INNO3D RTX 4060 Graphics Card Review

The latest Nvidia graphics cards are here at last, and honestly, this is one chipset I've been really looking forward to. I build a few systems now and then for friends and family and money is always the biggest bottleneck. With many of the flagship cards costing North of £1000, high-end PC gaming is pretty intimidating to get into. However, to play the latest games at full HD resolutions and even 1440p, you can get away with some surprisingly more affordable models. With the new RTX 4060 being the most affordable 4000 chipsets to date, I'm eager to see just how much gaming fun can be had without selling off your firstborn to get the fastest cards. Of course, it's hot on the heels of the RTX 4060 Ti which we reviewed recently, and naturally, we're expecting it to perform a little bit behind the Ti version, but we'll soon see by how much! Of course, this card is less likely to be marketed to 3000 series owners, but those long-standing GTX 1000 series users who've been using the GTX 1050, 1060 and 1650 cards, which are still sitting at the top of the Steam Hardware Survey! For those users, these sub £300 cards are going to offer some very significant performance and feature updates such as DLSS, Ray Tracing, and AV1 encoding, to name but a few. Nvidia's testing over multiple games showed an 8x to 14x performance leap and I don't doubt it, as a lot has changed in GPU performance in the last 6-7 years! INNO3D RTX 4060 Graphics Card Now, we do not have a founders card on this launch, so for our full-fat chipset review, we'll be using the INNO3D RTX 4060 Twin X2, as it's both an MSRP card, and comes with a reference speed chipset, although an OC model is also available if you wanted to seek that one out for yourself. The card features 3072 CUDA cores, which is quite a step down from the 4352 of the 4060 Ti, and the Boost Clock is 2.46GHz, down from the 2.54 of the 4060 Ti. What is interesting, however, is that it even has fewer CUDA cores than the RTX 3060 did, as that had 3584 cores, but only ran a boost clock of 1.78 GHz, which is quite a lot slower. Both cards use the same 8GB of GDDR6 memory, and the older 3060 came with either an 8GB or 12GB variant. Features 3072 CUDA Cores2460 MHz Boost Clock1830 MHz Base Clock17 Gbps Memory Clock8GB GDDR6128-bit Memory Bus272 GB/s Bandwidth A Closer Look INNO3D always deliver great-looking graphics cards, and while this may be a more budget-focused model, it certainly doesn't look it. This is a really slick and professional-looking design that's sure to look good in a gaming PC build but is smart and tidy enough to not look out of place in your office rig if you really needed it there. The shroud is plastic construction, but it's all really good quality materials, with a really nice finish that gives it a two-tone metal and plastic look. There are even some exposed screws that give it a slightly more industrial look. As for the fans, they're both quite large at 90mm, with 11 fins and given the size of the card isn't exactly huge at 250 x 105 x 40mm, it means that these two fans cover a significant amount of the heatsink, so cooling performance should be excellent. Being just 40mm deep, this card only takes up two slots, which is great for those of you in small form factor or slimmer profile PC cases. The more expensive models are notoriously huge, so it's nice to see this is just the shape and size we've been used to for many years now. In terms of power delivery, the RTX 4060 from INNO3D gets by with just a single 8-pin power connector and doesn't require the newer header, meaning your existing power supply will do just fine. Plus, those of you with lower wattage PSUs of just 500-600W should be absolutely fine, even if you have a power-hungry CPU. The card is surprisingly closed up on the sides though, so the bulk of the airflow will exhaust out of the back of the card, and through this huge cut-out in the backplate. Actually, the backplate is quite telling, as the PCB actually stops about where the power connector is in the middle, so the heatsink is actually twice the length of the card its self! At the rear, there are three DisplayPorts and a single HDMI port. Taking the card apart is simple enough, and there's a full metal backplate on the rear and a plastic shroud on the front of the card. The fans are mounted directly to the heatsink with a frame that surrounds the aluminium fins. The heatsink is a single piece, but there's a large heatpipe running through it to ensure