NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Review: Affordable Cutting-Edge Gaming

Speed Way is the most recent addition to the UL 3DMark graphics test suite. Speed Way uses the DirectX 12 Ultimate API and leverages advanced features like DirectX Raytracing tier 1.1 for real-time global illumination and real-time raytraced reflections, Mesh Shaders, and high resolution textures and artwork…

UL 3DMark Speed Way DX12 Ultimate Benchmarks

In the recently-released 3DMark Speed Way test, the GeForce RTX 4060 performs relatively well, outgunning all of the Radeons and the Intel Arc A770 LE, and landing in third just behind the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti and 4060 Ti.

UL 3DMark Time Spy DX12 Benchmarks

3DMark Time Spy is a synthetic DirectX benchmark test from UL. It features a DirectX 12 engine built from the ground up to support bleeding-edge features like asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter, and multi-threading. Time Spy is designed to test the DX12 performance of the latest graphics cards using a variety of techniques and varied visual sequences. This benchmark was developed with input from AMD, Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and the other members of the UL Benchmark Development Program, to showcase the performance and visual potential of graphics cards driven by close-to-the-metal, low-overhead APIs. In the older 3DMark Time Spy test that doesn't make use of any ray tracing, the GeForce RTX 4060 drops down a few rungs. Here, the GeForce RTX 4060 is clearly faster than the 12GB GeForce RTX 3060, but it can't quite catch the recently launched Radeon RX 7600.

UL 3DMark Port Royal Ray Tracing Benchmarks

Port Royal was released as an update to UL’s popular 3DMark suite. It is designed to test real-time ray tracing performance of graphics cards that support Microsoft DirectX Raytracing, or DXR. Although DXR is technically compatible with all DX12-class GPUs, the graphics card must have drivers that enable support for the feature.

In the Port Royal test, which employs some ray tracing, the GeForce RTX 4060 fares a little better. In this test, the GeForce RTX 4060 pulls well ahead of the Radeon RX 7600, but it can't quite catch the Radeon RX 67x0 series cards, let alone the higher-end GeForces or Arc A700 LE. 

DirectX Ray Tracing (DXR) Feature Test

We also tested the cards with UL's DirectX Ray Tracing Feature test. This test is laser-focused on path-tracing performance, and uses few of the card's other resources.
Unlike Port Royal, the Direct X Ray Tracing Feature test is solely focused on ray tracing performance and showcases the strength of Ada's newer RT cores. Here, the new GeForce RTX 4060 jumps way up the stack and lands behind only the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and Arc A770 LE.

VR Benchmarks: VR Mark & Unigine Superposition

Superposition is the latest benchmark from Unigine, powered by the UNIGINE 2 Engine. It offers an array of benchmark modes, targeting gaming workloads as well as VR, with both DirectX and OpenGL code paths. There is an extreme hardware stability test built-in too. Unigine Superposition uses the developer’s unique SSRTGI (Screen-Space Ray-Traced Global Illumination) dynamic lighting technology, along with high quality textures and models, to produce some excellent visuals. We ran Superposition's VR Future benchmark to compare the performance of all of the graphics cards featured here.

Unigine Superposition VR Future Test

In our first VR-related benchmark, the GeForce RTX 4060 once again drop in behind the Radeon RX 7600, and well behind the higher-end cards. The GeForce RTX 4060 outguns the Radeon RX 6600 XT and 12GB GeForce RTX 3060, though.

UL VR Mark Blue Room Benchmarks

UL's VRMark is designed to test a PC’s readiness for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets. The benchmark does not, however, require that one of the headsets is attached to the PC to run and it uses an in-house graphics engine and content to ensure comparable results between different platforms. We ran the "Blue Room" VRMark test at defaults settings here, which is currently the most taxing test offered by the tool.


The GeForce RTX 4060 fares better in VRMark's most taxing Blue Room test. Here, the GeForce RTX 4060 lands about in the middle of the pack, well ahead of the Radeon RX 7600 and slipping past the Arc A770.