GeForce RTX 4060 launch review analysis showcases 20% faster performance at 1080p and 67% better efficiency for board vs RTX 3060

NVIDIA released the RTX 4060 on June 29 at an MSRP of US$299. However, just like the reviews of the RTX 4060 Ti, the GPU has been criticized by many tech outlets for not offering a worthwhile generational gain. For instance, Hardware Unboxed titled its RTX 4060 review as “Nvidia clown themselves again” owing to the GPU’s underwhelming performance improvement over the RTX 3060 12 GB and price. Now, 3DCenter has compiled a launch review analysis of the RTX 4060 essentially confirming that, although the card offers more perf/price over the RTX 3060 12 GB, there are better options on the market.

For the uninitiated, the RTX 4060 is based upon the AD107 Lovelace GPU and features 3,072 CUDA cores, 8 GB of GDDR6 memory over a 128-bit wide bus, 24 MB of L2 cache, and a TDP limit of 115 W. As a comparison, aside from only a 3 MB L2 cache, the outgoing RTX 3060 12 GB has 50% more VRAM, a bigger 192-bit wide bus, and 3,584 CUDA cores.

RTX 4060 1080p rasterization and ray tracing performance

Starting with the 1080p rasterization analyses, 3DCenter’s report shows that the RTX 4060 is, on average, 20% faster than the RTX 3060 12 GB, 2.2% ahead of the RX 7600, and 7% more performance than the RX 6650 XT. However, the RTX 4060 appears to be 9% and 18% slower than the RTX 3060 Ti and the RTX 4060 Ti.

Put simply, although the RTX 4060 is convincingly ahead of the RTX 3060 12 GB in rasterization performance at 1080p, the board fails to outperform the RTX 3060 Ti and is only ahead of the RX 7600 by a practically worthless margin of 2.2%.

Moving on to ray tracing performance, the RTX 4060 comfortably leaves the RTX 3060 12 GB and the RX 7600 behind by 20% and a massive 35.6% respectively. The card once again falls behind the RTX 3060 Ti and the RTX 4060 Ti by 9% and 20% respectively.

RTX 4060 power consumption

The RTX 4060's saving grace is the efficiency afforded by the ADA Lovelace architecture which sees the board offer 66.6% more perf/W vs the RTX 3060 12 GB and 31.6% more vs the RX 7600. As expected, the RTX 4060’s perf/W advantage is non-existent compared to the RTX 4060 Ti and the RTX 4070.

Interestingly, the board consumes 124 W on average while gaming which is noticeably more than the 115 W TDP limit according to 3DCenter’s launch review analysis. It remains to be seen whether NVIDIA pushes out an update to address the more-than-advertised power consumption or revises the 115 W target to align with the measured result.

RTX 4060 perf/price

The RTX 4060 offers comparatively better perf/price advantages of 13.6% and 11.11% vs the RTX 3060 12 GB and the RTX 4060 Ti when considering the 1080p rasterization results. However, due to lower pricing, the RTX 3060 Ti, the RX 7600, and the RX 6650 XT represent better value propositions with their perf/price leads of 8%, 5%, and 14% over the RTX 4060 respectively.

Long story short, the RTX 4060 appears to be a pretty underwhelming offering from NVIDIA, as it offers 4 GB less VRAM and a narrower memory bus than the RTX 3060 12 GB that it is meant to replace. Even with its 20% improvements in 1080p performance over the RTX 3060 12 GB, the US$300 MSRP makes the board a tough sell since you can buy similarly performing cards in the RX 7600 and the last-gen RX 6650 XT for considerably less.

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