NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Graphics Card Specs, Performance, Price & Availability Everything We Know So Far – Wccftech

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 will be the next-generation high-end gaming graphics card, offering the latest graphics architecture based on Ada Lovelace GPUs. The graphics card will be replacing the RTX 3060, a very popular gaming graphics card in the $300-$400 US segment.

While there's no denying the enthusiasm around the higher-end GeForce RTX 4090, GeForce RTX 4080 & GeForce RTX 4070 series graphics cards that offer the best of the best gaming performance, the RTX 4060 series graphics cards will be designed around the $300-$400 US segment which is a mainstream price range that still offers lots of performance at hand. It's simple, the RTX 4090 series will be aimed at users who want the best of the best without worrying about the amount of money they are spending while the RTX 4080 series is aimed at users who want the best performance at the best possible price. The RTX 4070 will be the sweet spot for high-end gaming, while the RTX 4060 is designed for the gaming masses at a price that will be hard to ignore given its performance.

The previous GeForce RTX 3060 was touted to offer a huge improvement over the RTX 2080 SUPER. The card did end up meeting its promised performance target but was at most a 25-30% boost when compared to the RTX 2060 SUPER. This was mainly due to the fact that the RTX 2060 SUPER was already an upgraded version of the RTX 2060. But ever since the RTX 20 series, the RTX 30 got its own Ti and Non-Ti flavors.

The RTX 3060 Ti was around 30% faster than the RTX 3060. The RTX 3060 Ti was also 30% faster than the RTX 2060 SUPER and 40-45% faster than the standard RTX 2060. The RTX 3060 Non-Ti on the other hand was around 10% faster than the RTX 2060 SUPER and 20% faster than the RTX 2060 Non-SUPER graphics card. So based on the performance, the RTX 3060 Ti was indeed faster but also more expensive but still ended up delivering better value versus its predecessor.

For example, the RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 2060 SUPER both had an MSRP of $399 US but the 3060 Ti offered 30% faster performance. Meanwhile, the RTX 3060 Non-Ti was $20 US cheaper than the RTX 2060 Non-SUPER but offered a 20% performance boost. Since the RTX 3060 never launched with a Founders Edition variant, most of the models retailed at $15-$20 US more so at the end of the day, you were getting the same price as the RTX 2060 Non-SUPER with a 20% uplift.

The one thing NVIDIA did to persuade the gaming crowd to get its RTX 3060 graphics card equipped with 12 GB of memory versus the 8 GB on the RTX 3060 Ti. That didn't change the performance much since the card featured a lowly 192-bit bus versus the 256-bit bus of the Ti variant, ending up with lower bandwidth.

We should expect similar things with the next-generation gaming solution too but an important factor to consider is that GPUs are becoming more power-hungry and more pricey. It is a trend that might continue into the future as we get better products but in return, there's always a cost to pay for end consumers. So starting with what we know so far, first we should take a look at the brand new Ada Lovelace or AD10* class GPUs that will be powering the next-gen GeForce RTX 40 series cards.

Starting with the GPU configuration, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 series graphics cards may utilize both AD104 and AD106 GPUs. The reason is the same as the situation with the current GeForce RTX 30 series where the RTX 3060 Ti is based on the GA104 GPU and the RTX 3060 is based on the GA106 GPU. We have already detailed the AD104 GPU here so let's take a look at the AD106 GPU & what it has to offer. The GPU is said to measure around 200mm2 and will utilize the TSMC 4N process node which is an optimized version of TSMC's 5nm (N5) node designed for the green team.

The NVIDIA Ada Lovelace AD106 GPU is expected to feature up to 3 GPC (Graphics Processing Clusters). This is the same GPC count as the GA106 GPU. Each GPU will consist of 6 TPCs and 2 SMs which is the same configuration as the existing chip. Each SM (Streaming Multiprocessor) will house four sub-cores which is also the same as the GA106 GPU. What's changed is the FP32 & the INT32 core configuration. Each sub-core will include 128 FP32 units but combined FP32+INT32 units will go up to 192. This is because the FP32 units don't share the same sub-core as the IN32 units. The 128 FP32 cores are separate from the 64 INT32 cores.

So in total, each sub-core will consist of 32 FP32 plus 16 INT32 units for a total of 48 units. Each SM will have a total of 128 FP32 units plus 64 INT32 units for a total of 192 units. And since there are a total of 36 SM units (12 per GPC), we are looking at 4,608 FP32 Units and 2,304 INT32 units for a total of 6,912 cores. Each SM will also include two Wrap Schedules (32 thread/CLK) for 64 wraps per SM. This is a 50% increase on the cores (FP32+INT32) and a 33% increase in Wraps/Threads vs the GA102 GPU.

NVIDIA AD103 'Ada Lovelace' Gaming GPU 'SM' Block Diagram (Image Credits: Kopite7kimi):

Moving over to the cache, this is another segment where NVIDIA has given a big boost over the existing Ampere GPUs. The Ada Lovelace GPUs will pack 192 KB of L1 cache per SM, an increase of 50% over Ampere. The L2 cache will be increased to 32 MB as mentioned in the leaks. This is a 10.6x increase over the Ampere GA106 GPU that hosts just 3 MB of L2 cache. The cache will be shared across the GPU.

