB card through which users can download the latest drivers and GeForce Experience application which are a must for gamers to access all feature sets of the new cards.

The sides of the box once again greet us with the large GeForce RTX branding. There's also the mention of 8 GB GDDR6 (RTX 4060) memory available on the card.

Outside of the box, the graphics card and the accessory package are held firmly by foam packaging. The graphics card comes with a few accessories and manuals which might not be of much use for hardcore enthusiasts but can be useful for the mainstream gaming audience. The card is nicely wrapped within an anti-static cover which is useful to prevent any unwanted static discharges on various surfaces that might harm the graphics card.

I am really excited to see what PNY has in store for the masses. The PNY Verto cooler is a callback to the 2016's Pascal era when the triple-slot and dual-fan designs were what you would expect on high-end graphics cards. The card features a standard 2-slot height which is expected of today's high-end cards. The card measures 210 x 115 x 40mm which makes it a very compact design and perfect for budget and small PC builds.

The cooling shroud extends all the way beyond the PCB and it requires a casing with good interior space for proper installation.

The back of the card features a solid backplate that looks stunning. The backplate offers a lot more functionality than just looks which I will get back to in a bit.

In terms of design, PNY is using its latest generation of Verto DF coolers that are designed to cool down the impressive Ada Lovelace GPUs from NVIDIA.

The heatsink comes in two modules, each of which is stacked with numerous amounts of fins made out of aluminum. The card uses a massive heatsink structure that makes direct contact with GPU & memory.

PNY is using its latest Double Ball bearing fan design which comes in a triple-fan solution and each fan has an XLR8 sticker placed on top of it.

Each fan is 100mm in size and compared to the traditional 90mm fans, these are said to offer 40% more airflow and gain 55% air pressure.

The fans also come with 0dB fan technology and the limit of fan operation is set at 60C for fan off and on modes.

I am back at talking about the full-coverage, full metal-based backplate that the card uses. The whole plate is made of solid metal with rounded edges that add to the durability of this card. The brushed metallic finish on the backplate gives a unique aesthetic. The graphics card also comes with a compact PCB design which means that the shroud, heatsink, and backplate are all extended beyond the PCB. The third fan blows air through the heatsink and blows it out from the cutouts that are situated at the very end of the backplate.

There are cutouts in screw placements to easily reach the points on the graphics card. We can also see the iconic PNY XLR8 Gaming logos towards the back of the backplate. The whole 'V' shape of it looks pretty cool.

With the outside of the card done, I will now start taking a glance at what's beneath the hood of these monster graphics cards. The first thing to catch my eye is the humungous fin stack that's part of the beefy heatsink that the cards utilize.

The large fin stack runs all the way from the front and to the back of the PCB and is so thick that you can barely see through it.

The heatsink makes use of a total of 6 heat pipes that extend throughout the internal assembly and dissipate heat from the various components to the fins. The base itself is a solid nickel-plated base plate, transferring heat to the heat pipes in a very effective manner. To top it all off,

I/O on the graphics card sticks with the reference scheme which includes three Display Port 1.4a & a single HDMI 2.1 port. Power is provided through a single 8-pin connector

We used the following test system for comparison between the different graphics cards. The latest drivers that were available at the time of testing were used by AMD and NVIDIA on an updated version of Windows 11. All tested games were patched to the latest version for better performance optimization for NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.

