NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16G

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 is a desktop graphics card of the upper middle class. It is based on the GM206 Maxwell chip that is produced in 28nm. The GTX960 offers 1024 shader cores, 64 TMUs and 32 ROPs (no deactivated units of the chip). The graphics memory is usually 2 or 4 GB GDDR5 (7 GHz effective clock) connected with a 128 Bit interface. 

On average the gaming performance is on a level with the AMD Radeon R9 280 and R9 285. Compared to laptop graphics cards, the 960 is slightly faster than a mobile Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M. The 970M offers more shader cores, but at a lower clock speed. The similar named GeForce GTX 960M for notebooks offers only 640 shader cores and a slightly lower core clock. The performance of the GTX 960 should be suffice for most games in full HD resolution. In our benchmarks only GTA 5 and The Witcher 3 achieved below 30 fps on average (see below for detailed benchmarks).

The GM206 supports CUDA, 3D Vision, PhysX, GeForce Experience, Surround, GameStream, GPU Boost 2.0, Adaptive Vertical Sync / G-SYNC, SLI, DSR, MFAA and Virtual Reality latency improvements. The GTX 960 also includes a H.265 capable de- and encoder as a first.

The power consumption of the GTX 960 on the desktop without load is around 10 Watt and on a similar level to the AMD counterparts. During gaming the 960 reaches around 85-100 Watt (depending on the model) which is a lot less than e.g. the Radeon R9 285 (around 170 Watt) - source tomshardware.com

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16G

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB is a mid-range desktop GPU and is manufactured using the 5 nm process at TSMC. In addition to the 8 GB model, there is now also a 16 GB model, which is primarily intended to offer noticeable added value for performance-hungry games. With the two GeForce RTX 4060 models, Nvidia is rounding off its current Ada-Lovelace line-up towards the mid-range. The chip used here is the AD106. This combines 4,352 memory units and 16 GB GDDR6 are available here. The memory interface is 128 bits, resulting in a memory bandwidth of 288 GB/s.

Features

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB is not deprived of the features already introduced with the high-end models of the Ada-Lovelace generation, such as DLSS 3.0 with frame generation. This clearly sets the new mid-range model apart from the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti and can gain a clear advantage in games that offer these features.

Performance

Without DLSS, the performance is comparable to that of an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB. Compared to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB can deliver around 10 percent more performance. Compared to AMD, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB is slightly ahead of the Radeon RX 7600. The 16 GB VRAM is noticeable in some games. Sometimes we see significantly better frame rates in games where 8 GB VRAM is not enough. Nvidia has succeeded in its goal of creating a good gaming GPU for 1080p gaming and with 16 GB of RAM, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti is the more interesting of the two RTX 4060 Ti models. Unfortunately, Nvidia charges a hefty premium for the larger VRAM. This does not necessarily make it easier for the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB to position itself on the market.

Power consumption

The power consumption of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB is specified by the manufacturer as 165 watts (TDP). This is 5 watts more than the 8 GB model. In order not to have to supply the graphics chip with less energy, an increase in power consumption was unavoidable. Compared to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, however, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB is still significantly more economical.