Finally, we have the ROPs which will stick to 16 per GPC. You are looking at up to 48 ROPs, the same as the current GA106 GPUs. There are also going to be the latest 4th Generation Tensor and 3rd Generation RT (Raytracing) cores infused on the Ada Lovelace GPUs which will help boost DLSS & Raytracing performance to the next level. Overall, the Ada Lovelace AD106 GPU will offer:

NVIDIA AD106 'Ada Lovelace' Gaming GPU Block Diagram Mock-Up (Image Credits: SemiAnalysis):

Do note that clock speeds, which are said to be between the 2-3 GHz range, aren't taken into the equation so they will also play a major role in improving the per-core performance versus Ampere.

As we saw with the GeForce RTX 3060 series, NVIDIA can have two distinct configurations of the RTX 4060 series graphics cards. We realistically expect there to be two variants, the RTX 4060 and the RTX 4060 Ti. The existing generation saw the RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3060 release a few months apart and this is known to be a volume segment so NVIDIA will take the advantage to position two solutions, one around $300-$350 and one around $400-$450 US at mainstream gamers right off the bat.

Currently, there's no telling if the AD104 GPU will be utilized within the GeForce RTX 4060 series and as such, we will focus on the standard RTX 4060 which will utilize the AD106 GPU.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 'Expected' Specifications

Based on NVIDIA's decision to do a mix of AD104/AD106 or go AD106 across its RTX 4060 series lineup we can either see a cut-down RTX 4060 or one with a full configuration whereas the Ti can use a cut-down AD104 configuration. The AD106 GPU will come packed with 32 MB of L2 cache and up to 48 ROPs.

The clock speeds are not confirmed yet but considering that the TSMC 4N process is being used, we are expecting clocks between the 2.0-3.0 GHz range. The higher than usual clock speed bump comes from the fact that NVIDIA is making a two-node jump considering the Ampere GPUs with Samsung 8nm node was in reality a 10nm process node with some optimizations. NVIDIA is skipping 7nm and going straight for a 5nm node and not even the vanilla variant but an optimized version of it. With Pascal on the TSMC 16nm node, NVIDIA delivered a huge frequency leap and we can expect a similar jump this time around too.

As for memory specs, the GeForce RTX 4060 is expected to rock 8 GB GDDR6X capacities that might come at faster 20+ Gbps speeds across a 128-bit bus interface for over 320 GB/s of bandwidth. The 'Ti' variant, if it ends up with an AD104 GPU, could offer up to 12 GB of memory across a 192-bit bus interface. The GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card is also said to rock a TGP of 220W which is an increase of 30% over the RTX 3060 and a 10% increase over the RTX 3060 Ti. This is a massive TGP increase and the performance needs to be really good for NVIDIA to keep its efficiency numbers up.

As for its feature set, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 graphics cards will rock all the modern NV feature sets such as the latest 4th Gen Tensor Cores, 3rd gen RT cores, and the latest NVENC Encoder, and NVCDEC Decoder, and support for the latest APIs. They will pack all the modern RTX features such as DLSS, Reflex, Broadcast, Resizable-BAR, Freestyle, Ansel, Highlights, Shadowplay, and G-SYNC support too.

As for the performance of the gaming GPUs, we can only use theoretical numbers here since the launch is a bit far away but based on what we know, the RTX 40 series cards might be the first gaming cards to hit the 100 TFLOPs compute horsepower limit.

Just for comparison's sake:

Based on a theoretical clock speed of 2.2 GHz, you get up to 20 TFLOPs of compute performance and the rumors are suggesting even higher boost clocks. Now, these are definitely sounding like peak clocks, similar to AMD's peak frequencies which are higher than the average 'Game' clock. A 20+ TFLOPs compute performance means more performance on a '60-class' GPU than a '70-class flagship' which will be a good bump. But one should keep in mind that compute performance doesn't necessarily indicate the overall gaming performance.

This will be around a54% compute performance uplift for the GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card versus its predecessor and this is without even factoring in the RT and Tensor core performance which is expected to get major lifts too in their respective department. Now FLOPs aren't necessarily reflective of the graphics or gaming performance but they do provide a metric that can be used for comparison.

Gamers should expect great 1080p and even 1440p gaming to be buttery smooth on these graphics cards and with DLSS. The '60' series has always been targeted at premium 1080p & mainstream 1440p gaming but expect these cards to be really popular amongst eSports with technologies such as Reflex, DLSS, and various streaming capabilities at a mainstream price point.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 was launched at $329 US while the RTX 3060 Ti was launched at 399 US. We can expect NVIDIA to retain the same prices for these cards with a $10-$20 US pricing adjustment here and there.

NVIDIA really needs to secure more gamers in the $300-$400 US segment but they have to deliver a product that's worth the price. The RTX 3060 Ti was a decent product while the RTX 3060 proved very competitive against the AMD Radeon RX 6600 series. Now it will be up to NVIDIA to decide if they want to retain the position of the mainstream-king or go a route that will not be in the interest of gamers and themselves, alike.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series graphics cards are rumored for a Q3 reveal and a launch is expected in Q4 2022 so we will know for sure what NVIDIA is up to in the next few months.

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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Graphics Card Specs, Performance, Price & Availability Everything We Know So Far - Wccftech