Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB Founders Edition Review – A DLSS 3 and Power Effiency sidegrade

The Ada Lovelace architecture and RTX 40 series exclusive features such as DLSS 3, AV1, and DLSS Frame Generation finally comes to the mainstream market with the launch of the RTX 4060 Ti and RTX 4060 graphics cards. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti is aimed at 1080p high refresh rate gaming set to replace older GTX 10 and RTX 20 series 60-class cards. Moreover, the RTX 4060 Ti has two memory variants, an 8GB variant which is what we’re reviewing today with the Founders Edition card, and a 16GB model that’s set to launch in July. Let’s see how the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB Founders Edition stacks up.

Nvidia Ada Lovelace Architecture

Nvidia continues to double down on its proven and tested formula with the debut of the Nvidia Ada Lovelace architecture featuring 76 Billion Transistors. Nvidia has moved from Samsung 8N to TSMC’s 4N process, resulting in much bigger performance gains and slighter higher pricing as TSMC recently hiked up its prices. The new Ada Lovelace features 3rd Generation RT Cores at 200 RT TFLOPs and 4th Gen Tensor Cores for 1,4000 TFLOPs as well as a new streaming multiprocessor with up to 2x power efficiency. Moreover, Ada Lovelace also brings in new features exclusive to the RTX 40 series graphics card such as DLSS 3, AV1 Encoding, and Shader Execution Reordering.

Shader Execution Reordering

Shader Execution Reodering largely contributes to the performance gains of the RTX 40 series GPUs thanks to the more efficient usage of the shaders. SER is a scheduling system that reorders shading work on-the-fly for better execution efficiency, especially on ray-traced workloads. Think hyperthreading plus thread director but for GPUs particularly the RTX 40 series where the rays are reordered so that the ones that are running on the same program or similar are grouped together resulting in the shader working consistently instead of waiting on each other.

SER is an NVAPI extension meaning that developers would have to enable it on their games. We should expect SER to be heavily and quickly adopted especially in games where there are already Nvidia features enabled such as Reflex, RTX, and DLSS.

Nvidia DLSS 3 + Frame Generation

DLSS 3 uses the 4th Gen Tensor Cores and the Optical Flow Accelerator of the RTX 40 series to improve overall performance using AI-generated frames. In addition to already upscaling existing frames like DLSS 2, DLSS 3 generates intermediate frames in your game aka inserting AI-generated frames to improve performance. The RTX 40 series GPU will analyze two in-game frames and generate an optical flow field, closely looking at all elements in the game and using the information gathered to construct a frame in between. Additionally, DLSS 3 incorporates Nvidia Reflex ultra-low-latency solution making your games way more responsive and providing more frames. Games that support DLSS 3 will automatically support Nvidia Reflex.

DLSS 3 can be used by older Nvidia RTX graphics cards but won’t be able to fully maximize the feature as the biggest improvement of the technology, Frame Generation, is exclusive to the RTX 40 series graphics cards.

GeForce RTX 4060 Family

Nvidia announced three new SKUs for the RTX 4060 series, the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB, RTX 4060 Ti 16GB, and RTX 4060 8GB. Nvidia has seemed to learn its lesson with the RTX 4080 12GB, now RTX 4070 Ti controversy as the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB and 16GB models difference is solely on the VRAM. According to Nvidia, the RTX 4060 Ti is on average 2.6x faster than the RTX 2060 SUPER and up to 1.7x faster than the RTX 3060 Ti GPU on games that have DLSS and DLFG. For titles that don’t have frame generation, the RTX 4060 Ti is up to 1.6x faster than the RTX 2060 SUPER. and 1.15x than the RTX 3060 Ti.

Nvidia’s focus for the RTX 4060 Ti is its L2 Cache as it reduces demands on the GPU’s memory interface, ultimately improving performance and power efficiency. The RTX 4060 Ti’s memory subsystem features 32MB of L2 cache and 8GB or 16GB of ultra-high-speed GDDR6 memory. The RTX 4060 Ti is priced at $399 US or Php 27,530 for the Philippine market.

Nvidia RTX 40 Series Specifications

Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition

Unlike previous RTX 30 series Founders Edition cards, Nvidia has seem to use one uniform packaging for its Founders Edition cards. The Founders Edition Packaging of the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB is similar to the ones we’ve seen on the RTX 4070 FE, RTX 4080 FE, and RTX 4090 FE cards.

