NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB Review—Not

[btarunr]

NVIDIA today launched the 16 GB version of the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti "Ada" graphics card to no fanfare. Essentially a memory variant of the RTX 4060 Ti with no other changes in the specs sheet, the RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB commands a $100 premium (25%) over the regular RTX 4060 Ti for double the memory size, albeit at the same 128-bit memory bus width, and the same 18 Gbps memory speed. The idea behind the card is that the larger memory should help in scenarios where the 8 GB of memory is found to limit performance. It would've been fun to test this theory if only we had cards to review—we didn't.


NVIDIA's own presentation lists just two games that show gains, and that's probably the best-case.

If you've seen our coverage of the original RTX 4060 Ti or RTX 4060, you'll notice that we've tested 8 to 10 of each on launch day, covering almost every AIC partner. With the RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB, we were ready to repeat this feat, and cleared our calendars for the launch, except nothing came through. We talked to all the partners, and friends in the industry. We learned that neither NVIDIA nor the partners are sampling the RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB. We did try to arrange samples through back-channels, which turned out to be a bust, too, nobody wanted to touch these cards. To prevent those reviewers who could somehow score cards in partnership with retailers, NVIDIA ensured there was no driver available until earlier today. Without drivers, there's no way for anyone to test the card, and it shows—we've scoured the web, and nobody has a review. There should be cards available in retail already, but only listings with "out of stock", "coming soon" have appeared so far. We do intend to buy one off the shelf and test it for you with the first available driver. As of this writing, we cannot find any of these cards in the online retail.



Update 15:16 UTC: We've reached out to several shops here in Germany, they all confirmed that "the embargo expired today at 3 pm", but also mentioned that "the on-shelf availability date is unknown".

Update Jul 19th: First merchants in Germany have received a handful of cards, there's still no stock in UK or USA.

Update Jul 24th: We've bought a RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB in retails and posted our full in-depth review here.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Mr. Perfect]

It would have been an interesting review though. Still looking forward to whenever you get one on hand, even if this doesn't bode well for it.

 

[lemonadesoda]

There are cards available in retail starting now, and we intend to buy one off the shelf and test it for you with the first available driver. As of this writing, we cannot find any of these cards in the online retail.

Looking forward to the review!

Is it possible to take a 4060 Ti 8GB card and cripple it to 4GB, 6GB, 8GB, and make some "interpolations" to make a prediction of 10GB and 12GB performance, for games that need more than 8GB. I'm sure diminishing returns, but would be interesting to see such analysis. It could give a reasonable indicator for 10GB, 12GB needy games, even if the 16GB is too far of a stretch to guesstimate.

 

[AnotherReader]

This is very odd. It's almost as if they don't want to advertise its existence.

 

[Ruru]

So practically they want consumers to just get one without knowing how it performs? What a great way to treat customers.

Oh wait, nvidia doesn't care about customers.

 

[the54thvoid]

Scan (UK) has them on pre-order at £480-£595.

 

[3x0]

Would have been a great opportunity to introduce price cuts for the midrange, but no, not only are there no price cuts, the consumer won't be informed about its performance before purchasing the card.

ASUS ROG-STRIX-RTX4060TI-O16G-GAMING 660 euro
INNO3D GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Twin X2 OC 16GB GDDR6 540 euro

 

[SCP-001]

So practically they want consumers to just get one without knowing how it performs? What a great way to treat customers.

Oh wait, nvidia doesn't care about customers.

Imo I think it has more to do with the backlash nvidia was already getting with the 4060 series than trying to trick the consumer (I'm not saying that wasn't within their vision as well). I'm sure they just don't want to give it the light of day because *they know* it's not worth the $$$ just for another 8gb of VRAM that realistically should've already been on the card in the first place.

 

[wNotyarD]

[...] nobody wanted to touch these cards.

Guess what, we don't as well.

 

[dirtyferret]

you can easily ball park performance for this card

the chip is exactly the same as the 8GB version and it clearly will not offer better performance than the RTX4070

 

[wNotyarD]

you can easily ball park performance for this card

the chip is exactly the same as the 8GB version and it's clearly will not offer better performance than the RTX4070

If anything, it'll have better lows on the scenarios where the 8GB of the base version aren't enough, no changes to the highs.

 

[MicroUnC]

Basically their hope is that people will buy it before reviewers get one.

 

[ZoneDymo]

I dont get any of this at all....

4060Ti comes out with lackluster performance compared to previous gen and only 8gb of vram support which isnt future proof (or even present proof)

So Nvidia in a kneejerk reaction announced a 16gb version....which will be even more insanely overpriced so nobody even wants it.

And now its here and because of the 128bit bus constrained the card can barely make use of the 16 gbs of vram so its pointless...

But they knew that right? they knew this already....so why even bring it out? this is all such odd behavior.