it can move most of the heat to the rear of the card, where it can be more easily exhausted. The PCB itself is cute as a button, and actually, surprisingly simple to look at. It uses the RT8845A Multi-Phase PWM Controller in a 4+1 configuration, with four to the GPU and one to the memory, and there are four SKhynix 2GB chips on here too, giving the card its 8GB VRAM, but there's certainly room on the PCB to take that to 16GB if it's ever needed. The MOSFETs are the QM3092M6 and the QM3098M6. How We Test We continue to update our testing methods around once per year. As such, we re-test older hardware to reflect changes over time. These can be driver updates, Windows updates, game patches, and more; all of which have an impact on performance figures. Furthermore, we update our test benches to newer and more relevant hardware. This means that our new reviews aren’t always comparable to those of older reviews, so please compare the testing methodology on older reviews should you be trying to compare them with newer ones. Replicate Our Results When it comes to our benchmarks in our reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory and are kept as simple as possible, although there are a few exceptions. Remember that your choice of a graphics card, CPU, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there’s always a margin for error when using any software. Links are provided below, as well as the settings we use. We encourage you to not just look at how one product compares to any other, but how it compares to your own. If you’re looking to build a new system, you should benchmark your current PC using the benchmarks available to you. You should then look at the percentage improvement from your current hardware to the hardware tested here to give you a ballpark figure of how much of an upgrade this will provide you with. Processor Test Systems Test System (GPU) Motherboard ASUS ROG Z690 Maximus HeroBIOS Version 1720 Buy Now Processor Intel Core i9 12900K Review Buy Now GPU Changes Per Review RAM Patriot Viper Venom 32GB (2x16GB) 6200MHz Review Buy Now CPU Cooler NZXT Kraken Z73 RGB Buy Now Power Supply NZXT C1000 Gold Review Buy Now Storage Seagate FIRECUDA 530 1TB Review Buy Now Chassis NZXT H7 Flow Review Buy Now OS Windows 11 Pro Version 21H2 Drivers AMD Graphics: 22.10.1NVIDIA Graphics: 521.90 Additional Hardware Nvidia PCAT (Power Capture Analysis Tool) Software We use a variety of software from different developers to assist in our testing and to give us the most consistent results possible. Some applications are specifically used for testing, while others are simply used for monitoring and to aid us in making sure that our results are as accurate as possible. Software Used 3DMark FireStrike & TimeSpy (download)PugetBench for Davinci Resolve (download) Gaming To gauge performance levels which are easily reproduced time after time, by both ourselves and our readers, we now stick strictly to games default profiles. Given how powerful most modern cards are getting, we've began using more demanding profiles for most games, but will otherwise state on a per game basis if we use other profiles beyond High, Ultra, Maximum or their respective equivalent at all resolutions. V-Sync is always disabled in our testing, and all FPS caps that can be removed are. We also enable XMP and Resizable bar technology across all platforms to keep things as fair as possible. Games While we test a lot of games, it's not possible to display all of the data on the website or in our videos. Instead, we include access to all of our testing data for our Patreon members (link), where members get a ton of other benefits as well. What we do, however, is display charts for averages across all game titles to give a better picture of performance across all titles tested. A Plague Tale: RequiemAssassin's Creed ValhallaCall Of Duty Modern Warfare 2ControlCyberpunk 2077Death StrandingDoom EternalDying Light 2F1 22Far Cry 6FortniteHorizon Zero DawnMarvel's Spider-Man RemasteredMicrosoft Flight Simulator 2020Watch Dogs: Legion Resolutions 1080 (Full HD)14404K Some tests will also include features such as NVIDIA DLSS and Ray Tracing. However, these will be clearly labelled and may only appear in reviews for graphics cards that support those features. Power Consumption Not being content on simply reading total system power draw, we now run F1 22 for an hour loop and measure power draw at the end of the loop for the most accurate measurement that represents real-world gameplay