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Nvidia RTX 4060 Review – Testing ZOTAC GAMING’s RTX 4060 SOLO 163mm Long GPU for the Small Form Factor Market
- Thread starter Revenant
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Check out this HD Youtube video of Palit 4060 Storm X. It has 'proper' heatsink.
- Apr 21, 2017
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And ASUS has responded….with a 3.1 slot triple fan 311mm long RTX 4060. $389.
COME ON!
I can put a fast looking body kit and Type R stickers on a base model Ford Focus but that’s not going to make it faster…
COME ON!
I can put a fast looking body kit and Type R stickers on a base model Ford Focus but that’s not going to make it faster…
- Apr 21, 2017
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It's tempting but I don't think I could get around to benching it in a timely manner. I have a few more projects to wrap up and then I'm taking a month off.
- Apr 21, 2017
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Great review!
Yes the 8Gb memory is a negative, but does it play current games at a better frame rate using less energy and for less money? Yes, yes and yes! It may pose a problem for future games at max settings, but lets be honest, most people who are into PC gaming will be looking to upgrade in 2 - 3 years anyway, to something like the 5060 which you would hope will have more VRAM.
I'm definitely in the minority, but I think the 4060 is a great overall product. It represents a huge move forward in frames per watt, and as you say it opens up some exciting opportunities for those on a limited power budget and case volume.
I personally value an increase in frames per watt just as much as an increase in frames per dollar, because if you're limited to for example 130w for your GPU, then you're going to get almost double the frames per second moving from a 3000 series to a 4000 series for the same wattage.
Perhaps the PC gaming market has come to expect 50% gains in FPS from generation to generation and we've become desensitized to this, but previous generations have done this by increasing the TDP, how long could we continue doing that before we're looking at 2000w power supplies and 5 slot cards?
The 4060 is the first 60 series card we've seen since 2016 with a TDP under 120w, it offers more performance than it's predecessor, for a lower MSRP and once you also consider inflation the price is lower still. Personally I think it's a great move forward, particularly for the SFF market, and I hope we can start to see a reduction in TDP's across all GPU tiers in the future generations.
Yes the 8Gb memory is a negative, but does it play current games at a better frame rate using less energy and for less money? Yes, yes and yes! It may pose a problem for future games at max settings, but lets be honest, most people who are into PC gaming will be looking to upgrade in 2 - 3 years anyway, to something like the 5060 which you would hope will have more VRAM.
I'm definitely in the minority, but I think the 4060 is a great overall product. It represents a huge move forward in frames per watt, and as you say it opens up some exciting opportunities for those on a limited power budget and case volume.
I personally value an increase in frames per watt just as much as an increase in frames per dollar, because if you're limited to for example 130w for your GPU, then you're going to get almost double the frames per second moving from a 3000 series to a 4000 series for the same wattage.
Perhaps the PC gaming market has come to expect 50% gains in FPS from generation to generation and we've become desensitized to this, but previous generations have done this by increasing the TDP, how long could we continue doing that before we're looking at 2000w power supplies and 5 slot cards?
The 4060 is the first 60 series card we've seen since 2016 with a TDP under 120w, it offers more performance than it's predecessor, for a lower MSRP and once you also consider inflation the price is lower still. Personally I think it's a great move forward, particularly for the SFF market, and I hope we can start to see a reduction in TDP's across all GPU tiers in the future generations.
First of all, good job for the detailed review of this GPU. Very well put.
Personnally I am ordering one. I was stuck with my GTX1050 for 5-6years now. This is the perfect upgrade in my situation.
Personnally I am ordering one. I was stuck with my GTX1050 for 5-6years now. This is the perfect upgrade in my situation.
- 16.3cm long!
- Going from 75w to 115w TDP is unbeatable, so I won't have to upgrade my PSU (in theory)
- With that context I feel pricing is acceptable
The 50 class has been pretty weird lately: The jump from GTX 1650 to RTX 3050 brought 100$ (~67%) higher MSRP and 40-55W (~50%-75%) higher TBP, but double VRAM capacity/RT/DLSS and 74% more performance...
Now from RTX 3050 to RTX 4050 it's AGAIN 50$ higher MSRP for just 59% higher performance, while TBP and VRAM has been kept at 115-130W and 8GB... other than that it's just DLSS2 vs. DLSS3.
