GeForce RTX 4060 vs RTX 3060 and 3060 Ti – Which GPU To Get? (Updated)

NVIDIA released the GeForce RTX 4060 based on the new Ada Lovelace architecture mid-this year. It succeeds the RTX 3060 based on the Ampere architecture. In this article, we’ll compare the RTX 4060 vs the RTX 3060, and I’ll also include the RTX 3060 Ti in the comparison. The RTX 4060 series release was quite controversial due to some of its “gimped” specs. If you are coming from the RTX 3060 series, is it worth upgrading to the RTX 4060? Or, if you are coming from a much older gen of GPU, should you buy the RTX 4060 or a discounted RTX 3060 or 3060 Ti? Let’s find out in our RTX 4060 vs RTX 3060 and 3060 Ti comparison below.

UPDATE: I have updated this article to reflect the current pricing and availability. The prices of these graphics cards play a major role and can affect which card to get.

GeForce RTX 4060 vs. 3060 and 3060 Ti – Battle of the “1080p” GPUs

I will save you some time by saying it’s not worth upgrading to the new RTX 4060 (Ti) if you come from the previous generation, the RTX 3060 or 3060 Ti. I’ll show you graphs later, and you will find out why. However, suppose you are coming from a much older generation, like the GTX 10 series or even older; in that case, it may be a different story. Unfortunately, as much as I want to add a GTX 1060 (Ti) or RTX 2060 (Super), I no longer have those graphics cards.

The GeForce RTX 4060 is based on the AD107 GPU and equipped with 3,072 CUDA Cores providing 15 FP32 Shader-TFLOPS of power for rendering traditional rasterized graphics. It has 96 4th gen Tensor cores offering 242 FP8 Tensor-TFLOPS (with Sparsity) for AI processing and DLSS; and 24 3rd gen Ada RT Cores capable of 35 RT-TFLOPS for powering next-generation ray-traced graphics.

Unfortunately, like the RTX 4060 Ti, the RTX 4060 (non-Ti) only has a (gimped) 8GB of GDDR6 memory, with only 272 Gb/s of bandwidth running on a 128-bit interface. On the flip side, it offers a higher 17Gbps of memory data rate and a larger 24MB of L2 cache than the RTX 3060 and 3060 Ti. In addition, its PCIe Gen4 connection is only PCIe x8, not the full x16.

According to NVIDIA, the RTX 4060 is a great platform for gamers and creators, providing immersive graphics, AI-accelerated performance, livestreaming with NVIDIA Encoder, NVIDIA Reflex, and more.

Exclusive Features Offered by RTX 4060 GPU

There are several features that are exclusive to the RTX 4060 GPU. These features are common to the Ada Lovelace architecture, and all RTX 40 series GPUs have these features.

One feature that the RTX 4060 has is DLSS 3 AI Frame generation. The RTX 3060 Ti and 3060 GPUs do not support this feature, which is one advantage of the new RTX 40 series GPUs over its predecessor.

Another feature is the latest NVIDIA encoder with AV1 support. This is useful to streamers and gamers who stream, upload or record their gameplay. The video quality using AV1 is not only better but is also more efficient than H.264. Lastly, the RTX 4060 is more efficient, meaning it consumes less power than the RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3060.

Below is a table comparing the RTX 4060, RTX 3060, and 3060 Ti specs. After that, let’s get straight to the benchmark results.

RTX 4060 vs. RTX 3060 Ti and 3060 GPU Specifications

Check the latest pricing and availability: (#ad)
GeForce RTX 4060 cards check at Amazon here.
GeForce RTX 3060 cards are available on Amazon here.
RTX 3060 Ti graphics cards are available on Amazon here.

GeForce RTX 4060 vs 3060 and 3060 Ti Performance Benchmarks

I am testing all three graphics cards using an X670E motherboard with an AMD Ryzen 7 7700X CPU. It also has a DDR5-6000MHz CL30 memory kit installed, with the AMD EXPO profile enabled. Resizable BAR was also enabled from the BIOS settings. I also used NVIDIA’s GeForce Game Ready Driver version 536.20. With those out of the way, let’s check out the results below.

