Last Thursday, NVIDIA announced the arrival of three new graphics cards built around ADA Lovelace. We were able to discover the RTX 4060 Ti which will be available in an 8 GB and 16 GB version as well as the RTX 4060. For the 16 GB model and the RTX 4060, we will have to wait until July, while the 8 GB RTX 4060 Ti will be officially launched tomorrow 24 May. Today we will be testing the NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti 8GB Founders Edition and tomorrow, a partner card from MSI. Please note that the two cards expected for July will not be available in Founders Edition.
In addition to our usual tests, we will try to answer the question of whether the 8 GB of memory is sufficient or not, as well as the impact of the increased L2 cache. As for the price of the Founders Edition, it is announced at $399 as was the case for the launch of the RTX 3060 Ti 8 GB and RTX 2060 Super 8 GB. We should be looking at a price of 439 euros in France with most likely partner models at the same MSRP. Finally, to conclude this introduction, you should know that this model is primarily intended for 1080p definition in order to enjoy a minimum of 100 FPS.
We took the opportunity of this article to redo all our tests in 1080p and 1440p with the latest drivers available from NVIDIA, AMD and Intel. As you can see in our test protocol, all our graphics have just been updated!
Thank you to NVIDIA for making the sample of this RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB Founders Edition available.
[nextpage title=”NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB Founders Edition: “]
Architecture:
As a reminder, the “Founders Edition” series cards are unique models offered by NVIDIA. The main advantage of these cards is that they are offered at a “locked-in” price that will not change in the coming weeks or months unless the price is lowered. The NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti 8GB Founders Edition is priced at €439 on the NVIDIA website. NVIDIA’s partners will also offer their own model, but at a higher price, even if NVIDIA also announces cards at MSRP! Visually, NVIDIA has kept a similar design to the previous cards with a 2 slot width with very interesting proportions as it will easily fit in any case.
This RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB features an AD106-350 GPU with 3452 CUDA cores, 2436 cores less than the RTX 4070 4nm manufacturing process from TSMC and not the 8nm process by Samsung, which brings the TGP down to only 160 watts.
On the memory side, there is 8 GB of 128-bit GDDR6X memory, which translates into 288 GB/s of bandwidth. This is a subject that was the subject of much discussion at the official launch, as the RTX 3060 Ti had 12 GB of memory and a 256-bit bus (448 GB/s) and the RTX 2060 Super had 8 GB with a 192-bit bus (448 GB/s). This means that we are virtually left with an RTX 4060 Ti with less bandwidth. But NVIDIA assures us that the bandwidth actually reaches 554 GB/s thanks to the increase of the L2 cache to 32 MB.
For our part, we can only really judge during our tests, because although there is a formula for calculating the bandwidth of a graphics card, we do not have one for this new case. We have therefore taken note of the data proposed by NVIDIA and our tests will have the last word.
The bundle of this Founders Edition :
So what do we find in this imposing box? As usual, NVIDIA has taken particular care with the packaging of its card by proposing a cardboard box where the RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB FE is hidden. It’s always very exciting to discover the new packaging proposed by NVIDIA when a new generation arrives.
The box is simply huge with dimensions of 395 x 195 x 192 mm.
The box opens from the front to reveal the RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition. Once this is removed, a small box is found which contains the adapter for the card’s power supply.
The bundle contains a 16-pin (12 + 4) to a single 8-pin 150W adapter. This adapter is necessary for those who do not have a power supply with a 16-pin port or their own power supply adapter.
NVIDIA is the only supplier of the adapter and therefore supplies it to its partners. We have also received the 12 + 4 pin connector from Corsair as well as the one offered by be quiet! which feeds directly into the power supply.
The cooling :
NVIDIA has retained the proven cooling principle of the previous generation. The fans are 92mm models that keep the heat sink in contact with the graphics chip and the various components on the PCB cool. The black fans have 7 blades and will remain idle when the card is not in use and the temperature remains below 35°C. Personally, this is a very interesting and all-purpose format, while the finish of the card has nothing to envy to NVIDIA’s partner brands.
