Nvidia’s RTX 4060 Ti is under the speculation spotlight again, as following a leaked spec update yesterday, we now have a performance estimation for the mid-range Lovelace GPU.
The bad news, though, is that this approximation of performance is not what you – or anyone else – want to hear. If Kopite7kimi is right, then the RTX 4060 Ti is going to be equivalent to the RTX 3070 in terms of its frame rate shifting power.
Okay, so we have to remember this is just a rumor, and it could be off the mark – perhaps some way off the mark (let’s hope so).
However, even hearing this level of performance aired as a rumor is seriously worrying in terms of the direction Nvidia is potentially heading with the RTX 4060 Ti. In terms of it being very much a smaller step up from the RTX 3060 Ti than the rest of the Lovelace range has taken from their respective counterparts.
Maybe we can hope for better things on the pricing front. Or maybe not, if a MyDrivers (opens in new tab) article (highlighted by VideoCardz (opens in new tab)) is right – add further salt here – which cites sources who claim that the RTX 4060 Ti will hit shelves with a price tag of around $499 in US currency (about £400/AU$720) – the same as the RTX 3070. The purported launch date for this mid-range GPU still stands in the middle of 2023, as previous speculation has contended.
Analysis: Er, this can’t be right… can it?
A price tag of ‘below $500’ as noted by VideoCardz seems to indicate that Nvidia might be considering a price tag of $499. In theory, perhaps this could be lower, but the suggestion is certainly that it’ll cost more than the 3060 Ti retailed for ($399 in the US at launch).
The performance rumor on Twitter is the more worrying part of these fresh revelations, though. If the assertion that the RTX 4060 Ti will be on par with the RTX 3070 is correct, that’s a massive disappointment. Basically, this means Nvidia is looking to make the RTX 4060 Ti have about as minimal a generational gain as would be feasible. Remember, only one step down from the RTX 3070 is the 3060 Ti, and you could hardly have a situation where the 4060 Ti was level in performance with its predecessor.
In that light, this is something of a baffling rumor – we hope, and indeed believe, it’ll turn out to be wrong. For us, the RTX 4060 Ti surely has to stand up to the speed of the 3070 Ti, or at least be very close to that.
That said, the leaked specs for the 4060 Ti thus far do indicate a disappointingly weak card, with just 8GB of VRAM (and a 128-bit memory bus), along with fewer cores than the 3060 Ti by a fair way. And if the latest speculation of 160W for power usage is correct, that points to some possibly rather tame clock speeds for the GPU to boot.
These specs could be wrong of course – indeed all these rumors could be – and even if this is Nvidia’s plan right now, it could change before release (which is still a good half a year away).
Hopefully, Nvidia will realize that going weak sauce with the RTX 4060 Ti will be a seriously unpopular move, especially if that pricing is kept relatively high for the card (as has very much been the theme with Lovelace graphics cards so far). Simply because this is such an important GPU for the average PC gamer in terms of the mid-range sweet spot.
