Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB Review: Does More VRAM Help?

Double the memory, still the same underlying chip.

Gigabyte's Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB Gaming OC
(Image: © Tom's Hardware)

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Nvidia doesn't market the RTX 4060 Ti as a 4K gaming solution, not even the 16GB model. That's because performance really isn't sufficient. But if you want proof that 16GB is better than 8GB while using the same GPU? Well, we finally have some good news.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB performance charts

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Hoorah! Look at that gap! The 4060 Ti 16GB can now spread its VRAM-laden wings and soar to a whopping 5% lead over the 8GB card. Even better, both models have dropped to just under 30 fps average across our test suite. (That's all sarcasm, if it's not clear.)

It would be interesting to see what a wider memory interface would have done for the 4060 Ti, but that obviously didn't happen. What we do know is that even the RX 6800 now pulls ahead of the 4060 Ti 16GB by 5%, the 6800 XT increases the lead to 22%, and if you want to stick with Nvidia GPUs, the RTX 4070 delivers 36% more performance overall. So, 12GB with more compute and a 192-bit interface beats 16GB with less compute and a 128-bit interface. None of that should be a surprise.

There's no good way around this. The 4060 Ti doesn't have the raw compute or memory bandwidth to really handle 4K gaming on recent releases. It's fractionally faster than the RTX 3070, at least, as that GPU also has to try and survive with 8GB of VRAM, but the one place where the extra memory helps most (in gaming, at least) is the place where the GPU proves inadequate.

For our rasterization suite, other than the increasing leads delivered by the AMD GPUs — the RX 6750 XT now manages to match the RTX 4060 Ti 16GB while costing about $150 less — the extra memory still didn't help much in most of these games, at the chosen settings. Far Cry 6, Forza Horizon 5, and Watch Dogs Legion are the only three games that showed even slightly more than the margin of error (3% or less) gains from the doubled VRAM.

Though I will say, Far Cry 6, in particular, can have wild swings in benchmark performance at 4K ultra on cards with 8GB. It's consistently inconsistent at these unless you have 10GB or more VRAM. We had runs of around 10 fps, runs of around 20 fps, and occasional runs of the indicated 52 fps. Which is "correct?" All of them, but other GPUs with 8GB don't seem to have these issues (for example, Intel's Arc A750, usually runs about the same, even at 4K). It's probably due to the DX12 memory management, where the code doesn't always work well at these settings.

The RX 6800 XT now delivers 41% higher rasterization performance, if you're keeping score. About half of the games can break 60 fps on that GPU at 4K, while only one game (Forza) gets there, barely, on the 4060 Ti 16GB. The RX 6800 lead likewise grows, this time to 22%. And if you look to the RTX 4070, it's 36% faster now — 12GB is generally still sufficient for 4K, in other words.

4K ultra with ray tracing generally isn't viable on any of these GPUs. Even the RTX 4070 only averaged 25 fps, with two games squeaking past the 30 fps mark. The 4060 Ti 16GB flounders along at 19 fps, 9% faster than the 8GB cards at 17 fps. AMD's alternatives are equally bad choices, with 15 fps from the 6800 and 18 fps from the 6800 XT.

4K resolution gaming, on mainstream to high-end GPUs, with all the ray tracing effects enabled? Yeah, this is prime upscaling territory. DLSS, FSR2, and XeSS aren't just nice extras if you want 4K output (potentially with artifacts). But honestly, if you're not pixel peeping, you can do Performance mode 4x upscaling (from 1080p) and generally be happy. That's the only way consoles generally manage 4K output, and even then, they're often targeting 30 fps rather than 60 fps.

Jarred Walton

Jarred Walton is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on everything GPU. He has been working as a tech journalist since 2004, writing for AnandTech, Maximum PC, and PC Gamer. From the first S3 Virge '3D decelerators' to today's GPUs, Jarred keeps up with all the latest graphics trends and is the one to ask about game performance.

  • newtechldtech
    This card is good if you want to edit movies and need more VRAM .
    Reply
  • JarredWaltonGPU
    I just want to clarify something here: The score is a result of both pricing as well as performance and features, plus I took a look (again) at our About Page and the scores breakdown. This is most definitely a "Meh" product right now. Some of my previous reviews may have been half a point (star) higher than warranted. I've opted to "correct" my scale and thus this lands at the 2.5-star mark.

    I do feel our descriptions of some of the other scores are way too close together. My previous reviews were based more on my past experience and an internal ranking that's perhaps not what the TH text would suggest. Here's how I'd break it down:

    5 = Practically perfect
    4.5 = Excellent
    4 = Good
    3.5 = Okay, possibly a bad price
    3 = Okay but with serious caveats (pricing, performance, and/or other factors)
    2.5 = Meh, niche use cases
    ...

    The bottom four categories are still basically fine as described. Pretty much the TH text has everything from 3-star to 5-star as a "recommended" and that doesn't really jive with me. 🤷‍♂️

    This would have been great as a 3060 Ti replacement if it had 12GB and a 192-bit bus with a $399 price point. Then the 4060 Ti 8GB could have been a 3060 replacement with 8GB and a 128-bit bus at the $329 price point. And RTX 4060 would have been a 3050 replacement at $249.

    Fundamentally, this is a clearly worse value and specs proposition than the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB and the RTX 4070. It's way too close to the former and not close enough to the latter to warrant the $499 price tag.

    All of the RTX 40-series cards have generally been a case of "good in theory, priced too high." Everything from the 4080 down to the 4060 so far got a score of 3.5 stars from me. There's definitely wiggle room, and the text is more important than just that one final score. In retrospect, I still waffle on how the various parts actually rank.