As with the RTX 3060 Ti, the outer casing has been changed from the anthracite colour of the RTX 4070 to a light grey. This is to make it easier to distinguish the two models. Our RTX 4060 Ti can be seen here placed between the RTX 3060 Ti and the RTX 3070. Even though it is slightly wider, the proportions are almost identical.
The goal is, as with any cooling system, to keep the GPU cool while producing the least noticeable noise. NVIDIA therefore had the idea of using two fans but placed on either side of the graphics card. The one on the left draws air into your case and then expels it from the back of the card.
The other fan, located on the right, also draws air from your case to dissipate the heat from the steam chamber before being expelled in the upper position, still within your case. Needless to say, you’ll need to get the air flowing inside your case if you want to keep your components cool.
Connections :
To power the card, we find the new 16-pin mini-connectors. As mentioned above, NVIDIA provides an adapter in its bundle to connect an 8-pin connector.
The card has three DisplayPort 1.4 video outputs and one HDMI 2.1 port.
[nextpage title=”Specifications and PCB:”]
Technical specifications:
In terms of frequency, the base frequency is announced at 2310 MHz while the Boost is at 2535 MHz. The 8 GB of G-DDR6X memory runs at 2250 MHz (288… 554 GB/s) on a 128 bit bus. Since this is the reference card offered by NVIDIA, the frequencies are also reference frequencies. We can therefore compare them with partner cards to see if they benefit from factory overclocking.
A quick look at GPU-Z to check that the information read is correct. The GPU frequency is 2310 MHz, and the Boost frequency is 2535 MHz. Don’t forget that the latter will be higher during benchmarks depending on the quality of your chip and determined by GPU Boost 4.0. The memory has a frequency of 2250 MHz.
Let’s unpack the PCB:
As we hinted to you, we did not disassemble our RTX 4060 Ti at the moment. The process is quite long and the timing for the test publication did not allow us to do it in good conditions especially with the update of our entire graphics.
[nextpage title=”New technological innovations: “]
A new generation automatically means a lot of technological innovations and this RTX 4060 Ti, like its big sisters, the RTX 4090, 4080, 4070 Ti and 4070, is no exception to the rule. We will try to mention the most important ones in this more theoretical page.
New Ada Lovelace architecture :
On September 21st at 5pm, NVIDIA unveiled part of its future range of graphics cards built around the “ADA Lovelace” architecture. Technically, this chip is out of the ordinary with its 76 billion transistors, its N4 engraving by TSMC, its Shader Execution Reordering, its 90 TFLOPS, its 200 RT TFLOPS, its 1400 Tensor TFLOPS and a maximum of 18432 CUDA Cores in a single GPU. That’s quite impressive compared to the previous generation Ampere.
The chip is organized into 12 Graphics Processing Clusters (GPCs) each containing 72 Texture Processing Clusters (TPCs) with 144 Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs). The Streaming Multiprocessors benefit from a new technology called Shader Execution Reordering (SER) which allows Ray Tracing operations to be multiplied by two. It is also worth noting that the RTX 4090 chip has been amputated, perhaps allowing for a future RTX 4090 Ti to be introduced.
The new RTXs also come with 4th generation Tensor Cores, which will be useful for DLSS and DLSS 3 AI, and 3rd generation RT Cores, which will double the performance of Ray Tracing. In addition to the generation evolution, the number of cores also increases compared to the previous generation depending on the model.
By the way, here is a comparison table to judge the differences between these cards.
DLSS 3 is coming and is already operational:
One of the announcements of NVIDIA during its conference is the arrival of DLSS 3. However, this is only compatible with the RTX 4000. Owners of a previous generation card will be happy with DLSS 2, which NVIDIA will continue to develop in the coming months.
As a reminder, until now, the principle of DLSS (Deep learning super sampling) was to allow a gain in terms of FPS by replacing the TAA antialiasing. The idea is to calculate the rendering in a lower definition than that chosen in the parameters and then to replay it in the said definition using an AI applied via the Tensor Core while keeping the most perfect image quality possible.