Synthetic Benchmarks

When I was curating the data I gathered, I was disappointed and underwhelmed by the RTX 4060’s performance. I know it wouldn’t out perform the RTX 3060 Ti, since we knew that the RTX 4060 Ti is just around 10% faster in average than the 3060 Ti.

However, I was expecting that the RTX 4060 would at least be on par with the RTX 3060 Ti. While the RTX 4060 is indeed generally faster than the RTX 3060, it is still slower than the RTX 3060 Ti in general. The only synthetic benchmark where it was faster than both GPUs was during the Speed Way test. Perhaps, it got a slightly better score due to its newer and better Ada Lovelace architecture.

Game Benchmarks

Below are the 13 games I used to test these GPUs. For those interested, I separated the benchmark results for Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3. Aside from traditional rasterization and RT+DLSS, I tested these two games using DLSS 3 (Frame Generation) with the RTX 4060.

To clarify, the results you see on the left-hand side are using traditional rasterization with ultra graphics. Meanwhile, on the right-hand side, all cards are tested with Ray Tracing and DLSS 2 (quality) enabled. And I also added the results I got for the RTX 4060 with Frame Generation enabled (light green).

Ray Tracing with DLSS 3 (Frame Generation)

As you see from the results above, the RTX 4060 is slotted between the RTX 3060 and RTX 3060 Ti, which, in my opinion, is not good. Most of us expect that the RTX 4060 will outperform the RTX 3060 Ti. But considering the RTX 4060 Ti’s performance, I already have a clue that the RTX 4060’s performance would also be lackluster.

NVIDIA is really banking on the DLSS 3 AI Frame Generation as its key selling point. As you can see, with Frame Generation enabled, you’ll get a smoother frame rate at the expense of latency and some visual fidelity. To be clear, you’re not getting higher frame rates when Frame Generation is enabled. Instead, you get the smoothness of a higher frame rate. The GPU will “generate” frames and insert them in between the real frames.

By the way, you can enable Frame Generation even without enabling DLSS 2 (upscaling) and/or Ray Tracing. These three are all different options. Whether frame generation is valuable to you or not that’s up to you to decide.

Raw Performance – No AI Software Wizardry

Except in Forza Horizon 5, the RTX 3060 Ti generally outperformed the RTX 4060. I can only wonder, if NVIDIA didn’t gimp some of its specs, like fewer CUDA cores or in the memory department, would it perform on par or outperform the RTX 3060 Ti? Maybe.

In fairness to the RTX 4060, it outperformed its direct predecessor, the RTX 3060, while consuming less power despite its “handicap”. The RTX 4060 only consumed an average of 112 watts throughout the tests. Meanwhile, the RTX 3060 and RTX 3060 Ti consumed an average of 158 and 209 watts, respectively.

Summary results

Here is the average of the 13 games, not including the frame generation results. The RTX 4060 is, on average, 23% faster than the RTX 3060 in 1080p. Meanwhile, the RTX 3060 Ti is around 5% faster than the RTX 4060. NVIDIA is heavily marketing the RTX 4060 as a 1080p GPU. One reason is, again, it’s memory. Having a lesser amount of memory can (negatively) impact the GPU’s performance or gaming experience, especially at higher resolution.

Speaking of higher resolution, at 1440p, the RTX 4060 is 18% faster than the RTX 3060, on average. Meanwhile, the gap between the RTX 4060 and 3060 Ti widens, as the latter is now 10% faster at 1440p resolution. Based on these results, the previous generation RTX 3060 Ti is more attractive than the RTX 4060, performance-wise.

DLSS 3 Frame Generation

There’s really little to say, as the graphs speak for themselves. Without DLSS 3, the RTX 4060 family is disappointing performance-wise. It feels like NVIDIA is selling the software side (frame generation) rather than raw hardware performance. Again, DLSS 3 AI frame generation, it’s not about increasing the frame rate. It’s about generating “fake” frames, resulting in smoother gameplay. Unlike DLSS 2 (upscaling technology), which can actually increase the frame rate, DLSS 3 makes your gameplay experience more playable and “smoother”, especially for graphics-intensive titles, at the expense of latency and some visual anomaly.

