NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Review: Affordable Cutting-Edge Gaming
Overclocking The GeForce RTX 4060
Like previous-gen GeForces, Ada Lovelace-based GeForce RTX 40 series cards feature GPU Boost, which scales frequencies and voltages dynamically, power and temperatures permitting, based on the GPU's workload and other environmental factors. Should a temperature or power limit be reached, GPU Boost will drop down to the previous boost frequency / voltage stepping, to bring power and temperatures down gradually and not cause any significant performance swings. If there is power and thermal headroom, however, the GPU will boost higher. When overclocking, the maximum boost clock and power limit can be tweaked to increase performance with most cards.
ASUS GeForce RTX 4060 DUAL Hardware Monitor - Default Settings
Like previous-gen mainstream GeForces, the GeForce RTX 4060 is still voltage or power limited in most circumstances to prevent damage and ensure the card's longevity. It is these limits that will usually be the gating factors in any overclocking efforts. As you can see above, even in its stock configuration, the card was hitting a power limit while gaming.
With the GeForce RTX 4060, the power target can be increased by up to 20% and the max temperature target from 83°C to 88°C. Though the latest version of MSI's Afterburner has the option to alter voltage as well, increasing the GPU voltage will only force the card to hit the power limit faster. 3GHz clocks are still possible without tweaking the voltage.
ASUS GeForce RTX 4060 DUAL Hardware Monitor - Overclocked
We used the GPU and memory frequency offsets, along with the power and temperature target sliders available in Afterburner, to manually push the ASUS GeForce RTX 4060 DUAL's frequencies beyond stock. First, we turned up the temperature and power targets to their maximum values, and then increased the GPU and memory clock offsets until the test system was no longer stable, showed on-screen artifacts, or performance peaked due to hitting the power limit. We did not, however, alter fan speeds because this card ran so cool without any modifications in that regard.
In its stock configuration, the ASUS GeForce RTX 4060 boosted to over 2,790MHz (visible in the screenshot at the top of the page). While overclocked, we were able to take its GPU clock to just under 3GHz (2,925MHz) with a 17.4Gbps memory speed. Even while overclocked, the GPU maxed out at only 69°C, and probably had plenty of frequency headroom to spare.
With the GeForce RTX 4060 overclocked, we saw some nice performance gains. Performance in 3DMark Speedway jumped by nearly 5%, and the GeForce RTX 4060 jumped passed the Arc A770 LE and nearly caught the RTX 3060 Ti in Returnal at 1440p. It's going to be interesting to see what NVIDIA's partners do with overclocked RTX 4060s, but there's clearly lot of headroom to play with in the AD107.
Total System Power Consumption
Throughout all of our benchmarking and testing, we also monitored noise output and tracked how much power the GPUs were consuming in our test system. Our goal here is to give you an idea as to how much power each GPU used while idle and also while under a heavy workload. These power numbers were captured during Luxmark and f1 2022 testing, with ray-tracing enabled, and are representative of total system power consumption:
The GeForce RTX 4060 was the most power friendly card we tested. Despite offering better overall performance than the mainstream Radeons like the RX 6600 XT and RX 7600, the GeForce RTX 4060 consumed less power under load while gaming or during the OpenCL test -- that's a huge testament to the AD107's efficiency.
GeForce RTX 4060 Review Summary & Conclusion
MSRP for new GeForce RTX 4060 cards starts at $299, which is about $30 lower than the RTX 3060's launch price and $50 below the RTX 2060's. It's also about $30 more than the recently-launched Radeon RX 7600. At its expected price point, the GeForce RTX 4060 represents a decent value, especially in light of its all-around performance and low power consumption. As was the case with the first wave GeForce RTX 4060 Ti cards, the 8GB of memory on the GeForce RTX 4060 may give some gamers pause, but turning down some detail has typically been a requirement for mainstream GPUs, and the bottom line is at 1080p, the GeForce RTX 4060 outperforms its competition more often than not. If that 8GB frame buffer is a deal breaker for you, however, the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB will be available in a few more weeks, and prices on Radeon RX 67x0 XT cards have dropped significantly as of late.
Although its not a barn-burner, the GeForce RTX 4060 is a good option for gamers with 1080p monitors, that don't have the budget for a higher-end card. It isn't an upgrade for anyone with an RTX 3060 Ti or better, but if you're still rocking that GeForce GTX 1060, RTX 2060, or even a 1600-series card, the GeForce RTX 4060 offers significantly more performance, power efficiency, and all of the cutting-edge features of NVIDIA's Ada architecture, like DLSS 3 and AV1 encoding. If you're shopping for a mainstream GPU in the $300 price band and game at 1080p, the GeForce RTX 4060 will serve you well. As is always the case in this crowded segment, however, if you can pull together some additional funds, there's significantly more performance on the table for a modest additional investment.