experience. Temperatures We take temperature readings after 10 minutes of desktop idle with no background programs running, then take the recorded maximum delivered during the same runs as when we measure power consumption, being during our Cyberpunk 2033 run, and during Cinebench R23 at load too. 3DMark Timespy Extreme Time Spy Extreme is a new 4K DirectX 12 benchmark test, available in 3DMark Advanced and Professional Editions. You don't need a 4K monitor to run it, but you will need a GPU with at least 4 GB of dedicated memory. With its 4K Ultra HD rendering resolution, Time Spy Extreme is an ideal benchmark test for the latest high-end graphics cards. The CPU test has been redesigned to let processors with 8 or more cores perform to their full potential 3DMark is available on Steam here. Right off the bat, the RTX 4060 is pushing ahead of the RTX 3060, which is good. Of course, the RTX 3060 isn't really what it was built to replace, and I've said before, there's little benefit in upgrading from one gen to the next. The score is on par with both the RX 6700 and 7600 too. 3DMark Port Royal 3DMark Port Royal is the world’s first real-time ray tracing benchmark for gamers. It shows you how well your PC handles ray-tracing effects in real time. Use Port Royal to benchmark graphics cards that support Microsoft DirectX Raytracing. Compare Port Royal benchmark scores to see how overclocking affects ray-tracing performance. Find your PC's performance limits with custom benchmark settings and detailed hardware monitoring charts. 3DMark is available on Steam here. Pretty much the same story here, with the an 848 point lead on the RTX 3060 and also ahead of the RX 7600. A Plague Tale: Requiem Far across the sea, an island calls… Embark on a heartrending journey into a brutal, breathtaking world twisted by supernatural forces. After escaping their devastated homeland, Amicia and Hugo travel far south, to new regions and vibrant cities. There, they attempt to start a new life and control Hugo’s curse. But, when Hugo’s powers reawaken, death and destruction return in a flood of devouring rats. Forced to flee once more, the siblings place their hopes in a prophesized island that may hold the key to saving Hugo. Discover the cost of saving those you love in a desperate struggle for survival. Strike from the shadows or unleash hell, overcoming foes and challenges with a variety of weapons, tools and unearthly powers. Available now on Steam. Our first gaming test saw an 11% increase gen to gen, but the 1% lows are much improved too, and this is with the extremely demanding ultra preset too. Even at 1440p ultra, 52 FPS is certainly playable with V-Sync on or similar, and a good 10 FPS (23%) ahead of the older model too. Assassin's Creed Valhalla Assassin's Creed Valhalla is a 2020 action role-playing video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the twelfth major instalment in the Assassin's Creed series and the successor to 2018's Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Principally set in the years 872–878 AD, the game recounts a fictional story during the Viking expansions into the British Isles. Players control Eivor Varinsdottir, a Viking raider who becomes embroiled in the centuries-old conflict between the Assassin Brotherhood, who fight for peace and liberty, and the Templar Order, who desire peace through control. The modern-day portion of the story is set in the 21st century and follows Layla Hassan, an Assassin who relives Eivor's memories so as to find a way to save the Earth from destruction. Available now on UPlay. A huge improvement here, with the FPS just tipping over 100, and again, much more competitive 1% lows too. And still, a smooth experience moving up to 1440p, at least, if you're planning on a 60-ish FPS experience. Call Of Duty Modern Warfare II Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® II drops players into an unprecedented global conflict that features the return of the iconic Operators of Task Force 141. From small-scale, high-stakes infiltration tactical ops to highly classified missions, players will deploy alongside friends in a truly immersive experience. Infinity Ward brings fans state-of-the-art gameplay, with all-new gun handling, advanced AI system, a new Gunsmith and a suite of other gameplay and graphical innovations that elevate the franchise to new heights. Modern Warfare® II launches with a globe-trotting single-player campaign, immersive Multiplayer combat and a narrative-driven, co-op