Today NVIDIA is launching the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB, which was announced just last week, as part of the GeForce 4060 family. Besides the $400 RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB, there will be a 16 GB version ($500) and the RTX 4060 non-Ti 8 GB ($300), which both launch in July.

For the RTX 4060 Ti, NVIDIA is using the same review mechanics as during the RTX 4070 launch. Reviews of the Founders Edition and other cards at MSRP may be published today, reviews for cards costing more than $400 can only go live tomorrow. While for RTX 4070 there was plenty of review action around the MSRP price point, it seems that board partners would rather wait a day than have their most affordable 4060 Ti cards reviewed.

GeForce RTX 4060 Ti is based on the NVIDIA AD106 graphics processor, which also powers several laptop GPU models—for desktop it's the first release. RTX 4070 non-Ti and RTX 4070 Ti are both based on AD104. As expected, RTX 4060 uses the NVIDIA Ada architecture, which not only brings improvements to efficiency and ray tracing, it also comes with the DLSS 3 Frame Generation feature, which is a game changer, especially in the lower-end segments, where reaching decent FPS matters more than anything else.

Averaged over the 25 games in our test suite, at 1080p resolution, the RTX 4060 Ti is able to match last-generation's RTX 3070 and the older RTX 2080 Ti. The gen-over-gen performance improvement is only 12%, which is much less than what we've seen on the higher-end GeForce 40 cards. Compared to AMD's offerings, the RTX 4060 Ti can beat the RX 6700 XT by 8%, even though that card has 12 GB VRAM. The Radeon RX 6600 XT, Red Team's "x60" offering, is even 37% behind. With these performance numbers, the RTX 4060 Ti can easily reach over 60 FPS in all but the most demanding games at 1080p with maximized settings. Actually, the RTX 4060 Ti will capably run many games at 1440p, too, especially if you're willing to lower a few settings here and there.

As expected, ray tracing performance of RTX 4060 Ti is clearly better than its AMD counterparts. With RT enabled, the RTX 4060 Ti matches the Radeon RX 6800 XT, which is roughly two tiers above it. AMD's Radeon RX 6700 XT is a whopping 30% slower. Still, I'm not sure if ray tracing really matters in this segment. The technology comes with a big performance hit that I find difficult to justify, especially when you're already fighting to stay above 60 FPS in heated battles.

Probably the most important selling point for the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti is support for DLSS 3 Frame Generation. The algorithm takes two frames, measures how things have moved in those two frames and calculates an intermediate frame in which these things moved only half the distance. While this approach is definitely not problem-free, especially when pixel-peeping at stills or slowed down video, in real-time it's nearly impossible to notice any difference. As you run at higher FPS and resolution it becomes even more difficult, because the deltas between each frame are getting smaller and smaller. Being able to double your FPS is a huge capability, because it means you can enable ray tracing for free, or game at higher resolutions. Of course you are limited to games with DLSS 3 support, of which there are currently around 40, mostly AAA titles, but not every title will support it. AMD doesn't have anything similar—they announced that FSR 3 exists last year and since then we haven't seen a single demo—maybe at Computex next week.

GeForce RTX 4060 Ti comes with a 8 GB VRAM buffer—same as last generation's RTX 3060 Ti. There have been heated discussions claiming that 8 GB is already "obsolete," I've even seen people say that about 12 GB. While it would be nice of course to have more VRAM on the RTX 4060 Ti, for the vast majority of games, especially at resolutions like 1080p, having more VRAM will make exactly zero difference. In our test suite not a single game shows any performance penalty for RTX 4060 Ti vs cards with more VRAM (at 1080p). New games like Resident Evil, Hogwarts Legacy, The Last of Us and Jedi Survivor do allocate a lot of VRAM, which doesn't mean all that data actually gets used. No doubt, you can find edge cases where 8 GB will not be enough, but for thousands of games it will be a complete non-issue, and I think it's not unreasonable for buyers in this price-sensitive segment to to set textures to High instead of Ultra, for two or three titles. If you still want more memory, then NVIDIA has you covered. The RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB launches in July and gives people a chance to put their money where their mouth is. I'm definitely looking forward to test the 16 GB version, but I doubt the performance differences can justify spending an extra $100.

Just like other GeForce 40 cards, NVIDIA's Founders Edition looks stunning, actually the cooler is identical to that of the RTX 4070 FE, except for some gunmetal trim that's now silver in color. Cooling performance of the FE is good, the card runs at only 64°C and is very quiet at the same time, reaching only 29 dBA. The FE comes in a dual-slot design, which is definitely a plus, as that ensures that the card will fit into virtually any computer case out there, so you can even upgrade an older Dell or OEM office PC machine with better graphics. Just like all other recent graphics card releases, the RTX 4060 Ti will stop its fans in idle, desktop work, Internet browsing and light gaming.

NVIDIA made big improvements to energy efficiency with their previous GeForce 40 cards, and the RTX 4060 Ti is no exception. With just 160 W, the power supply requirements are minimal, any beige OEM PSU will be able to drive the RTX 4060 Ti just fine, so upgraders can just plop in a new graphics card and they're good to go. Performance per Watt is among the best we've ever seen, similar to RTX 4070, slightly better than RTX 4070 Ti and Radeon RX 7900 XTX; only the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 are even more energy-efficient.

NVIDIA has set a base price of $400 for the RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB, which is definitely not cheap. While there is no price increase over the RTX 3060 Ti launch price, the performance improvement is only 12%, and the mining boom is over—these cards don't sell themselves anymore. To me it looks like NVIDIA is positioning their card at the highest price that will still allow them to sell something—similar to their strategy in the past. Given current market conditions, I would say that a price of $350 for the RTX 4060 Ti would be more reasonable. Still, such high pricing will drive more gamers away from the PC platform, to the various game consoles that are similarly priced and will give you a perfectly crafted first-class experience that works on your 4K TV, without any issues like shader compilation and other QA troubles. For GeForce 40 series, NVIDIA's force multiplier is DLSS 3, which offers a tremendous performance benefit in supported games. Features like AV1 video encode/decode and (lack of) DisplayPort 2.0 seem irrelevant in this segment, at least in my opinion. Strong competition comes from the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT, which sells for $320, with only slightly less performance. That card has a 12 GB framebuffer, but lacks DLSS 3 and has weaker ray tracing performance. I don't think I'd buy a $400 RTX 3070, or a $320 RTX 3060 Ti—I'd rather have DLSS 3. If you can find a great deal on a used card, maybe consider that. AMD is launching their Radeon RX 7600 soon, which goes after the same segment as the RTX 4060 Ti, if the rumors are to be believed, so things could get interesting very soon.