The Wccftech Test Bench

CPU	Intel Core i9-13900K @ 5.0 GHz
Motherboard	MSI MEG Z790 ACE
Video Cards	ASRock Intel Arc B570 Challenger OC Intel Arc B580 Limited Edition GALAX GeForce RTX 4070 OC 2X (GDDR6) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER FE MSI RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER ASRock Radeon RX 7800 XT Phantom Gaming ASUS GeForce RTX 4070 Ti TUF Gaming NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 FE NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti FE MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Gaming X Trio GALAX GeForce RTX 4060 Ti EX Gamer PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Dual MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X MSI GeForce RTX 3070 Ti SUPRIM X MSI GeForce RTX 3070 Gaming X Trio MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Gaming X MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Gaming X MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Lightning MSI Radeon RX 6950 XT Gaming X Trio MSI Radeon RX 6900 XT Gaming Z Trio MSI Radeon RX 6800 XT Gaming X Trio MSI Radeon RX 6650 XT Gaming X
Memory	G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series 32GB (2 X 16GB) CL38 7200 Mbps
Storage	Teamgroup T-Force A440 Pro 2 TB Gen 4
Power Supply	MSI MEG Ai1300P 1300W PSU
OS	Windows 11 64-bit
Drivers	AMD Radeon Adrenalin Edition 24.2.1 NVIDIA GeForce 560.81 WHQL Intel Driver 6256

• All games were tested at 3840x2160 (4K) resolution.
• Image Quality and graphics configurations are provided with each game description.
• The "reference" cards are the stock configs except where mentioned otherwise.

Speed Way

Developed with input from AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, and other leading technology companies, Speed Way is an ideal benchmark for comparing the DirectX 12 Ultimate performance of the latest graphics cards. 3DMark Speed Way’s engine is assembled to demonstrate what the latest DirectX API brings to ray-traced gaming, using DirectX Raytracing tier 1.1 for real-time global illumination and real-time raytraced reflections, coupled with new performance optimizations like Mesh Shaders.

Firestrike

Firestrike is running the DX11 API and is still a good measure of GPU scaling performance. In this test, we ran the Extreme and Ultra versions of Firestrike which runs at 1440p and 4K and we recorded the Graphics Score only since the Physics and combined are not pertinent to this review.

Time Spy

Time Spy is running the DX12 API and we used it in the same manner as Firestrike Extreme where we only recorded the Graphics Score as the Physics score is recording the CPU performance and isn't important to the testing we are doing here.

Port Royal

Port Royal is another great tool in the 3DMark suite, but this one is 100% targeting Ray Tracing performance. It loads up ray-traced shadows, reflections, and global illumination to really tax the performance of the graphics cards that either have hardware-based or software-based ray-tracing support.

 

Crysis Remastered (DXVK RT)

Crysis is back with a vengeance to reclaim its title of the graphics crown. The remastered version of the game uses DX11 API but has Vulkan extensions on top which enable Vulkan Ray tracing. That's also something that the original game didn't offer. DXVK, along with improved textures and visual effects, leads to higher performance demand making us question once again "Can It Run Crysis?"

Doom Eternal

DOOM Eternal brings hell to earth with the Vulkan-powered idTech 7.  We test this game using the Ultra Nightmare Preset and follow our in-game benchmarking to stay as consistent as possible.

Red Dead Redemption 2

Developed by Rockstar San Diego, Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the most visually stunning open-world games I've played to date that is backed up by a rich story set around the protagonist, Arthur Morgan. The game is based on the RAGE engine which features an insane amount of graphics fidelity but also requires a lot of power to run maxed out. For the purpose of this test, we set the graphics settings to Ultra with AA turned disabled.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood

Wolfenstein is back in The New Colossus and features the most fast-paced, gory, and brutal FPS action ever! The game once again puts us back in the Nazi-controlled world as BJ Blazkowicz. Set during an alternate future where Nazis won the World War, the game shows that it can be fun and can be brutal to the player and to the enemy too. Powering the new title is, once again, id Tech 6 which is much acclaimed after the success that DOOM has become. In a way, ID has regained its glorious FPS roots and is slaying with every new title.

Atomic Heart

Atomic Heart is set in an alternate universe where the Soviet Union achieved incredible technological breakthroughs thanks to a scientist named Dr. Sechenov, who invented a liquid programmable module called Polymer that links robots in a so-called Kollektiv network.