Special Ops experience. Available now on Steam. Modern Warfare II is a demanding game to run, and AMD certainly stretch their legs on this one, but RTX 3060 and 4060 populate the bottom of the charts, but again, there's a strong improvement gen-to-gen. Less so at 1440p, and while the 1% lows suck, they largely halve the average on all GPUS, but a 63 FPS average is still decent. Control A corruptive presence has invaded the Federal Bureau of Control…Only you have the power to stop it. The world is now your weapon in an epic fight to annihilate an ominous enemy through deep and unpredictable environments. Containment has failed, and humanity is at stake. Will you regain control? Available now on Steam. A very pretty but largely boring game in my opinion, but if you do play this snooze fest, 97 FPS is going to be pretty smooth, and again, about 9% faster than the 3060. The two are pretty closely matched at 1440p though, but this game takes a pretty potent GPU to get running really smoothly at higher resolutions. Cyberpunk 2077 Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world, action-adventure RPG set in the megalopolis of Night City, where you play as a cyberpunk mercenary wrapped up in a do-or-die fight for survival. Improved and featuring all-new free additional content, customize your character and playstyle as you take on jobs, build a reputation, and unlock upgrades. The relationships you forge and the choices you make will shape the story and the world around you. Legends are made here. What will yours be? Available now on Steam. Now for the big dog, Cyberpunk (we'll have ray tracing and DLSS tests on further pages). 84 FPS and 69 FPS 1% lows, not bad at all and around 23% improvement on the RTX 3060 here too, performing much closer to the 3060 Ti (which was also beaten by the 4060 Ti). 1440p soon knocked the wind out of it, but it's not until you get to the 4060 Ti that you break 60 FPS on this one, but this is largely what I expected to happen. Death Stranding From legendary game creator Hideo Kojima comes a genre-defying experience, now expanded in this definitive DIRECTOR’S CUT. As Sam Bridges, your mission is to deliver hope to humanity by connecting the last survivors of a decimated America. Can you reunite the shattered world, one step at a time? Available now on Steam. I love how gorgeous this game looks and yet it's still so beautifully optimised too, 155 FPS without breaking a sweat, and a 21 FPS gain on the old card. Even at 1440p, FPS is still solid, and while it's low on the chart, that's what we expected anyway, this is the cheapest of the bunch so far. Dying Light 2 The virus won and civilization has fallen back to the Dark Ages. The City, one of the last human settlements, is on the brink of collapse. Use your agility and combat skills to survive, and reshape the world. Your choices matter. Available now on Steam. Smashing it again, with significant gains on the older generation too, seeing a 37.6% improvement in average FPS. Oooh, only 1% from that glorious 60 FPS target, but hey, this is more than playable at 1440p. F1 22 Enter the new era of Formula 1® in EA SPORTS™ F1® 22, the official video game of the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship™. Take your seat for a new season as redesigned cars and overhauled rules redefine race day, test your skills around the new Miami International Autodrome, and get a taste of the glitz and glamour in F1® Life. Race the stunning, new cars of the Formula 1® 2022 season with the authentic lineup of all 20 drivers and 10 teams, and take control of your race experience with new immersive or broadcast race sequences. Create a team and take them to the front of the grid with new depth in the acclaimed My Team career mode, race head-to-head in split-screen or multiplayer, or change the pace by taking supercars from some of the sport’s biggest names to the track in our all-new Pirelli Hot Laps feature. The official video game of the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship™: Available now on Steam. hilariously high FPS from F1 22 as always, but interesting, the 1% lows are slightly worse, not sure why, but likely just a driver issue that will get patched up. Regardless, high refresh rate gaming is clearly on the table here. Even at 1440p that 1% low issue persists, very odd indeed, but 185 FPS average is still great. Far Cry 6 Welcome to Yara, a tropical paradise frozen in time. As the dictator of Yara, Antón Castillo is intent on restoring his nation back