Unfortunately, at this point, DLSS 3 is not that mature yet. I can observe visual imperfections, pixelations, and other visual anomalies. Unlike DLSS 2, it’s mostly a polished technology and is far better than when it was first introduced. It is even better than AMD’s upscaling solution, FSR (2). With the latest version of DLSS 2, games look better, and sometimes, depending on the scenario, it can produce a better image than native rendering.

Pricing and Availability

Aside from being the more efficient GPU, the RTX 4060’s starting price is lower than the RTX 3060. The RTX 3060 launched with an MSRP of $329. However, since the RTX 30 cards launched during the peak of Crypto and ETH mining, none of the RTX 30 cards were sold at their MSRP, not even close.

Meanwhile, the RTX 4060 starts at $299 for the base model, and expect factory overclock models to be priced (slightly) higher than the base price. If you plan to get one, don’t worry, stocks will be plenty as I predict a weak demand, similar to the RTX 4060 Ti’s situation. If the demand is really low, we may also see some price cuts soon.

As for the RTX 3060 Ti, some models sell slightly above the $300 range. Unfortunately, since the RTX 4060 performs slower than the RTX 3060 Ti, I doubt that retailers are willing to lower the 3060 Ti’s price below the 4060’s MSRP.

UPDATE: It’s Q4 of 2023, and the RTX 3060 Ti remained more expensive than the RTX 4060. Currently, the cheapest RTX 3060 I found was the ASUS Phoenix GeForce RTX 3060 V2 and Asus Dual RTX 3060 White OC Edition, at $254.99 and $279.99, respectively. These are discounted prices, though.

Meanwhile, the cheapest RTX 4060 I found was the ZOTAC GeForce RTX 4060 8GB Solo, a small and compact ITX card, and the PNY RTX 4060 8GB Verto Dual Fan. These cards were selling for $279.99 and $289.99, respectively, at the time of updating this review. However, despite being slightly more expensive, the ASUS Dual RTX 4060 OC Edition seems to be the more popular RTX 4060 card. I have to admit, that card looks good, though, aesthetically speaking.

Note that these prices are subject to change, and was correct at the time of updating this review. Be sure to check the latest pricing and availability below.

Check the latest pricing and availability: (#ad)
GeForce RTX 4060 cards check at Amazon here.
GeForce RTX 3060 cards are available on Amazon here.
RTX 3060 Ti graphics cards are available on Amazon here.

RTX 4060 vs RTX 3060 and 3060 Ti Conclusion – Less on Hardware, More on Software

You have seen the results above, and the results speak for themselves. Generally speaking, the RTX 4060 sits between the RTX 3060 and RTX 3060 Ti. And yes, just like the RTX 4060 Ti, the RTX 4060’s performance is lackluster and underwhelming.

It feels like NVIDIA has abandoned mainstream gaming in favor of workstation GPUs for AI and machine learning; since that’s where the real money is. Those AI and ML GPUs did help NVIDIA become a 1 Trillion-dollar company. I doubt that a 1080p or 1440p gaming GPU would help NVIDIA reach 1 Trillion since the margin is low.

Aside from frame generation and a slightly lower starting price, NVIDIA is also marketing the RTX 4060 as an “efficient” 1080p GPU that can save you electric bills in the long run. However, I don’t think gamers really consider that as a deciding factor. It’s usually price to performance. And that has always been the primary deciding factor when buying a graphics card.

To be fair, I don’t think that the RTX 4060 is a total garbage product and that no one should buy it. Sure, if you are coming from an RTX 30 series GPU or an RTX 2060 (Super), skip this gen or get a better and faster one, like the RTX 4070 or 4070 Ti. However, if you’re coming from a much older generation of GPUs, the RTX 4060 is a viable option for 1080p gaming.

RTX 3060 Ti Is Still Good

Unfortunately for the RTX 4060, the RTX 3060 Ti is also a good option for 1080p gaming. Not only that, the RTX 3060 Ti has 12GB of memory with a higher bandwidth and a 192-bit of memory interface. While it may not show on the graphs, the RTX 3060 Ti will provide a better gaming experience, especially with graphics-intensive games or scenarios. In addition, AMD has been constantly lowering the prices of their previous RX 6000 GPUs.

We also made a comparison between the RTX 4060 Ti vs 3060 Ti. You might also want to check that one out.