Today, with the arrival of DLSS 3, things are changing even though the fundamental principle of increasing FPS is still the main reason. What’s new is that DLSS 3 allows you to add whole intermediate frames instead of pixels. This increases the number of frames per second and consequently the fluidity. To achieve this, DLSS3 uses an optical flow accelerator integrated into the new RTX 4000 architecture. This is why previous generations that do not have this will not be able to benefit from DLSS 3. We will therefore have to be careful during our tests and compare what is comparable because yes, of course DLSS 3 will be more powerful but it is difficult to judge it on the Ampere generation which does not support it.
Even if the main function is to increase the number of FPS, NVIDIA also reminds us of the importance of latency. We had already dealt with this subject when we spoke to you about Reflex. To sum up simply, the principle is to reduce latency as much as possible in games, i.e. the time that elapses between the moment you click on your mouse button and its manifestation on the screen. In order to be able to carry out all the readings, a compatible mouse will be necessary.
NVIDIA’s latest developments could well turn the world of e-sports upside down as we could see 1440p 27″ displays replacing the current 1080p 25″ displays. Finally, NVIDIA has already announced over 35 games that are compatible and ready to use DLSS 3. We will of course be adding games that support DLSS 3 to our tests. Of course DLSS 3 games are backwards compatible with DLSS 2 technology.
AV1 hardware compression:
NVIDIA is now integrating its 8th generation NVENC encoder with AV1 which is 40% more efficient than H.264. The arrival of AV1 will be very useful especially for streaming.
[nextpage title=”The test setup: “]
As we said in the introduction, we are (again) busy updating all our graphics using the latest drivers from NVIDIA, AMD and of course INTEL. We also took the opportunity to slightly modify our test configuration. So here we go again for a new series of tests and therefore of graphics on this slightly modified configuration:
- Motherboard: ROG Maximus Z690 APEX
- Processor: Intel Alder Lake i9-12900K
- Memory : 32 GB Corsair Vengeance 5200 CL38 DDR5
- Graphics Card : NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti FE
- Cooling system : ROG Ryujin II 360 from Asus
- SSD : Western Digital Black SN750 2 TB + EKWB radiator
- Power supply: Corsair AX1600i + 12VHPWR 600W adapter
- Operating system: Windows 11 64 bits
For this test we used a high-end configuration with an i9-12900K processor and DDR5. The use of a 144 Hz 4K display is also a prerequisite. For our tests we use the ROG PG27UQ.
As we said in the introduction of this article, all our tests have been redone in the last few days with all our cards and with the latest drivers available!
The drivers used are the latest for each manufacturer, with NVIDIA 531.93, on the AMD side the Adrenalin-Edition-23.10.01.16 and finally for the two ARC models from Intel, the 31.0.101.4369.
Our test protocol :
All cards are tested at stock frequencies and without any optimization. For the various benchmarks, both synthetics and games, we will opt for 1080p, 1440p and 2160p resolutions depending on the card’s performance. Here, with this model, we will use 1080p and 1440p for Rasterisation and 1080p for Ray Tracing.
As you can see, we are now running Windows 11 and we have enabled the ” ReSize BAR ” in the BIOS, which is visible in GPU-Z. Now that you know everything about our test setup, it’s time to start!
[nextpage title=”Synthetic benchmarks: “]
Our first series of tests will be dedicated to synthetic benchmarks. These are often used for overclocking competitions but are also very interesting to compare different GPUs. We will therefore focus on benchmarks from the 3DMark series.