Battlefield V

Battlefield V brings back the action of the World War 2 shooter genre. Using the latest Frostbite tech, the game does a good job of looking gorgeous in all ways possible. From the open-world environments to the intense and gun-blazing action, this multiplayer and single-player FPS title is one of the best-looking Battlefields to date.

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 is an action role-playing video game developed by CD Projekt Red and published by CD Projekt. The story takes place in Night City, an open world set in the Cyberpunk universe. Players assume the first-person perspective of a customizable mercenary known as V, who can acquire skills in hacking and machinery with options for melee and ranged combat. The game uses CD Projekt Red's in-house Red Engine which is one of the most visually breathtaking and also one of the most graphics-intensive engines designed to date.

Dead Space (Remake)

Remaking Dead Space was a bold choice but I would say that the team at EA Motive nailed every bit and piece of this horror classic. The remake makes the USG Ishimura twice as scarily beautiful. The gore, the endless corridors of terror, the void of space, all of it looks incredible while the game remains true to its core to the original Dead Space formula. Modern cards can run the game really well but it can also be really demanding if you crank the settings all the way to the max with ray tracing enabled.

Death Stranding

Sam Porter Bridges has delivered one of PS4's most anticipated games to the PC community and opened a whole new world of possibilities. This was the first game to feature the Decima Engine on PC and unarguably did it the best. Death Stranding may not feature ray tracing effects, but it does showcase that DLSS can be used effectively even when RT isn't around. We tested this one just like we did in our launch coverage with DLSS enabled.

Forza Horizon 5

Forza Horizon 5 carries on the open-world racing tradition of the Horizon series.  The latest DX12-powered entry is beautifully crafted, amazingly well executed, and a great showcase of DX12 games.  We use the benchmark run while having all of the settings set to non-dynamic with an uncapped framerate to gather these results.

Halo Infinite (DX12 Highest)

Next up, we have the latest entry in the Halo franchise, Halo: Infinite, which uses the brand new Slipspace engine (although there are rumors it will be ditched in the future for Unreal Engine) based on the DX12 API. The game rocks some incredible environments for Master Chief to visit on the Halo ring.

Hogwarts Legacy

Hogwarts Legacy, as the name suggests, is set in the world of Hogwarts and retains its landscape true to the books and the movies. The game looks visually stunning although it can be a total hog when running at the highest settings with all visual candy enabled.

Hitman III (DX12 Highest Settings)

Hitman III is the highly acclaimed sequel to the 2016 Hitman & 2018 Hitman II, which was a redesign and reimaging of the game from the ground up. With a focus on stealth gameplay through various missions, the game once again lets you play as Agent 47. The game runs on the IO Interactive Glacier 2 engine which has been updated to deliver amazing visuals and environments on each level while making use of DirectX 12 API.

Shadow of The Tomb Raider

The sequel to Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of The Tomb Raider is visually enhanced with an updated Foundation Engine that delivers realistic facial animations and the most gorgeous environments ever seen in a Tomb Raider Game. The game is a technical marvel and really shows the power of its graphics engine in the latest title.

Metro Exodus

Metro Exodus continues Artyom's journey through Russia's nuclear wasteland and its surroundings. This time, you are set over the Metro, going through various regions and different environments. The game is one of the premier titles to feature NVIDIA’s RTX technology and does well in showcasing the ray-tracing effects in all corners.

Resident Evil Village

Resident Evil Village is the latest in the horror franchise that was wonderfully rekindled with RE7 and onto the RE2 Remake. But now the RE Engine is back and better than ever with Ray Traced Reflections and Lighting that makes the world just come to life, unironically. The game was tested in the center of the village itself with all graphical settings maxed out and with raytracing enabled.

Resident Evil IV Remake

The remake of the beloved and highly acclaimed Resident Evi IV is here, boasting the latest RE engine which adds stunning visuals and even better ray tracing effects, the game looks just as incredible as it plays.

