NVIDIA RTX 4060 overclocking is underwhelming

Limited benchmarks show less than impressive overclocked performance from the RTX 4060.

What you need to know

• Partial reviews are in for the NVIDIA RTX 4060, though content creators are only allowed to share very specific pieces of information at this time.
• The RTX 4060 delivered 27% better performance than the RTX 3060 when running Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p in testing by YouTuber JayTwoCents.
• Overclocked benchmarks for the GPU were less impressive.
• The RTX 4060 will go sale on June 29 at $299.

Full NVIDIA RTX 4060 reviews haven't dropped yet, but NVIDIA gave access to certain creators and journalists for a partial embargo. YouTuber JayTwoCents and some others were given early access to the GPU to share very specific benchmarks and thoughts. A recent video by JayTwoCents shared how the RTX 4060 performed when running Cyberpunk 2077.

The RTX 4060 delivered a 27% boost in performance when compared to the RTX 3060 when running Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p. That's a respectable increase across a single generation and aligns with previous benchmarks shared by NVIDIA.

Less impressive were the overclocking figures seen in testing by JayTwoCents. Increasing the power draw by 20% over stock settings, the FPS of the RTX 4060 when running Cyberpunk 2077 only jumped from 81 to 82.5.

As explained by our colleagues at Tom's Hardware, the RTX 4060's performance when overclocked is not surprising. In fact, it likely isn't even disappointing to most people. The RTX 4060 is a more efficient card than its RTX 40-Series siblings. It's not designed to take advantage of increased power draw or overclocking. 

Perhaps more important the overclocked performance is how it handled ray tracing. JayzTwoCents noted that he did not recommend the RTX 2060 or 2060 Ti for ray tracing. He argued that the RTX 3060 improved ray tracing, but not enough.

"40-Series 60-series card with DLSS 3, frame gen on, and running ray tracing now, to get you this kind of FPS in a title as demanding as Cyberpunk? Shows now the extra feature sets are something that's worth considering," he said.

All of these figures are important to place in context. Cyberpunk 2077 is a demanding game, but it also supports DLSS 3, ray tracing, and path tracing. NVIDIA likely chose to let creators test out its new GPU with the specific game to showcase the RTX 4060 in its best light. We'll have to wait until full reviews come out to get a complete gauge of what the RTX 4060 can do with the best PC games.

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