We will test the following benchmarks:
- Fire Strike (1080p)
- Fire Strike Ultra (2160p)
- Time Spy (1440p)
- Time Spy Extreme (2160p)
- 3DMark Speed Way
- DirectX Raytracing
- Intel XeSS
- Mesh Shader
- 3DMark DLSS Feature Test (2160p)
3DMark Fire Strike and Fire Strike Ultra :
Let’s start with 3DMark Fire Strike, which is one of the most used benchmarks today. It consists of two graphics tests, a CPU test and a fourth test that combines GPU and CPU. Don’t forget to deactivate the demo which doesn’t add anything to the final score and prolongs the benchmark(unnecessarily). The version used for these tests is of course the latest one.
The first benchmark we run with this NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition and the least we can say is that it is actually where we expected it to be, behind the RTX 3070 and ahead of the RTX 3060 Ti. It scores 31885 points here.
Under Fire Strike Ultra, we encountered a “problem” as our score is lower than the RTX 3060 Ti. Despite several rounds of testing, this score does not vary. We will try to identify the problem.
3DMark Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme :
The second test is 3DMark Time Spy. Although this one is done in 1440p, it is especially special because it uses DirectX 12. It consists of two graphics tests and a CPU test. As with Fire Strike, don’t forget to disable the demo. These first two benchmarks are provided by UL Benchmark.
The performance we get in Time Spy is often representative of what we will get in games. Here, our sample of the day is on par with the RTX 3070, which should give us an indication of gaming performance close to the RTX 3070.
Under 3DMark Time Spy Extreme, we get an excellent score of 6,594 points, which represents a performance gain of 9.6% compared to the RTX 3060 Ti FE.
3DMark Speed Way
This is the latest benchmark from Ulbenchmark and it’s nice to be able to say that we’re going to have a good time on this Speed Way. It uses DirectX 12 and is by default in a 1440p definition. We have not modified anything and we use the original benchmark.
Here too our RTX 4060 Ti FE scores 3222 points. When encoding our graphs we realised that we were missing the results of the previous generation. We will update this graph in the next few hours.
3DMark DirectX Raytracing :
UL Benchmarks has added a new test to its series of benchmarks for measuring Ray Tracing performance. The idea will be to use the 3DMark DirectX Ray Tracing test to compare the performance of dedicated Ray Tracing hardware to graphics cards from AMD and NVIDIA but now also Intel!
The 3DMark DirectX Ray Tracing test is designed to make Ray Tracing the limiting factor. Instead of relying on traditional rendering, the entire scene is traced and drawn in a single pass. The test result will depend entirely on the performance of the Ray Tracing. This makes it easy to measure and compare the performance of different cards against each other.
This benchmark has always been dominated by NVIDIA cards and today’s sample is no exception with a score of 38 FPS. It is the addition of the CUDA cores and the increase in frequency that has a huge impact on the performance gain over the previous generation.
3DMark Intel XeSS
UL Benchmarks in collaboration with Intel will add this new benchmark to the 3DMark suite. We have been given early access to this new test for our testing. This Intel XeSS test is designed to evaluate and compare the performance and image quality of XeSS (Xe Super Sampling). There are four XeSS modes to choose from: Ultra Quality, Quality, Balanced and Performance. The 3DMark inspection tool helps you compare image quality with a side-by-side view of XeSS rendering and native resolution rendering. You need a graphics card that supports Intel XeSS to run this test.
So we’ll have two scores, a FPS number with XeSS disabled and then, on the right, with XeSS enabled. The mode chosen is “Ultra Quality” which is actually the default mode for the benchmark.
In this new benchmark, all graphics cards without exception benefit from XeSS, but it is Intel that reaps the greatest gain. ARC models see a gain of 50%, while NVIDIA and AMD models see a gain of around 30-35%.
3DMark DLSS Feature Test:
We had not kept this benchmark since it only concerns DLSS compatible cards and was therefore not useful for our comparative tests. Here, we have retested it since it officially supports DLSS 3 since the end of the NDA on the RTX 4090.
So we’re going to run a 2160p benchmark with DLSS disabled first, then with DLSS 2 performance and finally with DLSS 3 performance.
