Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 vs RTX 3060 review: higher frame-rates, less VRAM

RT benchmarks: Dying Light 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Control.

Review by Richard Leadbetter Technology Editor, Digital Foundry

Published on 29 Jun 2023

Since the arrival of Intel Arc and RTX 40-series GPUs, we've completely revised our test suite, in order to better reflect the future of gaming technology - that means we're zeroing in on titles using key engines and low-level gaming APIs, while we've beefed up representation for ray tracing and image reconstruction. Some of our line-up may need tweaks as the results come in, but right now, we're mostly happy with this more forward-looking approach. 1080p resolution is our core focus here, but we've supplied 1440p metrics too. 4K is ruled out as we actually found that many games simply turn into unplayable slideshows, making the data irrelevant.

Ray tracing is no longer a second class citizen and with the new wave of GPUs, we're seeing some of the most intensive GPU workloads you can get delivered at really decent frame-rates - even before we factor in image reconstruction technologies like DLSS and FSR2.

Our benchmarking system below offers a number of ways to get to the data you want, the presentation varying according to the device you're looking at right now. You'll get a basic overview of our findings on mobile, with metadata from the video capture of each GPU being translated into simple bar charts with average frame-rate and lowest one per cent measurements for easy comparisons.

On a desktop-class browser, you'll get the full-fat DF experience with embedded YouTube videos of each test scene and live performance metrics. Play the video, and you'll see exactly how each card handled the scene as it progresses. Below the real-time metrics is a bar chart, which you can mouse over to see different measurements and click to switch between actual frame-rates and percentage differences. All the data here is derived from video captured directly from each GPU, ensuring an accurate replay of real performance.

Dying Light 2

We've seen in prior RTX 40-series reviews that the new architecture provides the greatest generational leaps when looking at titles heavily reliant on ray tracing, which is where our benchmarks kick off - and where RTX 4060 does not disappoint. In our prior 1080p budget GPU piece, we were impressed with Intel Arc's performance on this title, elevating it beyond the competition. Here, we find that the RTX 4060 is effectively on par with Intel's higher-end offering and easing ahead of its budget-class A750.

In terms of the generational leap, a 22 percent increase over RTX 3060 is towards the upper scale of performance boosts you're going to see with this product, and a 73 percent uplift over RTX 2060 also sets the stage for a best-case scenario up against Nvidia's original mainstream-class RT card.

Dying Light 2, High RT, TAA

Cyberpunk 2077

Similar to Dying Light 2, Cyberpunk 2077 is extremely heavy on RT features and also has the benefit of significant support from Nvidia itself, so in its category, the RTX 4060 is in a class of its own - almost knocking on the door of RTX 3060 Ti-level performance. There's a 24 percent uplift to frame-rates up against the outgoing RTX 3060. This also translates to similarly impressive comparisons against the RTX 2060 with an 81 percentage point increase to performance.

We'll see later on that this improvement does not extend to the rasterised version of the game, but once again, we're looking at a best-case scenario for the RTX 4060. Nothing else in at its price-point gets close to it - and as we'll discuss later, you can even get a good RT Overdrive experience from this game. A path-traced Cyberpunk on a $299 GPU? Believe.

Cyberpunk 2077, Ultra RT, TAA

Control

After two big wins for the RTX 4060, we find ourselves revisiting Remedy's Control - and if you've been following our RTX 40-series reviews, you'll know that this title has proven troublesome for every single Ada Lovelace card except RTX 4090. The trend continues right here, with a minuscule 7.9 percentage point increase over the RTX 3060, leaving the coast clear for Intel Arc to retain its performance advantage.

This also translates into an exceptionally poor increase up against the venerable RTX 2060 - a five-year-old GPU, remember. A 37 percentage point increase over such a long time period emphasises that as strong as Ada Lovelace is in some respects, it's far weaker in others. Even so, the 4060 still manages to log a better result than an RTX 2070 Super - a $499 product back in 2019.