to its former glory by any means, with his son, Diego, following in his bloody footsteps. Their oppressive rule has ignited a revolution. Available now on Ubisoft Connect. Again, the RTX 4060 seems to be pretty consistent in its performance, sitting just ahead of the RTX 4060 and somewhat matching the various budget AMD cards that surround it. Again, just behind the 660 XT. Horizon Zero Dawn Experience Aloy’s entire legendary quest to unravel the mysteries of a world ruled by deadly Machines. An outcast from her tribe, the young hunter fights to uncover her past, discover her destiny… and stop a catastrophic threat to the future. Unleash devastating, tactical attacks against unique Machines and rival tribes as you explore an open world teeming with wildlife and danger. Horizon Zero Dawn is a multi-award-winning action role-playing game – and this Complete Edition for PC includes the huge expansion The Frozen Wilds, featuring new lands, skills, weapons and Machines. Available now on Steam. Another one where the 3060 is in the lead, but now the 6600 XT has dropped way behind the 4060 too, so a bit of musical chairs going on here. Alas, comparisons are one thing, but if I was gaming at 118 FPS using ultimate quality, you'd get no complaints from me. Again the 3060 is ahead, by quite a bit here, this one is certainly strange. I'd say it's VRAM, but there are plenty of 8GB cards doing well, so it's likely both VRAM and overall power combined on this one. Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered Developed by Insomniac Games in collaboration with Marvel, and optimized for PC by Nixxes Software, Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered on PC introduces an experienced Peter Parker who’s fighting big crime and iconic villains in Marvel’s New York. At the same time, he’s struggling to balance his chaotic personal life and career while the fate of Marvel’s New York rests upon his shoulders. Available now on Steam. The RX 6700 XT 12GB and the 4060 8GB are really closely matched here, they do swap places here and there between AMD and Nvidia but largely, they seem well matched on price to performance so far. again, nearly 100 FPS and performing just behind the RTX 3060 Ti. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 The Microsoft Flight Simulator Game of the Year (GOTY) Edition celebrates all the positive feedback, reviews and awards garnered, but it is also a “Thank You” to our fans – new and old – that have made Microsoft Flight Simulator such a phenomenon. Best of all, the Microsoft Flight Simulator Game of the Year Edition will be available as a free update for existing players on PC. Available now on Steam. Flight Sim is not an easy game to run, but we're getting close to 60 FPS here, a good boost on the RTX 3060s 47 FPs, but just behind the steady 60 of the 3060 Ti. This game actually does play well at 30, but I'd rather play at 1080p and get 60. Watch Dogs: Legion Build a resistance from virtually anyone you see as you hack, infiltrate, and fight to take back a near-future London that is facing its downfall. Welcome to the Resistance. Recruit and play as anyone in the city. Everyone you see has a unique backstory, personality, and skill set. Hack armed drones, deploy spider-bots and take down enemies using an Augmented Reality Cloak. Explore a massive urban open world featuring London’s many iconic landmarks and fun side activities. Take your recruits online and team up with your friends as you complete missions and challenging endgame content. Available now on UPlay. Starting to feel like a broken record, but again, really consistent results with what we've seen so far. Even pretty playable at 1440p ultra too, which is nice. Overall Game Average FPS Largely, the RTX 4060 is a bit faster than the 3060 and a little slower than the RTX 3060 Ti on average, but in reality, various AMD cards and the Ti traded places quite a bit from game to game. The same is true at 1440p, and while this is a cut-and-shut case for rasterisation performance, there are other improvements on this card that we need to test... DLSS and Ray Tracing. Ray Tracing & DLSS 3rd Gen RT Cores and 4th Gen Tensor Cores are all new on this card, so while rasterisation performance is give or take similar to the last gen, this is where things could get interesting. Largely, the card is faster gen to gen, but for Control, it's not a huge improvement. In Cyberpunk, the gen-to-gen difference is there, but it's the DLSS 3 that really stands out, taking the FPS