PNY Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 VERTO review: A budget workhorse

Nvidia’s wallet-friendly GeForce RTX 4060 is finally here, but does it really manage to boast the gaming power required to run modern titles with all the bells and whistles? We investigate.

The Nvidia RTX 4060 family was announced with some fervor, thanks to their aggressive price points. The RTX 4060 Ti 8GB launched at $399, and the RTX 4060 cuts it to $100 cheaper, coming in at just $299. This is cheaper than the RTX 3060, which launched for slightly more. An impressive feat from Nvidia, but looking deeper at the silicon could provide us with some of the answers that we’re looking for regarding how Nvidia managed to hit this competitive price point.

The 60-class of graphics cards is among the most used by gamers worldwide, and with PC games requiring beefier specs than ever, the RTX 4060 needs to keep up with the most demanding games at certain resolutions in order to be a relevant GPU in 2023.

Key specs

Design

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The appearance of PNY’s RTX 4060 is incredibly minimalistic. This is just about a generic GPU as you can get. Sporting a relatively low-profile dual slot design, this GPU would be perfect to slot into an ITX or small form-factor system.

Upon closer inspection, you might notice that the PCB is in fact incredibly short and that the GPU’s cooling solution actually extends past it. This gives the heatsink more area to dissipate heat and allows for a flow-through design. With that in mind, the heatsink itself is fairly low-profile and is sandwiched between the PCB and cooling shroud.

There’s no RGB to speak of on the plastic shroud on the front, which sports a dual-fan setup with thin blades for pushing through all that air while you game.

It’s welcome to see backplates becoming more commonplace on budget GPUs, too, with this particular graphics card coming equipped with a small backplate with a cutout for flow-through cooling. There are no special bells and whistles here, just a small, straightforward GPU design.

Along the side, you also get a big PNY logo, alongside GeForce RTX branding, but this is simply printed on, with no premium trimmings to speak of.

But, why is the GPU so small, how could it possibly cool all of that power? Well, the answer lies buried in the silicon.

Low power, high performance

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The RTX 4060 is designed with a TGP of just 115W. This is a massive saving when compared to the RTX 3060‘s 170W TGP, meaning that the GPU could be more power efficient. However, several additional details make this GPU run cool, even when under stressful loads.

The RTX 4060 is also equipped with the AD107 chip, which is the first time that we’ve seen this cut-down in a desktop GPU, as the RTX 4060 Ti uses the slightly larger AD106. This means that you get fewer cores, but also the cutting of the silicon allows for a smaller overall package, lower power consumption, and less heat.

Another contributing factor here is also the choice of RAM, which is packed with standard GDDR6, instead of the GDDR6X that we see on the more premium RTX 40-series graphics cards. The faster variant of RAM is notoriously difficult to cool, and switching to the standard GDDR6 makes the speed slightly slower, but also has benefits in power and efficiency.

Performance

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The RTX 4060 is not going to min any awards for being the fastest GPU on the planet. The GPU has a host of cost-saving measures which helped Nvidia reach the price point that it was targeting. However, what you do get is a 1080p GPU which lets you turn on all manner of ray tracing bells and whistles, and still manage to attain 60FPS, depending on how far you go on fiddling with settings.

While the choice of 8GB of VRAM is a notable difference between it and the 12GB variant of the RTX 3060, it is much cheaper, and a few years on, the mid-range GPU market is in dire need of a shakeup. Nvidia claims that a wider L2 cache will help the GPU run VRAM-dependent titles, much like the RTX 4060 Ti and RTX 4070.

With that in mind, we’ve tested the card at 1080p and 1440p in order to get a good idea of what real-world performance might look like on your machine.

Test System

• CPU: Intel Core i5-13600K
• CPU cooler: Cooler Master PL360 Flux
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Z790 Maximus Extreme
• RAM: ADATA XPG Lancer RGB 32GB DDR5-6000
• Storage: Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 4TB
• Case: Hyte Y60
• PSU: EVGA Supernova GT 1300

Our generous testing machine should give you a good idea of what performance will look like if you build a system around a modern RTX 4060, and there should be very little in the way of CPU bottlenecking in certain esports titles.

