Nvidia just lately scored an enormous win with its RTX 4070 Ti graphics card, which has me fairly optimistic about the way forward for Nvidia’s midrange choices to return, however a brand new spec leak from a reasonably dependable Twitter leaker has me severely questioning what the corporate is pondering.

For starters, it is necessary to qualify spec leaks like this since Nvidia hasn’t introduced something but, and any “leaks” on-line should be taken with a grain of salt. However kopite7kimi (opens in new tab) has been pretty on level previously, so these specs cannot be written off totally both.

RTX 4060 nonetheless makes use of PG190. AD107-400-A13072FP328G GDDR6 18Gbps115W24M L2I will attempt to stay impartial about any leaks sooner or later. 😁😁😁February 13, 2023

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For starters, the RTX 4060 seems to be prefer it’ll be utilizing the AD107 GPU, which is a step down from the AD106 that we’d count on to see within the RTX 4060, for the reason that RTX 3060 used the GA106 GPU. Even the RTX 3050 8GB used a minimize down GA106 GPU, so the AD107 GPU would seem like a regression right here.

What’s extra, the purported RTX 4060 specs (in addition to a few of our back-of-the-napkin calculations) are almost similar to the RTX 4060 Cell specs for which now we have official numbers for comparability.

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RTX Spec Comparability: 4060 Cell / 4060 / 3060

Element	RTX 4060 Cell (Official)	RTX 4060 Desktop (Rumored)	RTX 3060 Desktop
GPU	AD107-GN21-X4	AD107-400-A1	GA106-300-A1
CUDA cores	3,072	3,072	3,584
Tensor cores	96	96	112
Ray Tracing Cores	24	24	28
Base Clock Frequency	1,545MHz	TBD	1,320MHz
Enhance Clock Frequency	1,890MHz	TBD	1,777MHz
VRAM	8GB GDDR6	8GB GDDR6	12GB GDDR6
Reminiscence Clock	2,000MHz	2,250MHz	1,875MHz
Efficient Reminiscence Pace	16Gbps	18Gbps	15Gbps
Reminiscence Bus Width	128-bit	128-bit	192-bit
Reminiscence bandwidth	256GB/s	288GB/s	360GB/s
TDP	115W	115W	170W

As you possibly can see, the largest distinction within the leaked specs from the confirmed RTX 4060 Cell is the big downgrade within the variety of streaming multiprocessors going off the CUDA core rely, from 3,584 within the RTX 3060 and three,072 within the RTX 4060 — a 14.28% lower. With out the lower, this falls light-years wanting the perfect graphics card in Nvidia’s lineup, the RTX 4090, and is available in at simply north half that of the RTX 4070 Ti, so the lower in core rely right here goes to restrict the RTX 4060’s potential.

There’s additionally the matter of the marginally greater efficient reminiscence clock over the RTX 4060 Cell, which supplies the RTX 4060 desktop a 12.5% enhance in reminiscence bandwidth, however in any other case it is kind of the identical on the reminiscence entrance as its cell variant.

A key unknown proper now could be what the ultimate base and enhance clock speeds will likely be for the RTX 4060, however provided that the Nvidia Lovelace structure is a 4nm course of versus Nvidia Ampere’s 8nm course of, we count on base clock speeds north of two,000MHz, with the enhance clock probably upwards of two,500MHz if the roughly 56% sooner base clock and 48% sooner enhance clock gen-on-gen sample for the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 maintain for the RTX 4060.

Two causes these specs have me fearful

First, let me begin with this: the lower in streaming multiprocessors and CUDA cores is not that massive of a deal. With 128 CUDA cores per SM, the leaked specs imply a lower from 28 SMs within the RTX 3060 to 24 SMs within the RTX 4060. A 14.28% drop in tensor cores and ray tracing cores is not nice, but in addition contemplate that these are fourth-gen tensor and third-gen ray tracing cores. They’re merely a lot, a lot better than Ampere’s third- and second-gen cores, respectively, so they are going to truly carry out higher regardless of there being fewer of them.

What does fear me although is the reminiscence. 8GB VRAM at this stage is moderately paltry, and whereas this technically ought to be a high-end 1080p graphics card, given how effectively the RTX 4070 Ti handles 4K and the way effectively the RTX 3060 Ti manages with 1440p gaming, we’d hope that the RTX 4060 can be a strong candidate for the perfect 1440p graphics card. Given its specs although, I am uncertain.

The issue right here is that 8GB VRAM is simply high-quality for 1080p, for the reason that measurement of texture recordsdata that may rapidly replenish VRAM are a lot smaller than they’re at 1440p or 4K. And whereas the RTX 3060 Ti additionally had 8GB GDDR6 VRAM, it additionally had a a lot wider reminiscence bus (256-bit), giving it an efficient reminiscence bandwidth of 448.zero GB/s.

That is greater than sufficient to get 1440p textures effectively loaded up and processed regardless of the smaller VRAM pool, whereas the RTX 3060 had 50% extra VRAM (12GB) and a bigger reminiscence bus (192-bit), so it clocked in with a 360.0GB/s reminiscence bandwidth, additionally giving it some decent-ish 1440p efficiency. The RTX 4060, in the meantime, seems to be like it is going to have a a lot decrease reminiscence bandwidth, so bigger textures at 1440p are going to bottleneck a lot sooner, limiting 1440p efficiency and just about limiting this card to 1080p gaming.

There’s additionally the matter of it utilizing the identical base GPU because the RTX 4060 Cell. We’ve not been in a position to take a look at the RTX 4060 Cell for ourselves but, however usually the cell chips are a couple of tier to a tier-and-a-half decrease than their desktop counterparts by way of the GPU used (so the RTX 4090 desktop’s AD102 is a tier up from the RTX 4090 Cell’s AD103), whereas additionally being minimize down variations of these chips.

The RTX 4060 Cell is certainly a minimize down variant of the AD107, but when the RTX 4060 desktop card can be an AD107, then you definately positively cannot count on an excessive amount of extra efficiency out of the desktop model than you’d get with the cell GPU. That is not nice for desktop gaming, even at 1080p.

Nonetheless, there’s one massive motive these specs is likely to be excellent news for avid gamers

Whereas all of this is likely to be dangerous information for avid gamers by way of efficiency, there’s a sliver of hope right here, and that is value. If Nvidia was going to attempt to make a RTX 4060 that’s aggressively priced (I am pondering lower than $300/£300), then the commerce off right here would not simply be justified, it’d very effectively be what avid gamers are calling for.

Most avid gamers are nonetheless gaming at 1080p, based on the Steam {Hardware} Survey (opens in new tab) with a rising quantity upgrading to 1440p at most. Whereas the reminiscence constraints do not bode effectively for 1440p gaming, getting an inexpensive graphics card into the palms of avid gamers the place they’re at the moment at would positively be one thing to rejoice.

Numerous avid gamers are additionally nonetheless operating GTX period GPUs, so the efficiency improve with an RTX 4060 will nonetheless be substantial sufficient that I am certain a whole lot of avid gamers aren’t going to care about how a lot better it may very well be with an AD106 GPU, and ultimately, that is actually all that ought to matter — particularly if Nvidia can get the pricing on this card proper.