 

[wNotyarD]

But they knew that right? they knew this already....so why even bring it out? this is all such odd behavior.

Possible answers:
1 - to prove AMD marketing wrong when they say vram matters;
2 - to fool those who only see big numbers (including the price tag);
3 - to prove Jensen right on his adage "The more you buy, the more you save".

 

[3x0]

They just wanted to cash in on the whole "8GB isn't enough", charging 100$ for 8GB more on an already anemic memory bus is insane.

 

[Deleted member 185088]

And nothing of value was lost.

 

[Crackong]

We all knew what would happen...

 

[Apart]

It may just be me, but did they literally just color parts of the graph they released with the 4060 Ti 8GB version a different color and call it an improvement? They're literally misleading the consumer with this. The 2060 won't suddenly lose 25% performance because a new card is out lol, unless NVIDIA did something shady with their drivers.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/537678489936199700/1130884921053945957/91516_02_nvidia-confirms-8gb-of-vram-isnt-enough-to-run-some-games-at-1080p-max-settings_full.jpg

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/537678489936199700/1130884921334976572/dhRaj96gV1j4vnUy.jpg

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

If anything, it'll have better lows on the scenarios where the 8GB of the base version aren't enough, no changes to the highs.

Lacking VRAM doesnt just hurt 1% lows. As Techspot showed in their 3070 rebench against the 6800, the average FPS in games where VRAM ran out were often unplayably slow, even at 1080p. Given the 4060ti is about 3070 level, there is no reason to expect the 4060ti to benefit less form the extra VRAM.

This also doesnt bring up other technical issues, such as blurry or missing textures, that plague some games on 8GB cards, these issues do not show up on frame time graphs.

 

[Daven]

So at the sweet spot we have…

A770 16 GB $400
4060 Ti 16 GB $500
7700XT 16 GB $450 (fingers crossed)

 

[wNotyarD]

Lacking VRAM doesnt just hurt 1% lows. As Techspot showed in their 3070 rebench against the 6800, the average FPS in games where VRAM ran out were often unplayably slow, even at 1080p. Given the 4060ti is about 3070 level, there is no reason to expect the 4060ti to benefit less form the extra VRAM.

This also doesnt bring up other technical issues, such as blurry or missing textures, that plague some games on 8GB cards, these issues do not show up on frame time graphs.

Well, averages correlate to both the highs and the lows, so it makes sense a bad experience becoming smoother when the lows are made higher. A modded 3070 with 16GB as tested somewhere, however, has something the 4060Ti can't catch even riding a cab: memory bandwidth.
Agree on texture pop-ups, though. This should and probably will be made better with just a larger buffer.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Scan (UK) has them on pre-order at £480-£595.

Wow that's ridiculous.

As is the OP, shame on your BS ass Nvidia.

I salute you right back Huang ,, ##@£ right off.

 

[WorringlyIndifferent]

It may just be me, but did they literally just color parts of the graph they released with the 4060 Ti 8GB version a different color and call it an improvement? They're literally misleading the consumer with this. The 2060 won't suddenly lose 25% performance because a new card is out lol, unless NVIDIA did something shady with their drivers.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/537678489936199700/1130884921053945957/91516_02_nvidia-confirms-8gb-of-vram-isnt-enough-to-run-some-games-at-1080p-max-settings_full.jpg

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/537678489936199700/1130884921334976572/dhRaj96gV1j4vnUy.jpg

lmao they literally did

 

[Hattu]

Nice to live in Finland... 460€ for 4060 TI 8GB, 580€ for 16GB... And those prices were the cheapest... 560€ and 680€ being the most expensive models atm...

It's not "a bad GPU", just the price... Like all of them rn. I still have my 2060/6GB( paid 400€ a few years back, between crypto-crazes), although my rig is not working atm and I don't game. Another story.

 

[Chrispy_]

IMO Nvidia are just embarassed about the whole thing.

It was a knee-jerk reaction to reviewers and customers destroying Nvidia for the 4060 Ti's lack of VRAM. The problem with the 4060 Ti's performance isn't just a lack of VRAM though, it's the lack of bandwidth to feed that VRAM.

Look at the 3060 Ti which also has just 8GB VRAM - Its performance doesn't nosedive as badly as the 4060 Ti does when approaching or exceeding the VRAM buffer, because it's on a 256-bit bus with twice the bandwidth and can do the undesirable data juggling twice as fast. Both cards stutter where 12GB cards don't, but the stuttering on an 8GB 3060 Ti or 3070 is smaller, less intrusive frametime spikes and it settles down faster too.

Should the 4060Ti get more VRAM? Absolutely - but it should also have had either more bandwidth or a much better/bigger cache than the wholly inadequate one Nvidia gave it. They totally failed to disguise or even vaguely camouflage the crippling bandwidth shortage - and that's not something I remember happening to RDNA2 cards when they introduced infinitycache.