Honestly, I wouldn't be able to decide which was the better generational jump. I don’t care for DLSS or RT, but hated the TBP increase…and I can excuse the VRAM stagnation of the 4050, because the 3050 had just doubled it… Still I’m hesitant to say 4050 because another 50$ added to the MSRP means double the MSRP of the 1650 in just two generations!
Now from RTX 3050 to RTX 4050 it's AGAIN 50$ higher MSRP for just 59% higher performance, while TBP and VRAM has been kept at 115-130W and 8GB... other than that it's just DLSS2 vs. DLSS3.
Honestly, I wouldn't be able to decide which was the better generational jump. I don’t care for DLSS or RT, but hated the TBP increase…and I can excuse the VRAM stagnation of the 4050, because the 3050 had just doubled it… Still I’m hesitant to say 4050 because another 50$ added to the MSRP means double the MSRP of the 1650 in just two generations!
Wow, iGame has FOUR heatpipes. That's pretty impressive. Too bad it's hard to obtain and that it has a bright theme.Thanks for the correction. Could have swore I checked product page for 4060 StormX like 2 days ago. oh well. Zotac FTW
In the meantime, I understood that horizontal fins work better with single fan cards as with vertical, the fins on the side would not get any airflow from the fan.
How's that 6600XT?
There's a used ASRock Challenger 6600 ITX (so the non-XT) available in my local used market for around 150$. I'm not going to get it, as the performance is not that higher than my 2060 ITX to validate a switch, but the price seems good and it's 130w instead of 160w.
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- Apr 21, 2017
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I'm back adding tests to the 4060. This is Gears of War 5 at absolute max settings at 1080P. This is higher value than we normally test, but are looking into to using from this point forward. One is native 1080P (Windows is set to 1080P on the desktop) and the other is scaled down within the game. Ignore the 3840x2160 resolution as it's just reporting the monitor I'm using. As you can see, there is a performance difference between native and scaled, which is why I always test native. Averaging out the runs, but removing the errant 104.5 FPS score from the native set, we get a difference of 3.97% faster performance in native vs scaled. This was consistent at 1440P as well. That's basically the same performance as overclocking the 4060 in the review.
This is also an example of how we bench the benchmarks, and what you can expect from the 4060 at 1080P with every setting, including maximum global illumination rays, set to the highest possible level.
This is also an example of how we bench the benchmarks, and what you can expect from the 4060 at 1080P with every setting, including maximum global illumination rays, set to the highest possible level.
The Challenger ITX was the best 6600XT model ...in my opinion.
The XT can be more efficient. The non XT I had did stabe 2000Mhz with a little less than 0.9V and the XT did stable 2250Mhz with a little less than 0.9V... both at a maximum GPU power draw of around 85W, but 14.3% more CU's and 12.5% higher clocks.
Colorful is not really that hard to get, from a global perspective.
I mean, of course you cannot hop down to your local Micro Center and pick one off the shelf.
But, you can find the brand in Newegg, with limited choices of models though.
And, you find a wide selection at Colorful's official store in Taobao/Tmall. Similar to ordering SFF cases and other interesting stuff from Taobao, you might just need an agent to do the ordering.
ATM, iGame 4060 is not listed there yet as I just checked. Must be too new.
I suppose, good stuff often require one to have a little patience and to put a little bit effort to get.
Downloaded firestorm I can't get the idle freeze fan working (don't even see it in the settings). For some reason my fan is at a much higher idle speed. There are 3 settings in fan: Custom, Manual and Curve. When I try to set a custom curve setting it doesn't work it doesn't follow it exactly (the curve does work but the lowest it'll go is 57% fan speed which it says is about 1800 RPM even when you set the curve lower than that). The auto also idles at that speed even at 38C. Manual is the only setting it'll go lower than 57% fan speed which is 30% at 980ish RPM but manual only lets me set it at one speed.
My PC is on 24/7, do you think it would be bad to idle at 57% all the time? Or Do I need to manual 30% when idling then change it to auto when I'm gaming on it each time?
Thanks in advance!
My PC is on 24/7, do you think it would be bad to idle at 57% all the time? Or Do I need to manual 30% when idling then change it to auto when I'm gaming on it each time?
Thanks in advance!
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- Apr 21, 2017
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I believe that idle Freeze Fan is exclusive to the twin edge coolers. I'll reach out to Zotac and find out though. I didn't observe that behavior while testing.
We didn't test the software package, only the hardware. That said, you can using MSI Afterburner instead. That's our standard test utility.
Here is how I set up the custom fan curve. I did the following.