The shiny silver highlights on the improved flowthrough cooler of the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB make it a much more stunning card and is by far my personal favorite among the RTX 40 series FE line.

The RTX 4060 Ti text color on the backplate also matches the silver highlights. The black and shiny silver combination makes the RTX 4060 Ti look like a much more premium graphics card.

Nvidia is committed to the new 12VHPWR connector as the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition uses the said connector despite only requiring a TGP of 160 watts. The 12VHPWR adapter only requires one 8PIN PCIE cable.

The RTX 4060 Ti FE’s bright Silver design makes the GeForce RTX etching on the right side more visible compared to the darker gray shade on the RTX 4070 FE. While both FE cards are of the same dimensions with the shade being the main differentiator between the two, the RTX 4060 Ti FE is noticeably lighter than its bigger brother. Compared to the Inno3D RTX 4060 TI Twin X2 that’s also an MSRP card, the 4060 Ti FE is slightly shorter in length.

Ports selection don’t eh RTX 4060 Ti FE is pretty standard with one HDMI 2.1 port and three Display Port 1.4a ports. The bottom part has several cutouts for optimal cooling.

Benchmark Setup and Test Methodology

Gadget Pilipinas’ testing philosophy is to provide detail-oriented results as accurately as possible so that our readers can replicate our tests given that these conditions are met. Different benchmarking apps and sequences are used depending on the component or device being tested.

We use CapFrameX 1.7.1 Beta as our primary FPS capture and analysis tool for all our gaming benchmarks. The latest build version of Windows 11 Pro and WHQL-certified drivers are used for our benchmarks. Readings such as temperatures and power draws are recorded using HWINFO64, and other relevant software for cross-checking.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB Founders Edition Benchmarks

COUNTER-STRIKE: GLOBAL OFFENSIVE

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive aka CSGO is an 11-year-old first-person shooter title that’s still widely popular despite its old Source Engine. CS:GO is a great game to test out CPU performance as the game is heavily CPU-dependent like any other FPS title. Our CS:GO benchmark process uses ULLETICAL’s FPS Benchmark workshop mod to measure the hardware’s performance.

Marvel’s Spider-man: Miles Morales

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony is one of the most popular PC port titles last 2022. Its one of the few modern game titles that support upscaling technologies FSR, DLSS, and XeSS making it a great title to use for benchmarks.

CALL OF DUTY MODERN WARFARE

The latest installment in the Call of Duty franchise is a sequel to the much-loved Modern Warfare game that launched in 2019. Call of Duty Modern Warfare II is one of the most demanding titles to date, pushing the latest hardware from Intel, AMD, and Nvidia. CODMW2 is one of the few games that comes with the DLSS feature without Ray Tracing.

Far Cry 6

FarCry 5 is an FPS game published by Ubisoft and uses the Dunia engine. It heavily relies on and takes advantage of DirectX 11 to render a realistic environment that makes it taxing to both the CPU and GPU. Far Cry 6 is the latest installment in the franchise which utilizes DirectX 12 to run the virtual world of Yara.

Rainbow Six Siege

Rainbow Six Seige is one of the few popular AAA games that’s still popular in 2021 due to its competitive gameplay mechanics. R6S uses the AnvilNext game engine, which the game’s publisher, Ubisoft, developed. As of writing, Rainbow Six Siege is currently the most popular Tom Clancy title beating out Wildlands, Breakpoint, and even Division 2.

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 is arguably the most hyped game of 2020. Developed by CD Projekt Red, the dystopian open-world, action-adventure RPG sports is one of the most demanding titles to date. Cyberpunk 2077 also supports three Ray Tracing settings as well as DLSS which makes the game a great tool to measure Ray tracing performance for both AMD and Nvidia graphics cards.

Shadow of The Tomb Raider

Shadow of The Tomb Raider or SOTR is the latest installment of the Lara Croft Tomb Raider franchise. Developed by Square Enix, SOTR uses the Foundation engine and is further enhanced by Eidos Montreal. SOTR is also one of the first games to come out with Ray Tracing and DLSS support.