Our NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition scores 16.6 FPS without DLSS, then 47 FPS (+183%) with DLSS 2 enabled. DLSS 3 still provides a 68% gain over DLSS 2, so we can see how much of an improvement DLSS 3 has made in the gaming world
Well, as we conclude this first series of synthetic tests, we are right in the middle of the expected performance. We are behind, but very close to the RTX 3070 but with 8 to 10% better performance than the RTX 3060 Ti. We should have excellent performance in 1080p and 1440p in rasterization.
[nextpage title=”Gaming performance 1080p and 1440p: “]
We decided to select six games because they seem to be representative enough. We opted for DirectX12 and Vulkan with the following games:
- The Division 2 (DirectX 12)
- Borderlands 3 (DirectX 12)
- Red Dead Redemption II (Vulkan)
- Far Cry 6 (DirectX 12)
- Watch Dogs: Legion (DirectX 12)
- Cyberpunk 2077 (DirectX12)
We have chosen to use the benchmarks integrated into these different games.
Why do we do this? Simply to allow you to compare your results with ours if you also have a copy of one of these games. It is a thought that seemed relevant to us and that will allow you to compare your results with ours.
As we mentioned on page 4 of this article, we have enabled the Resizable Bar in the BIOS, which is now supported by all (recent) GPUs. Finally, we have opted for 1080p and 1440p resolution only, which is what you should expect from these cards.
The Division 2:
The Division 2 will be tested under DirectX 12. As far as graphics settings are concerned, they will be set to ” ultra ” mode with vertical sync disabled.
The first game and the trend noted for the synthetic benchmarks is confirmed since our NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti is positioned just ahead of the RTX 3060 Ti and not far from the RTX 3070. Note that this is one of the least demanding games in our panel. No difference in 1440p definition where the positions are still identical.
Borderlands 3:
For the second game, we switch to Borderlands 3. The graphics options are set to ” Brutal “. Borderlands 3 is quite greedy and this choice of settings has a strong impact on the FPS. It is a game that is often praised in announcements of new graphics cards and precisely in this Brutal mode.
The performance here is excellent with our RTX 4060 Ti FE almost matching the RTX 3070 FE in both 1080p and 1440p.
Red Dead Redemption 2:
Third game and not the least, Red Dead Redemption II on PC. The advantage of this opus is to offer the possibility to test the integrated benchmark under Vulkan. We opt for the graphics options in ” ultra “.
The third and not least important game, RDR2, offers the possibility to test the integrated Vulkan benchmark. The increase in power is confirmed once again with a very small difference in 1080p with the RTX 3070 FE. We are looking at a gain of 8 to 10% depending on the definition compared to the RTX 3060 Ti.
Far Cry 6 :
The latest game we are adding to this section is Far Cry 6, as it supports DXR as well as the SFR offered by AMD. We will also find it on the next page. For our benchmarks, we opted for ” ultra” graphics quality.
Even though our review of this game showed an advantage for the RX 6000 cards, our sample of the day still performs just as well. In 1080p, it’s a FPS equivalent to the RTX 3070 and in 1440p, our RTX 4060 Ti FE is between the two previous generation cards.
Watch Dogs Legion:
Last but not least, Watch Dogs Legion will also be used for our tests with Ray Tracing. For our benchmarks, we opted for ” very high” graphics quality.
In the Watch Dogs Legion benchmark, we are forced to set the graphics quality to very high and not to ultra, as the benchmark then tells us that the 8 GB of memory is not enough. Our RTX 4060 Ti stands out especially in 1440p, where once again it is almost on a par with the RTX 3070 FE.
Cyberpunk 2077:
This is a game we have been wanting to add for a while and now it has been added with an integrated benchmark. We will also use this game for our Ray Tracing tests. For our benchmarks, we have opted for “ultra” graphics quality.
This is the new and final benchmark for this panel of games. The 100 FPS mark is reached in 1080p and the 60 FPS mark in 1440p with ultra high quality graphics. For the rest of the graphics, we are perfectly consistent with our previous results.
The average of the games :
For the gaming average, the RTX 3060 is the reference card in 1080p while the RTX 3070 is the reference card in 1440p. The other cards score either higher or lower depending on their performance against this model.
