The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti is Nvidia's latest Ada Lovelace card. The RTX 4060 will be joined by the RTX 4060 within a few days of this review's publication, but for now the RTX 4060 Ti is the least expensive card in the RTX 40 series. That makes it a very important one, not only for Nvidia, but for the PC gaming market as a whole; Nvidia's XX60-level cards are usually the most popular of any generation, and these cards are really selling in droves.

Here we got the Asus Dual RTX 4060 Ti OC Edition. The entry-level Dual series may not get the same attention and press as Asus' own TUF and Strix models, but by leaving out the bells and whistles and focusing on the basics, the Asus Dual comes in at $399. That's the MSRP of the base RTX 4060 Ti. Yes, Asus can offer a value that is competitive with any major brand. [For an overview and more information on the RTX 4060 Ti and its underlying AD106 GPU, please see the RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition specs section. While this $400 price point may not set the world ablaze, its core features and technology checklist are solid. Pricing is arbitrary, and if the RTX 4060 Ti ever drops into the low $300s, judgments about its relative value will obviously be reassessed.

But before I get ahead of myself, let me properly introduce the Asus Dual RTX 4060 Ti 8G OC Edition. It has a mild factory overclock, a simpler dual-fan cooler, and, unlike the Founders Edition RTX 4060 Ti, a single 8-pin PCIe power connector. Forget the huge triple-fan quad-slot cooling, all-out RGB, and expensive accessories, this is a true-to-basics card in the reference price range.

The Asus Dual RTX 4060 Ti OC is built around the AD106 GPU, a tiny 190 mm² chip manufactured on TSMC's 5nm process. Like the other RTX 4060 Ti, it has 4352 CUDA cores enabled out of the AD106's maximum possible number of 4608. This includes 48 ROPs, 34 RT cores, and 136 tensor cores, connected to the system via a PCIe 4.0 8x interface.

Surprisingly, aside from having a much larger L2 cache (32MB versus 4MB), the RTX 4060 Ti's specs are a step below the much larger GA104 chip in the RTX 3060 Ti, despite both having the same launch price . This means that Nvidia is making more profit per RTX 4060 Ti sold. But this is all relative, and we are not dealing with the peak of the mining frenzy, when the RTX 3060 Ti was insanely priced.

The Asus Dual has a boost clock of 2565 MHz. 8GB of 18Gbps memory is connected to a 128-bit bus, providing up to 288GB/s of memory bandwidth. On paper, this is a rather middling memory spec; there is much debate as to whether 8GB is sufficient for mid- to long-term gaming. We'll have to see how games like "Starfield" and "Grand Theft Auto 6" perform before making a final decision. In any case, if you are prepared to pay a hefty premium, a 16GB version will be available soon. [The Asus Dual has a single 8-pin PCIe power connector. This is good news for gamers with basic power supplies. For a card with a relatively slim 160W TDP, a 16-pin adapter is excessive and frankly pointless.

The Asus Dual has three standard DP 1.4 ports and one HDMI 2.1 port; DP 2.0 is not included, but is not needed for a card that delivers high FPS at 4K, let alone 8K.

Physically, the Asus Dual RTX 4060 Ti has a very welcome compact design: while it remains a 2.5 slot card, its 22.7cm length is much more case-friendly than larger triple-fan cards. Its appearance can be described as practical. The design is very subtle, with a black background and a full-cover backplate. As a gamer who prefers to see what is displayed on the screen rather than the cards it drives, I like this no nonsense look.

The Dual RTX 4060 Ti's dual-fan cooler is, by no stretch of the imagination, perfect for a 160W TDP card. In an era when some high-end cards consume three times that much, or even more, power, it is great to see a "normal" graphics card. The Ada Lovelace generation features excellent power efficiency, and the AD106 truly excels in this area. Two fans are all that is needed.

The Asus Dual RTX 4060 Ti OC is overclocked by just over 1% from the Founders Edition, so the results for both cards are roughly the same, with a small margin of error separating them.

Thermal performance and system power consumption results highlight the RTX 4060 Ti's strengths; a load temperature of 61°C proves that you don't have to spend money on the premium RTX 4060 Ti variant. You might save a few degrees, but it won't matter if dual-fan cards like Asus' always remain quiet overall.

Sure, spending more money might get you factory overclocking, a few percent performance increase at most, a better design and RGB LEDs, but in terms of cooling, a triple-fan, triple-slot cooler is a complete overkill for an AD106-equipped graphics card is complete overkill; the Asus Dual strikes a good balance.

The Asus Dual's low power consumption is truly impressive; the Ada generation offers great power efficiency and performance per watt.

Composite gaming performance

1080p gaming performance

1440p gaming performance

The RTX 4060 Ti can easily power 1080p games. For games that support ray tracing, the RTX 4060 Ti does a good job, and if enabled with DLSS, especially games that support DLSS 3 and Frame Generation, you can play everything at 1080p on high settings without any problems.

The RTX 4060 Ti is also a capable 1440p card. In general, it doesn't have the horsepower to push a high-quality 1440p monitor at 144Hz plus without lowering some settings, but it is still suitable for 1440p. Nvidia itself is at pains to point out that many of the games tested show essentially no improvement in performance

, but comparing the performance of the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB to the upcoming RTX 4060 Ti 16GB would be an interesting proposition.

For less demanding games, including esport titles, the RTX 4060 Ti will continue to run without any worries.

Some games can be run at 4K, but the RTX 4070 is a better option if that's what you want; DLSS will give you a significant performance boost, but the most demanding games, such as Cyberpunk 2077, are on much more expensive cards Unless you step up to a much more expensive card, 4K is virtually unreachable.

The RTX 4060 Ti is basically a good card, but it is hampered by its expensive price tag and the dubious wisdom of an 8GB framebuffer on a $399 graphics card in 2023. This is not a criticism of the Asus Dual, but rather a problem that all RTX 4060 Ti cards face. Had this GPU been priced at $299 and named RTX 4060, our judgment of it would have been quite different and far more positive.

Price aside, this GPU has its advantages. It performs better than the RTX 3060 Ti at the same MSRP of $399, has much better performance per watt, and is cooler and generally quieter in operation. In addition, games that support DLSS 3 will benefit from DLSS 3, and the Frame Generation offers even higher performance than previous-generation cards in the same price range.

The Asus Dual is a smart product that delivers the essence of an AD106 GPU. Its cooling performance proves that you don't have to pay more for a larger triple slot card. The dual-fan design allows the card to remain quiet at all times without sacrificing temperatures, which remained cool during my testing.

It looks nice, but it won't be for everyone. Especially if you have a case with windows and like to get a little fancy.

Whether I can recommend the Asus Dual RTX 4060 Ti depends on what you have in your rig right now; if you have something like an RTX 3060 Ti or RX 6700 XT, it's not worth it. But if you're upgrading from an older GTX 10 series card or something like an AMD RX 580 or RX Vega, you'll get a very nice performance boost in a cool, quiet running package.

And that's the point of this card: the RTX 4060 Ti sells well and will continue to sell for a few more years yet. All it needs is a price readjustment. If Nvidia is feeling generous, there is nothing stopping them from dropping the RTX 4060 Ti below $350. That would bring it closer to the market positioning expected for a card of this spec.

If or when the price drop happens, the Asus Dual RTX 4060 Ti will remain a product to watch. Spending any more money on a premium RTX 4060 Ti is simply a waste of money.