Metro Exodus

Metro Exodus is the third Metro game trilogy based on Dmitry Glukhovsky’s novels. The game is a first-person shooter with survival horror and stealth elements. The post-apocalyptic game uses 4A Engine by 4A games. Released last 2019, Metro Exodus remains to be one of the most graphically pleasing and demanding games that’s popular to date.

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is the latest franchise installment from Ubisoft. It’s by far the most popular and stable Assassin’s Creed title since AC IV: Black Flag. It uses the AnvilNext 2.0 game engine, an updated version of Rainbow Six Siege’s game engine, and uses the DirectX 12 API.

F1 22

F1 2020 is the official video game of the 2020 Formula 1 and Formula 2 championships developed by Codemasters. F1 2020 is the twelfth installment in the franchise and uses the Ego Engine 3.0. F1 2020 is a good representation of racing games thanks to its realistic graphics and fairly demanding spec requirements.

HORIZON ZERO DAWN

Horizon Zero Dawn is one of the most popular console-port RPG developed by Guerilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Horizon Zero Dawn is a multi-award-winning action RPG, and its popularity resulted in an exclusive Complete Edition game bundle on Steam.

Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti Ray Tracing & DLSS Benchmarks

Cyberpunk 2077

Marvel’s Spider-man: Miles Morales

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II

F1 22

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Metro Exodus

Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition Temps and Power Draw

The Founders Edition’s flow through cooler works wonders on the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB as its one of the coolest GPUs in our test suite, not to mention its the coolest 2-slot card. Its 160W TGP makes for an outstanding performance per watt especially when compared to the RTX 30 series GPUs so there’s definitely an improvement on the RTX 4060 Ti, just not in what most gamers would hope.

Performance Summary and Conclusion

Like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU, the RTX 4060 Ti suffers the same VRAM issue slash bottleneck albeit in a slightly different way. L2 Cache aside, the RTX 4070’s 12GB GDDR6 VRAM capacity is definitely an “okay” size for up to 1440p gaming, the issue lies on its 192-bit memory bus as it lags behind the RTX 3080 on memory-intensive games. Meanwhile, RTX 4060 Ti’s 8GB VRAM s barely enough in some titles, it’s even crippled by its 128-bit memory bus. This results in the RTX 3060 closing the gap in higher resolutions, particularly in 4K where 8GB VRAM is a definite bottleneck – considering the RTX 4060 Ti is only 20% slower than the RTX 4070 12GB in 4K.

To Nvidia’s defense and credit, the RTX 4060 Ti was never meant to be a high-resolution card as Nvidia positions the RTX 4060 Ti as a viable upgrade option for older 60-class series owners. Additionally, increasing the VRAM would translate to increasing the $399 / Php 27,530 price tag so the L2 Cache direction is somewhat justified albeit confusing and hard to measure for gamers and enthusiasts. That said, its current price makes it compete with the RTX 3070 rather than its direct predecessors. Regardless of whether you’re comparing the RTX 4060 Ti to the 3060, 3060 Ti, 3070, or 3080, the RTX 4060 Ti will have the upper hand when it comes to performance per watt efficiency, and in the latest features such as DLSS 3 and AV1.

Overall, the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB presents a good value for 1080p gaming IF you’re only gaming on 1080p resolution. Its power efficiency and Ada Lovelace-powered features sure is an enticing reason to upgrade if you’re coming from older 60 series graphics cards. Its 160W TGP and 550W minimum PSU requirement is a big factor for gamers rocking older GPUs as they won’t have any additional incurred cost of upgrading the power supply. That said, if you’re using an RTX 3060 and above, this is more of a side grade with the only actual benefits in switching being the lower power consumption and DLSS 3 capabilities of the card, might as well throw in AV1 for extra credit. So, if you want to upgrade your existing GPU for 1080p high refresh rate gaming without paying for anything extra like a larger case or a higher wattage PSU, then the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB is a compelling option. That said, if you’re doing anything aside from gaming such as professional rendering or streaming, then you may want to wait for the 16GB version or go straight for the RTX 4070 instead.

Grant Soriano

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Grant is a Financial Management graduate from UST. His passion for gadgets and tech crossed him over in the industry where he could apply his knowledge as an enthusiast and in-depth analytic skills as a Finance Major. His passion allows him to earn at the same time help Gadget Pilipinas' readers in making smart, value-based decisions and purchases with his reviews and guides.