No real surprise compared to the figures we received from NVIDIA. Our RTX 4060 Ti FE performs 10% better overall than the previous generation and finally 3% better than the RTX 3070 FE in 1080p. The same is true for 1440p, although the RTX 3070 FE manages to create a slightly larger gap. Let’s move on to Ray Tracing.
[nextpage title=”Ray tracing and DLSS/FSR performance:”]
Let’s now deal with the seven games we have selected that support Ray Tracing as well as DLSS and for some of them AMD’s FSR as well as Intel’s new XeSS technology that is supported by Shadow Tomb Raider and Hitman 3. As we have already reminded you, while DLSS remains the property of NVIDIA, FSR and XeSS can be used with all cards from AMD, Intel and even NVIDIA.
The seven DirectX 12 games we will be testing with Ray Tracing and DLSS, FSR or XeSS are :
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DLSS)
- Watch Dogs: Legion (DLSS)
- Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DLSS)
- Far Cry 6 (DLSS – FSR)
- Cyberpunk 2077 (DLSS 3 – FSR)
- Hitman 3 (DLSS 3 – XeSS)
- Forza Horizon 5 (DLSS 3)
No change for this new series of games as we stay in 1080p definition. Depending on the card, we will use DLSS for NVIDIA and either FSR or XeSS for AMD models. If FSR is not available in a game, then we will use XeSS on our AMD card.
DLSS 3: watch out for our results!
As you know, NVIDIA unveiled DLSS 3 when the RTX 4000 graphics cards were introduced, and in particular for the launch of the RTX 4090 version. So why the warning? Because NVIDIA now offers DLSS3 support on many games but it is only supported on the RTX 4000. To put it simply, if we test a game that benefits from DLSS 3, our RTX 4060 Ti will benefit from it but an RTX 30xx will make do with DLSS 2, resulting in even bigger gaps.
We currently have three games that support DLSS 3 and will be increasing this number in the coming weeks. It has taken us a long time to upgrade all our graphics to 1080p and 1440p. You can find the list of supported games by following this link.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider:
First which we are adding to this comparison and which supports Ray Tracing and DLSS 2.0. Three levels of Ray Tracing are offered in the game (medium – high – ultra) and the four levels of DLSS (performance – quality – balanced – ultra performance).
For our benchmarks, we opted for ” very high ” graphics quality, ” ultra ” Ray Tracing and ” balanced ” DLSS.
With Ray Tracing activated in ultra, an average of 128 FPS is already achieved. With DLSS 2.3, our average is 163 FPS, which means that it’s no problem to enjoy 1080p with Ray Tracing enabled. In this first game, our RTX 4060 Ti managed to outperform the RTX 3070 FE!
Shadow Of The Tomb Raider has XeSS implemented, which allows AMD cards to benefit from this technology. You can still judge the difference in performance between the two technologies.
Watch Dogs Legion:
Second game, Watch Dogs Legion supports Ray Tracing and DLSS 2.0. It is one of the most demanding games of the moment. Three levels of Ray Tracing are offered in the game (medium – high – ultra) and four levels of DLSS (performance – quality – balanced – ultra performance).
For our benchmarks, we opted for very high graphics quality, ‘ high ‘ Ray Tracing and ‘ balanced ‘ DLSS.
The Ray Tracing in Watch Dogs Legion is starting to take its toll on the cards, but our sample of the day is doing quite well, averaging 76 FPS. Enabling DLSS 2 will boost the FPS to an average of 97 frames per second. Once again, our sample of the day is on par with the RTX 3070 FE!
Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition:
Third game and supports DLSS 2.0. Three levels of Ray Tracing are offered in the game and four levels of DLSS (performance – quality – balanced – ultra performance).
For our benchmarks, we opted for ultra graphics quality, ” ultra ” Ray Tracing and DLSS in ” balanced ” mode.