RTX 4060 1080p performance

At 1080p, the RTX 4060 actually manages to deliver impressive value when compared to other GPUs on the market. The needle for how many frames of offer might not have changed much, but even compared to the RTX 4060 Ti, the RTX 4060 manages to impress.

There’s a 19% performance difference between the RTX 4060 and RTX 4060 Ti at 1080p, and for $100 less, that’s pretty good value. Its performance also manages to handily compete with AMD’s 6700 XT, which is a slightly more expensive GPU, too.

Again, you’re not going to be getting wildly high framerates, but the performance on offer here is far from poor, and triple-digit performance, or near enough that at 1080p will make it an excellent GPU for those looking to build budget-oriented systems. Esports titles in particular perform well, and it could mean that the RTX 4060 becomes a mainstay for those looking to build PCs with that in mind.

RTX 4060 1440p performance

The RTX 4060 isn’t the greatest GPU in the world when it comes to 1440p performance, but for those targeting a solid 60FPS at modest settings, the graphics card actually manages to hold up a fair fight. Here, we see the GPU once again go toe-to-toe with the 6700XT. However, those looking to play the most demanding titles, like Cyberpunk 2077, just about skirt by, achieving a solid 60FPS with ray tracing and frame generation turned on.

Once again, esports-focused games sing on the RTX 4060, achieving triple-digit performance, and allowing you to make full use of speedy monitors, without having to splash the cash on a more expensive GPU. Again, there is a 20% difference in performance between the RTX 4060 Ti and the RTX 4060 here, though the gap narrows in AAA gaming titles like Cyberpunk and Forza. If you are a 1440p gamer looking for steady performance, there’s hardly any reason to pick up the more expensive card.

Synthetic benchmarks

The budget RTX 4060 manages to deliver good performance in synthetic benchmarks, and it’s important to note that almost every other graphics card on this table is much more expensive. With that that said, you get adequate performance in almost every aspect from a card at this price point, and while it’s nothing mindblowing,

Thermals & noise

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In our testing, the PNY RTX 4060 manages to attain a peak of just 69 degrees, which is achieved through the smaller die size, this means that the fans never really span up, and there was no coil while exhibited. In gaming workloads, we peaked at 64 degrees, which is mighty impressive. The GPU manages to retain its boost clock well and made for very stable performance overall.

Power efficiency

For those looking toward their wallets when it comes to their PC’s power consumption, the RTX 4060 managed to reach a peak of 119W under intense loads, which is slightly higher than its rated TGP. In standard gaming workloads, we saw the GPU retain an average of around 110W of power, which is deeply impressive. Sometimes, GPU’s strengths are not always told in raw performance numbers, and the efficiency of the whole RTX 40-series stack is a testament to this.

Should you buy it?

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There are a wealth of reasons not to buy the RTX 4060. Some might say it does not have enough VRAM, while others would claim that the reduced die size compromises the GPU, and, those are all pretty fair observations. The generational shift in pure rasterization performance is equally unimpressive. However, the efficiency attained on the cut-down GPU is indeed positive for the graphics card.

But, by the same token, the RTX 4060 is a workhorse GPU that offers better performance than its previous generation counterpart, at a lower price point, to boot. Though it’s not perfect, the RTX 4060 is a perfect upgrade for those still hanging on to older cards like the GTX 1060 and delivers adequate performance at both 1080p and 1440p.

The Verdict: 3/5

The RTX 4060 is a solid graphics card, with barely any frills to speak of. Its performance won’t blow any minds, but its value proposition and power efficiency are undeniable. While it would have been nice to see an expanded pool of VRAM and more pure rasterization performance, it’s a solid upgrade for those still using older GPUs.

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