Nvidia RTX 4060 with ASUS Dual and Gigabyte Windforce Review

Conclusion

The Nvidia Ada Lovelace range was already full to bursting, and here we are with yet another model in the range.

Like any new graphics card, where you fit in the target audience is very important as to how useful this particular card will be to you. With the price point and level of performance on the RTX 4060 that’s not the matter of a moment to work out. It certainly stands in stark contrast to the majority of other cards Nvidia have with a 4000 tag. The RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 are easy enough to delineate; regardless of what you currently own they’ll be a stunning upgrade if you can afford them. The RTX 4070 Ti fits in that meaty mid-market segment, perfect for those without unlimited funds who still want to be able to play all the latest titles with everything cranked up. Then we come to the RTX 4060 Ti, a recent release which is aimed at those of you who largely game at 1080P, and here there is enough performance, particularly in DLSS supported titles, to make it a suitable upgrade for those with limited funds and older cards.

Naturally there is only so much you can trim off of a cards hardware before you start reaching a point where any comparison will come with asterisks and caveats, and the RTX 4060 is one such card. Nvidia themselves point at the Steam hardware survey and how the most commonly used cards on Steam are, in descending order from 1 to 5, the GTX 1650, GTX 1060, RTX 3060, RTX 2060 and GTX 1050 Ti. Those of us with cards which sit above those are very much the lucky ones in the minority. Of those cards, any of the GTX ones or the original affordable RTX card, the 2060, will find the RTX 4060 a more than great upgrade. The extra performance from the RTX 4060 is significant, and in DLSS 3 supported titles there is enough performance to render the aforementioned cards almost obsolete. Only the RTX 3060 is in the spot where it’s a less obvious upgrade, and that’s just as much to do with the 12GB of GDDR onboard and the recency of the Ampere architecture as it is anything else.

So assuming that you’ve decided your creaky old system could do with a new graphics card, which of today’s two offerings should you opt for? After all, when working in a tight budget even a microscopic difference in performance or efficiency is magnified in a way that it isn’t at the top end. There might be 10 FPS difference between different RTX 4090 cards, but all of them are so capable that you can go with either the most affordable one, or the brand you like, and you won’t be left feeling left out. But here, where 10 FPS can be the difference between playable and jerky and where there isn’t any lighting to control to make you sway towards one brand or another for system harmony reasons, any difference is stark.

In which case the ASUS RTX 4060 Dual OC is the clear standout. Not only does it, generally, have higher performance than the Gigabyte Windforce but it does so at a significantly lower peak temperature. With value systems you normally have a smaller case, with less airflow and fewer fans than a high end rig, and having a graphics card that happily peaks at 60°C instead of 80°C will have a big knock-on effect. Additionally because it runs cooler all the time that means that the Nvidia GPU Boost technology can push the clock speed of the card harder for longer, which brings more of the all-important performance. Considering both cards are twin-fan models we’re somewhat staggered by how much hotter the Gigabyte was in testing and this can only really be down to the heatsink itself on the card not being adaquate enough. 

At this seriously competitive end of the market, where every pound spent needs to deliver maximum benefit, the Gigabyte RTX 4060 Windforce OC is too warm and somewhat lacking in performance to be worthy of any recommendation when considering both these cards cost the same amount. Alternatively the ASUS RTX 4060 Dual OC card is faster, and cooler, and thus wins our OC3D Value For Money award. 

ASUS RTX 4060 Dual OC   

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