We continue with the demanding games and it is only our RTX 4060 Ti that again takes the lead over the RTX 3070 with an average of 73 FPS. The DLSS in “balanced” mode allows a gain of almost 51%.
Far Cry 6:
Far Cry 6 supports DXR as well as the FSR proposed by AMD but not DLSS.
For our benchmarks, we opted for Ultra graphics quality, we enabled both DRX options as well as FSR in ” balanced ” mode.
In Far Cry 6, FSR is the only choice available to boost FPS after enabling Ray Tracing. All our cards can benefit from this, regardless of the manufacturer. Nothing really changes in the hierarchy with the RTX 4060 Ti still on par with the RTX 3070.
Cyberpunk 2077:
New game we added that offers in its settings the activation of DLSS but also FSR. Note that this is the first game to enable DLSS3 for RTX 40xx graphics cards.
For our benchmarks, we opted for “high” graphics quality, “medium” Ray Tracing and ” balanced ” DLSS/FSR.
This is the most demanding game where our cards have a hard time keeping up. Here, an average of 57 FPS is obtained. The DLSS 3, which we mentioned at the beginning of the page, offers a very significant gain as you can see on our graph. The gain brought by DLSS2 to the RTX 3070 is 67% while with DLSS3, our RTX 460 Ti benefits from a 154% gain!
Hitman 3:
Hitman 3 now supports DLSS, FSR and XeSS technology. Depending on the card model under test, we choose one of these three technologies.
For our benchmarks, we opted for “high” graphics quality, ” enabled ” Ray Tracing and ” balanced ” DLSS/XeSS.
We found a situation that is already common with our RTX 4060 Ti at the level of the RTX 3070. Although we support DLSS 3, we could not judge a more important gap with the use of our RTX 4060 Ti since the DLSS3 option remains greyed out whereas our game is perfectly up to date. We will try to understand where the problem comes from.
Forza Horizon 5:
The latest game to be added to our panel as it is now DLSS 3 compatible. For our benchmarks, we opted for ” extreme ” graphics quality, ” extreme ” Ray Tracing and ” balanced ” DLSS/Xess.
This new game, which also supports DLSS 3, shows its potential. With Ray Tracing enabled, our RTX 4060 Ti is in second place, but with DLSS 3 enabled, the clear advantage goes to our sample of the day with a 24% gain compared to 6.7% for the RTX 3070.
So Ray Tracing with the RTX 4060 Ti:
In our seven games tested, our RTX 4060 Ti had no problems and apart from Cyberpunk 2077, the average was always above 60 FPS. The good news is that when we use Ray Tracing, the RTX 4060 Ti often performs as well as the RTX 3070. We were also able to judge the undeniable value of DLSS3. When the hardware launches have calmed down a bit, we’ll come back to the DLSS3 in detail with comparative videos and photos.
[nextpage title=”Temperature, power consumption and nuisance: “]
Temperature :
In order to measure the temperatures, we opted for the Superposition stress test in Extreme mode. We opted for three 5-minute runs with a 10-minute interval between each test. We took advantage of this benchmark to record the power consumption of the graphics card for the table above.
In order to know the temperature in Idle, after completing the three loops of the stress test, we let the card rest for 20 minutes before reading the temperature. It should be noted that most cards have “0 dBa” technology and therefore the fans cut out below a certain temperature, often between 50 and 55°C. This means that it takes longer to dissipate the heat after a period of stress testing or gaming. A card that does not have this technology will be noisier than others at rest. A reminder: our temperature readings are taken in Open-Air. In a closed case, the cards will necessarily be hotter.
As we expected, the temperatures are excellent thanks to the proven cooling system. This cooling should allow us to take advantage of the overclocking potential, but also to reduce the noise considerably. The fans of our NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition remain idle when temperatures are cool.
Power consumption (whole configuration) :
We use a wattmeter by reading the power consumption on the output of our power supply. Our modular power supply is a CORSAIR AX1600i. The result we propose is the average of the total consumption of our configuration. Only the graphics card changes between each reading. It is therefore easy to calculate the difference between each graphics card.