Set up a custom fan curve on it.
Set it to 0 RPM below 40C and 30% from 40 to 50C.
Set it to 50% to 60% between 50C and 85C
Set it to 100% above 85C
The fan doesn't stop but it does only rotate at 475RPM at idle. Basically inaudible. Gaming it goes to about 800RPM which is fine for cooling it.
Yes you can idle at higher speeds if you want, but it's probably unnecessary. Here is a pic to help guide you.
I really appreciate the focus of your reviews. Sure, the cards are overpriced, but the fact that you focus on the aspects that may be relevant to us SFF fans is really helpful.
Hello guys,
I said I would post when upgrading so here I am.
So I've bought the card to replace my 1050ti, received it quickly from newegg.
It's really compact indeed, but packs a ton of power!
The box comes with the really bare minimum. aka The card+manual, no extensions no cable or so.
I plugged it in on my custom MC600 from on-logic (case) and started enjoying all the benefits in games.
Temperature was around 60-62C in gaming sessions, and total TDP of my machine was about 150w total in gaming according to smart plug.
I was connecting it via a 6 to 8pin adapter that was powered by a molex adapter because my custom power supply from G-unique 350w only had 6pins. I don't know what's the consensus on that, but I was checking to see if adapter was getting hot or something. It felt okay running like this, but I wasn't myself.
So I went to shop for a power supply, and I remebered of a case which was meant to come with a specific power supply, and I decided that it was time for me to change!
I therefore bought a velkase 3 with the 600W power supply. It is completely overkill, but it will allow me to upgrade to AM5 platform without counting Watts, and even for another SFF GPU in two generations or so.
I will update a separate thread and link it here regarding the build itself.
So the config is the same now, but in a different case. And I have to say it runs globally hotter that what I was used to, running cyberpunk with fairly high settings.
The game is smooth and I don't see any slowdowns or lags. DLSS is quite impressive I have to say.
Same thing for Sons of the Forest in multiplayer.
I noticed that gaming with that GPU tends to make my hard drive hotter strangely enough. Still reasonable, but way hotter than it used to be with 1050ti.
Temps are as follow during gaming:
CPU - 55C-65C
M.2 - 55C
GPU - 65C-70C
In conclusion: Regarding the card, I'm really happy about it. It just transformed my gaming experience. And I can play recent games full graphics on without any issues. It just get my case a bit hot when playing certain titles for a long duration.
I would definitely recommend to gamers who are on the 10xx and 20xx generation of GPU on itx, and for those looking for reduce energy consumption.
Thank you!
I said I would post when upgrading so here I am.
So I've bought the card to replace my 1050ti, received it quickly from newegg.
It's really compact indeed, but packs a ton of power!
The box comes with the really bare minimum. aka The card+manual, no extensions no cable or so.
I plugged it in on my custom MC600 from on-logic (case) and started enjoying all the benefits in games.
Temperature was around 60-62C in gaming sessions, and total TDP of my machine was about 150w total in gaming according to smart plug.
I was connecting it via a 6 to 8pin adapter that was powered by a molex adapter because my custom power supply from G-unique 350w only had 6pins. I don't know what's the consensus on that, but I was checking to see if adapter was getting hot or something. It felt okay running like this, but I wasn't myself.
So I went to shop for a power supply, and I remebered of a case which was meant to come with a specific power supply, and I decided that it was time for me to change!
I therefore bought a velkase 3 with the 600W power supply. It is completely overkill, but it will allow me to upgrade to AM5 platform without counting Watts, and even for another SFF GPU in two generations or so.
I will update a separate thread and link it here regarding the build itself.
So the config is the same now, but in a different case. And I have to say it runs globally hotter that what I was used to, running cyberpunk with fairly high settings.
The game is smooth and I don't see any slowdowns or lags. DLSS is quite impressive I have to say.
Same thing for Sons of the Forest in multiplayer.
I noticed that gaming with that GPU tends to make my hard drive hotter strangely enough. Still reasonable, but way hotter than it used to be with 1050ti.
Temps are as follow during gaming:
CPU - 55C-65C
M.2 - 55C
GPU - 65C-70C
In conclusion: Regarding the card, I'm really happy about it. It just transformed my gaming experience. And I can play recent games full graphics on without any issues. It just get my case a bit hot when playing certain titles for a long duration.
I would definitely recommend to gamers who are on the 10xx and 20xx generation of GPU on itx, and for those looking for reduce energy consumption.
Thank you!
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