Summary
The GeForce RTX 4060 is easily one of Nvidia’s most divisive GPU releases. On paper, the 4060 isn’t a bad card, but it certainly feels like an objective downgrade compared to its immediate predecessor — the RTX 3060 — especially in the VRAM department. However, over the last year and a half, the 4060 has been my primary GPU for all my gaming and productivity needs, and its raw gaming performance just caught me by surprise. My RTX 4060 test bench and games The Ryzen 5 5600X with RTX 4060 eliminates most CPU-related bottlenecks For the RTX 4060 test bench, I chose the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, a decent AM4 CPU, paired with 16GB of DDR4 memory. I kept the CPU in its stock configuration and paired it with a single PCIe Gen3 M.2 NVMe drive to complete my AM4 setup. This more or less makes this test bench a perfect middle ground between the Xbox Series S and the Xbox Series X/PS5. While it’s not a “4K gaming” system by any metric, the 4060 and Ryzen 5 5600X PC is perfectly capable of playing games at 1080p native and 1440p (upscaled). As for the games, I chose titles I revisit most and also threw in a few new releases to push the 4060 to its limits. Lastly, I tested most of the games at 1080p and 1440p. But in all fairness, the 4060 is best fit for 1080p gaming, and that’s what I stuck with, for the most part. The games I tested were:
- Monster Hunter Wilds (2025)
- Elden Ring Nightreign (2025)
- Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced (2026)
- Forza Horizon 6 (2026)
- Crimson Desert (2026)
- Alan Wake 2 (2023)
- Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth (2024)
- Silent Hill 2 (2024) I was expecting average to sub-par performance in most of the games I tested. However, I was pleasantly surprised with the frame rates I got, especially in some of the more recent releases. Surprisingly competent performance with some caveats The RTX 4060 delivers rather impressive frame rates, but the VRAM is a limiting factor Although the 4060’s 8GB of VRAM was always going to be a limiting factor, I was still surprised by how well it performed across the titles I tested. It did struggle a bit in certain GPU-heavy titles, such as Alan Wake 2 and Crimson Desert. However, with a few tweaks to the in-game settings and DLSS black magic, I got playable frame rates with minimal visual degradation. | Game | Settings (Preset) | Average FPS (1080p) | 1% Lows (1080p) | Average FPS (1440p) | 1% Lows (1440p) | Power Consumed (Max) | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Monster Hunter Wilds | Medium (Textures and Mesh Quality at High) | 58 FPS | 42 FPS | 44 FPS | 29 FPS | 114 W | | Elden Ring Nightreign | High | 60 FPS | 54 FPS | 60 FPS | 48 FPS | 90 W | | Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced | High (Standard RT) | 62 FPS | 47 FPS | 53 FPS | 31 FPS (Stutters accounted for) | 115.7 W | | Forza Horizon 6 | Very High | 78 FPS | 64 FPS | 65 FPS | 53 FPS | 117.2 W | | Crimson Desert | High (GI set to Medium) | 54 FPS | 40 FPS | 46 FPS | 28 FPS | 113.5 W | | Alan Wake 2 | Low | 46 FPS | 27 FPS | 32 FPS | 24 FPS | 114.7 W | | Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth | High (Textures at Medium) | 60 FPS (In-game frame rate lock applied) | 43 FPS | 44 FPS | 38 FPS | 114 W | | Silent Hill 2 | High (Textures at Medium) | 57 FPS | 48 FPS | 40 FPS | 32 FPS | 110 W | Unsurprisingly, the biggest performance impact usually comes down to the VRAM limit, especially at 1440p. However, at 1080p, the 4060 performs quite well, with 1% lows that are well within the VRR bracket. The only game where the card struggled is Alan Wake 2, which uses developer Remedy Entertainment’s proprietary Northlight engine. The Northlight engine is known to be quite heavy on VRAM, so I expected it to perform the worst. I should also mention that these tests were all done with DLSS set to the Quality preset. The RTX 4060 left me speechless with its Monster Hunter Wilds performance. What really surprised me here was the kind of performance I was getting in Monster Hunter Wilds. With some tweaks to the game’s settings, I was comfortably sitting at close to 60 FPS on average, with 1% Lows dipping to the upper 40 FPS range. Pairing the 4060 with a G-Sync display meant I never really felt that the games were “lagging” or unplayable. The GPU even allowed me headroom to enable ray-tracing in games like Silent Hill 2 and Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced. RT did take a toll on the performance, but the 4060 still maintained frame rates well within the VRR range. The most impressive feature of the RTX 4060 isn’t its performance It’s a surprisingly power-efficient GPU Performance aside, what really caught me off guard was the RTX 4060’s power efficiency. The GPU has a 120-watt power draw. However, based on the games I tested, the 4060 averaged 111.1 watts. For the performance I was getting, the lower power draw was incredibly impressive. For context, my previous GPU — the RTX 2080ti — consumed up to 280 watts while gaming at similar resolution targets. Furthermore, the 4060’s predecessor, the RTX 3060 (12GB), has a TDP rating of 170 watts. The fact that the RTX 4060 can deliver performance that surpasses the 3060 while consuming significantly less power is intriguing and impressive to me. The minimal power draw makes the 4060 an excellent choice for small form factor PCs or even older rigs that just need a GPU upgrade. I even tested the GPU on my old 450-watt Corsair PSU, and it worked flawlessly. This is one of the few aspects of the 4060 that I never see anyone talking about. I agree the VRAM cuts were uncalled for, especially since the original RTX 3060 shipped with 12GB of video memory. However, I don’t think the reduced VRAM hurts the GPU much, given its performance and resolution targets. At the end of the day, the 4060 is a 1080p card, and a rather great one at that. For 1080p gaming, the RTX 4060 is an excellent choice From my rough testing and a year with the 4060, I have to admit it performed much better than the internet had me believe. The 8GB of VRAM is certainly a limiting factor. However, as long as you’re careful with the game’s settings and your output resolution targets, the 4060 is a fairly performant GPU that’s also incredibly power efficient. The card excels at 1080p gaming and, with some DLSS trickery, can deliver stunning visuals with more-than-playable frame rates in most modern games. And since it’s a 40-Series card, you also have the option for DLSS Frame Generation on the 4060. With that said, can I recommend the RTX 4060 to anyone who is looking for a budget GPU in today’s economy? Yes, I can, but only if you can find it at MSRP or a good second-hand deal. That said, you should only pick this card if you’re okay with playing games at 1080p. Yes, the 4060 can technically play games at 1440p, but only with heavy upscaling. At that point, you’re essentially rendering the game at sub-720p, or even lower.