up to a staggering 129 FPS with full ultra settings. The 3060 actually did better here, but it's the DLSS 3 mode that looks odd, as it allowed for 81 FPS while using the ultra ray tracing settings rather than just very high. No DLSS 3 on this one, but a good 11 FPS bump with DLSS 2 and 6 FPS with RT high. Power & Temperatures Well For the temperatures we ran the card in an hour-long test of F1 2022 and here we saw that the GPU temps reached a high of 71 degrees however for the most part it sat around 70 degrees throughout the test. For the Hotspot Temperature it ran even hotter, sitting at 85 degrees max for the duration of the test while the fan speed the card ramped up to 1905 RPM which was barely audible all while the GPU Power usage reached a max of 119.5w throughout our testing. How Much Does it Cost? Amazingly, these new cards are launching at just $299, or about £280 here in the UK. That's impressive, as the last time I saw a GPU price begin with a two, it was two thousand... Now, obviously, I'm not going to be throwing my RTX 4090 on eBay and trading in for an RTX 4060, but let's not beat around the bush here, yes it's the budget model and the performance isn't bleeding edge stuff, but it's also the cheapest card too, and quite simply, that's the reason it'll sell. If you're looking to upgrade from the old GTX class cards from 5 to 7 years ago, this is a no-brainer right now. The elite gamers who live in the comments sections, and the armchair experts on reddit will scoff, but the Steam Survey will be full of these soon enough as it's a good card with a specific intention, out with the old, in with the new. Overview When it comes to performance, the RTX 4060 is unsurprisingly the slowest card in the RTX 4000 series lineup, as Nvidia tend to start with the flagship and then work down the range. It scored 5370 in 3DMark, which is actually not that bad though, and about 18% below that of the RTX 4060 Ti but also remarkably similar to the RTX 2080 which scored 5566. This can also be seen in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, one of many examples, with the RTX 4060 scoring 95, 63 and 36 FPS at 1080p, 1440p and 4K respectively, pretty much identical to the RTX 2080 which scored 92, 64, and 40 FPS; the 2080 was a £749 card when it launched five years ago. It's clear to me that the RTX 4060 is what I would call "enough" graphics card for modern PC gaming. It'll play all the latest games with 60+ FPS at full HD, albeit in our testing it exceeded that easily enough, and even at 1440p, it holds its own, but really I think unless you're playing easy-to-run games such as some of the F2P fodder, this card is strongest with a high refresh rate Full HD monitor. When you can get a 24" FHD 144hz gaming monitor for about £130 these days, some great competitive gaming experiences can clearly be had for not a lot of money. I know the experts will be in the comments waggling fingers about VRAM or how you can get a second-hand card for something less, but honestly, it's just ignoring the fact that the performance is clearly just fine on this card, that people like new stuff with a warranty, and that it's just nice to have nice things that are new and shiny. At this price range, it's a competent card that'll get the budget gamers another 5+ years of affordable gaming joy. If you've been waiting for a reasonably priced card to replace your GTX 1000 series, it may not be the perfect graphics card, but this is it right now. The RTX 3060 Ti largely performed about the same, if not a fraction better, but it uses more power, generates a little more heat, and doesn't come with the 3rd Gen RT Cores and 4th Gen Tensor Cores, which clearly bring their own advantages in terms of ray tracing and DLSS 3.0 too, despite the cards costing broadly the same. Should I Buy One? Reliable performance and sensible prices abound. This card launches cheaper than the GTX 1060 did, at least when you adjust for inflation as £239 in 2016 money is now £306 in today's market... yikes. If the Steam Hardware Survey has taught us anything it's that the xx60 cards sell by the truckload and I see no reason why this new one will be an exception. Given nearly 65% of Steam users still game at 1920 x 1080, the RTX 4060 is more than enough for most gamers. Decent rasterisation performance, DLSS, AV1 and other modern technologies all make it a nice upgrade for those on older hardware, but likely an ill investment for those wanting to replace cards from the last year or two. NZXT N7 Z690