We suspected it, but it was a great surprise when it came to the overall power consumption of our configuration equipped with our NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition, since the average power consumption of our PC was 233.1 watts. Please note that the benchmark we used only applies to the GPU. For gaming use, the overall power consumption of our configuration will be higher, but this is the case with all our graphics cards.
This result confirms the work carried out by NVIDIA and is related to the new fineness of engraving. Our RTX 4060 Ti does almost as well as the RX 6600, the card that consumes the least power in our graphics! As soon as we get our hands on the PCAT tool or the new version of the ElmorLabs PMD Power Measurement Device that supports 12+4 pins, we will update this chart by isolating only the graphics card.
[nextpage title=”The last word: “]
Now it’s time to give you our impressions of this Founders Edition RTX 4060 Ti. In terms of raw performance, this new GPU logically does better than its equivalent of the previous generation with an average of 10% but also comes very close to the RTX 3070. Even if its preferred definition will remain 1080p, you won’t have any problems with 1440p.
As soon as we turn on Ray Tracing in 1080p, performance is as good as ever, if not better, as we are on a par with the RTX 3070. DLSS is still as effective as ever, and DLSS3 compatibility allows for a very significant increase in FPS, as our results in Cyberpunk 2077 show.
So, is 8 GB enough now?
Even though we don’t have recent games like Hogwarts Legacy in our test panel yet, we haven’t encountered any problems overall except with Watch Dogs Legion, which warns us if we turn the game’s graphics quality up to ultra. Currently, you shouldn’t encounter any issues, but it’s hard to say what will happen in the years to come. Now, let’s not lie to ourselves, everyone knows that the next generation cards will be even more powerful, but if we stay with that, you will never buy a new GPU.
But who can this card be aimed at? Personally, we think that gamers who still have a previous generation card, such as the RTX 3060 Ti with 8 GB of RAM, will not be particularly interested in this model unless they are looking for DLSS3. On the other hand, those who own a Turing card, such as the RTX 2060 Super, may see a much more interesting upgrade. The second-hand market and the low prices currently offered by AMD do not simplify the choice of a potential buyer either.
And the future 16 GB model?
We’ll also see what to make of the 16GB RTX 4060 Ti in a few weeks’ time, as it may raise doubts in the minds of some potential buyers as to why the top model, the RTX 4070, only has 12GB. We’ll be back this week with more details on the technical reasons for this choice. But the good news is that the 16 GB model will remain identical in all respects to the 8 GB version, which was not always the case in the previous generation.
Finally, as far as the MSRP of $399 (439 euros) is concerned, it seems coherent to us knowing that the RTX 3060 Ti 8 GB and RTX 2060 Super 8 GB were launched at the same price. We are fully aware that the fineness of the engraving is more expensive and that all computer components have seen their price increase in recent months. However, we would have liked to see a slightly lower price than the RTX 3060 Ti. However, let’s not forget the power consumption, which is significantly lower than the previous generation, and the DLSS3 support.
NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB :
We liked:
- A card to take full advantage of 1080p and 1440p in rasterization
- Performance equivalent to the RTX 3070 in Ray Tracing
- A very well thought-out power supply with quality components
- Excellent cooling system combined with low noise levels
- Very reliable noise levels
- Power consumption has improved significantly!
- The quality of the Founders Edition design
- Price consistent with the previous generation
- DLSS 3 support and more and more compatible games
- NVIDIA software suite
We would have liked :
- Even if the price seems coherent to us, to have a model under the 400 euro mark
- A 16 GB version to be released at the same time
This NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB fulfils its objectives perfectly by offering better performance than the previous generation. Admittedly, the gain is only 10% but the power consumption is excellent and the DLSS3 support is also a major asset. However, we would have liked to see it priced below 400 euros and have the opportunity to test the 16 GB model at the same time. We’re also looking forward to the RTX 4060 coming in July at an even more affordable price. Thanks to NVIDIA for making this sample available.