    Here's an alternate ranking, based on retrospect and the other parts that have come out:

    4090: 4.5 star. It's an excellent halo part that gives you basically everything. Expensive, yes, but not really any worse than the previous gen 3090 / 3090 Ti and it's actually justifiable.

    4080: 3-star. It's fine on performance, but the generational price increase was just too much. 3080 Ti should have been a $999 (at most) part, and this should be $999 or less.

    4070 Ti: 3-star. Basically the same story as the 4080. It's fine performance, priced way too high generationally.

    4070: 3.5-star. Still higher price than I'd like, but the overall performance story is much better.

    4060 Ti 16GB: 2.5-star. Clearly a problem child, and there's a reason it wasn't sampled by Nvidia or its partners. (The review would have been done a week ago but I had a scheduled vacation.) This is now on the "Jarred's adjusted ranking."

    4060 Ti 8GB: 3-star. Okay, still a higher price than we'd like and the 128-bit interface is an issue.

    4060: 3.5-star. This isn't an amazing GPU, but it's cheaper than the 3060 launch price and so mostly makes up for the 128-bit interface, 8GB VRAM, and 24MB L2. Generally better as an overall pick than many of the other 40-series GPUs.

    AMD's RX 7000-series parts are a similar story. I think at the current prices, the 7900 XTX works as a $949 part and warrants the 4-star score. 7900 XT has dropped to $759 and also warrants the 4-star score, maybe. The 7600 at $259 is still a 3.5-star part. So, like I said, there's wiggle room. I don't think any of the charts or text are fundamentally out of line, and a half-star adjustment is basically easily justifiable on almost any review I've done.
    Reply
  • Lord_Moonub
    Jarred, thanks for this review. I do wonder if there is more silver lining on this card we might be missing though. Could it act as a good budget 4K card? What happens if users dial back settings slightly at 4K (eg no Ray tracing, no bleeding edge ultra features ) and then make the most of DLSS 3 and the extra 16GB VRAM? I wonder if users might get something visually close to top line experience at a much lower price.
    Reply
  • JarredWaltonGPU
    Lord_Moonub said:
    Jarred, thanks for this review. I do wonder if there is more silver lining on this card we might be missing though. Could it act as a good budget 4K card? What happens if users dial back settings slightly at 4K (eg no Ray tracing, no bleeding edge ultra features ) and then make the most of DLSS 3 and the extra 16GB VRAM? I wonder if users might get something visually close to top line experience at a much lower price.
    If you do those things, the 4060 Ti 8GB will be just as fast. Basically, dialing back settings to make this run better means dialing back settings so that more than 8GB isn't needed.
    Reply
  • Elusive Ruse
    Damn, @JarredWaltonGPU went hard! Appreciate the review and the clarification of your scoring system.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    More memory doesn't do you much good without the bandwidth to put it to use. The 4060(Ti) needed 192bits to strike the practically perfect balance between capacity and bandwidth. It would have brought the 4060(Ti) launches from steaming garbage to at least being a consistent upgrade over the 3060(Ti).
    Reply
  • Greg7579
    Jarred, I'm building with the 4090 but love reading your GPU reviews, even the ones that are far below what I would build with because I learn something every time.
    I am not a gamer but a GFX Medium Format photographer and have multiple TB of high-res 200MB raw files that I work extensively with in LightRoom and Photoshop. I build every 4 years and update as I go. I build the absolute top-end of the PC arena, which is way overkill, but I do it anyway.
    As you know. Lightroom has many new amazing AI masking and noise reduction features that are like magic but so many users (photographers) are now grinding to a halt on their old rigs and laptops. Photographers tend to be behind the gamers on PC / laptop power. It is common knowledge on the photo and Adobe forums that these new AI capabilities eat VRAM like Skittles and extensively use the GPU for the grind. (Adobe LR & PS was always behind on using the GPU with the CPU for its editing and export tasks but now are going at it with gusto.) When I run an AI DeNoise on a big GFX 200MB file, my old rig with the 3080 (I'm building again soon with the 4 090) takes about 12 seconds to grind out the AI DeNoise task. Others rigs photographers use take several minutes or just crash. The Adobe and LightRoom forums are full of howling and gnashing of teeth about this. I tell them to start upgrading, but here is my question.... I can't wait to see what the 4090 will do with these photography-related workflow tasks in LR.
    Can you comment on this and tell me if indeed this new Lightroom AI masking and DeNoise (which is a miracle for photographers) is so VRAM intensive that doubling the VRAM on a card like this would really help alot? Isn't it true that NVidea made some decisions 3 years ago that resulted in not having enough (now far cheaper) VRAM in the 40 series? It should be double or triple what it is right? Anything you can teach me about increased GPU power and VRAM in Adobe LR for us photographers?
    Reply
  • Brian D Smith
    Good card for the OEM masses. No one else need worry about it.
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    4060ti should of been closer to a 4070.

    the gap between em is huge and the cost is way too high. (doubly so that it requires dlss3 support to not get crippled by the limited bus)
    Reply
  • atomicWAR
    JarredWaltonGPU said:
    Some of my previous reviews may have been half a point (star) higher than warranted. I've opted to "correct" my scale and thus this lands at the 2.5-star mark.

    Thank you for listening Jarred. I was one of those claiming on multiple recent gpu reviews that your scores were about a half star off though not alone in that sentiment either. I was quick to defend you from trolls though as you clearly were not shilling for Nvidia either. This post proves my faith was well placed in you. Thank you for being a straight arrow!
    Reply