Stray (That Cat Game)

Stray is a 2022 adventure game developed by BlueTwelve Studio and published by Annapurna Interactive. The story follows a stray cat who falls into a walled city populated by robots, machines, and mutant bacteria, and sets out to return to the surface with the help of a drone companion, B-12. The game uses Unreal Engine 4, but DX12 Ray tracing can be enabled by adding the "-dx12" extension to the game.

Quick DLSS 3 Tests

No graphics card review is complete without evaluating its temperatures and thermal load. All RTX 4060 Ti graphics cards were tested with their default 'Performance' BIOS and the results are below:

I compiled the power consumption results by testing each card under idle and full stress when the card was running games. Each graphics card manufacturer sets a default TDP for the card which can vary from vendor to vendor depending on the extra clocks or board features they plugin on their custom cards. The default TDP for the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti is rated at 160W but in gaming, the card never hit this power limit and actually ran in the sub-150W range.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 is finally here and it's the most affordable graphics card and it is the most affordable 60-series class since the past two generations. The graphics card even has a lower price than its predecessor, the RTX 3060, but will that be enough to recommend it to gamers who have been waiting to get something?

If you look at the base specifications, the RTX 4060 is a lot like the successor to the GeForce RTX 3050. It features the AD107 GPU which was the same tier of chip used by the 3050 (GA107), it is packed with a 128-bit and 8 GB memory bus but the main changes come with Ada Lovelace that enables two things, higher efficiency, & faster performance with added features.

In our 20+ games that we benchmarked the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 through, the card came out ahead of the RTX 3060 across all titles while even managing to close in on the RTX 3060 Ti. The RTX 4060 is firstly a 1080p card and 1440p can be achieved by reducing image quality and relying on DLSS 2/3. Coupled with NVIDIA Reflex and new G-Sync 1000 Hz technology, eSports gaming on an RTX 40 series card is going to be a superb experience and that's a large market for this card.

Plus, content creators get the power of AV1 encoding which allows for better-streaming quality & performance compared to NVENC and H.265/264 standards. But it doesn't stop there, the tensor cores on the GeForce RTX 4060 make it a very disruptive solution priced at $300 US and offering bleeding-edge AI performance in generative AI workloads such as stable diffusion.

As for the feature set, Ada's faster DLSS and Ray Tracing capabilities do make for a very enticing offer. With DLSS 3, the GeForce RTX 4060 outperforms a 3080 and as I mentioned earlier, the RT-heavy titles bring the card close to the RTX 3060 Ti. On average, you will notice a 20% boost in the standard rasterized titles, a 25% boost in RT heavy titles, and a 50-70% boost with DLSS 3 enabled over the RTX 3060. At the same time, you will see a power draw of around 100W which is simply mind-blowing.

The top-class efficiency and lower power consumption mean that you also don't have to worry about higher temperatures. All the cards I tested ran super cool with most designs even ending below the 60C mark.

Now coming to the main issue of the card, the pricing. You see while the $299 US is a great thing since the card doesn't cost more than its predecessor, the current pricing trend isn't in favor of the RTX 4060. The RTX 3060 Ti is already discounted down to $329.99 US, a $30 US difference but does offer slightly better performance too. The RX 6700 XT is also down to $319.99 US which is an even better deal if the added features of Ada don't interest you.  Even the RX 7600 is currently going for $249 US which further puts pressure on the RTX 4060. If you are really looking for an RTX 4060, then one that sticks to the MSRP is the best to go for since the overclocked and premium variants don't offer that much of an incentive to buy them.

Furthermore, the Intel Arc A770 16 GB graphics cards now look like a much better deal than ever with performance that compares to the RTX 4060 Ti and coming close to the $300-$330 US range.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 is decent, it's better than the 4060 Ti but it could've been even better if the pricing was $249 US. For gamers who haven't upgraded, if you want the best GPU feature set available today on the Ada Lovelace chips, then the RTX 4060 is worth its mainstream pricing and there are a lot of MSRP options to select from. If those features don't interest you, then you are better off sticking to the RTX 3060 or RX 6600/6700 series until the cards get further discounts after launch.

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