>
Nvidia’s RTX 4060 Ti is back in the spotlight of speculation as we have a performance estimate for the mid-range Lovelace GPU yesterday following a leaked spec update.
The bad news, however, is that this approach to performance isn’t what you – or anyone else – want to hear. If Kopite7kimi is right, the RTX 4060 Ti will be equal to the RTX 3070 in terms of frame rate shifting ability.
Okay, so we have to remember that this is just a rumor, and it can’t be right – maybe a little wrong (let’s hope so).
But even hearing this level of performance as a rumor is seriously concerning in terms of the direction Nvidia might be taking with the RTX 4060 Ti. In terms of it being a much smaller step up from the RTX 3060 Ti than the rest of the Lovelace range from their respective counterparts.
Perhaps we can hope for better things in terms of pricing. Or maybe not, if a My drivers (opens in new tab) article (marked by video cardz (opens in new tab)) is right – add more salt here – citing sources claiming the RTX 4060 Ti will hit shelves with a price tag of around $499 in US currency (around £400 / AU$720) – the same as the RTX 3070 The alleged launch date for this mid-range GPU is still in the middle of 2023, as previous speculations claimed.
Analysis: Eh, this can’t be right, can it?
A “sub-$500” price tag, as noted by VideoCardz, seems to indicate that Nvidia may be considering a $499 price tag. In theory this might be lower, but the suggestion is certainly that it will cost more than the retail 3060 Ti ($399 in the US at launch).
However, the performance rumor on Twitter is the most disturbing part of these new revelations. If the claim that the RTX 4060 Ti will be comparable to the RTX 3070 is true, it’s a huge disappointment. In short, this means that Nvidia is aiming for the RTX 4060 Ti to have as minimal a generation gain as would be achievable. Remember that the 3060 Ti is just one step down from the RTX 3070, and you could hardly have a situation where the 4060 Ti performed as well as its predecessor.
In that light, this is a rather baffling rumor – we hope, and indeed believe, that it will turn out to be wrong. For us, the RTX 4060 Ti should definitely hold up to the speed of the 3070 Ti, or at least come very close.
That said, the leaked specs for the 4060 Ti so far point to a disappointingly weak card, with just 8GB of VRAM (and a 128-bit memory bus), along with fewer cores than the 3060 Ti. And if the latest speculation of 160W for power consumption is correct, that points to some potentially rather tame clock speeds for the GPU to boot.
Of course, these specs could be wrong – indeed all these rumors could be – and even if this is Nvidia’s plan now, it could change before release (which is still a good half year away).
Hopefully Nvidia will realize that using a weak sauce with the RTX 4060 Ti will be a very unpopular move, especially if that price is kept relatively high for the card (as has been the theme with Lovelace graphics cards up until now ). Simply because this is such an important GPU for the average PC gamer in terms of the mid-range sweet spot.