Introduction
Galax Geforce RTX 4060 8GB EX White review
A Full HD Product at $299: An In-depth Review
The Galax GeForce RTX 4060 EX is a custom-design rendition of NVIDIA's new mid-range graphics card, the RTX 4060. Galax aims to provide an affordable option without compromising on design or performance. This graphics card offers a neat factory overclock, equipped with a robust cooling solution featuring twin 102 mm fans and stylish RGB lighting. Let's explore the technical details of this successor to NVIDIA's popular graphics card lineup, designed for high-quality 1080p gaming.
- Affordable Custom-Design: Galax offers the RTX 4060 EX as its most affordable custom-design rendition of the new mid-range graphics card by NVIDIA, this is an MSRP product.
- Cooling Solution: The graphics card features a large cooling solution with a twin 102 mm fan design, ensuring effective heat dissipation during demanding gaming sessions.
- RGB Lighting: Galax adds a touch of style with RGB lighting for the fans, enhancing the visual appeal of the graphics card.
- Factory Overclock: The RTX 4060 EX comes with a neat little factory overclock, providing enhanced performance out of the box.
- 1080p Gaming: Designed for 1080p gaming, the RTX 4060 EX allows for smooth gameplay with fairly high settings.
NVIDIA is expanding its reach into the mid-range and high-volume mainstream market with the introduction of the GeForce RTX 4060 series. The series includes the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti with 8 GB memory, which launched May 24th, followed today by the GeForce RTX 4060 8GB in late June and then a GeForce RTX 4060 Ti featuring 16 GB memory later in July. Priced at $299 USD (for 8GB), with a power consumption of 140 watts, and offers roughly RTX 3060 Ti performance along with DLSS 3 frame generation as a bonus. Unfortunately, with DLSS3 upsampling from a lower resolution towards Full HD, means quality loss, so hopefully NVIDIA doesn't depend too much on that for this product. NVIDIA emphasizes the price point of the GeForce RTX 4060, as it remains unchanged from its predecessor, the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. The performance difference between the two is modest unless the DLSS 3 frame generator is utilized. The GeForce RTX 4060 is powered by the new Ada graphics chip AD107, specifically designed to deliver exceptional gaming performance at Full HD resolution.The advanced Ada Lovelace architecture, which has undergone significant modifications compared to Ampere. One notable change for the4060 series is the reduced memory connection to 128 bits, which is compensated by a larger level 2 cache within the core. Nvidia claims that the 24 MiByte L2 cache reduces access to the graphics memory by over 50 percent, surpassing the previous standard of 2 MiByte L2 cache with 128 bits. In practical terms, this translates to a doubled effective memory transfer rate. Coupled with improved energy efficiency, the wider storage connection provides a substantial performance boost. The Geforce RTX 4060 memory capacity is causing concerns. This model features 8 GiBytes, thing technologies like frame generation eat away in graphuis memory as well. 12GB would have been preferred, really. While 8GB will be suitable for full most HD games, there are still games where 8 GiBytes are insufficient for optimal gaming experience. The GeForce RTX 4060 (Ti) has another restriction: it communicates with the rest of the system using only 8 PCI Express lanes instead of the full 16. This limitation has more severe consequences for memory performance as opposed to x16-connected graphics cards.The RTX 4060 non-Ti GPU is equipped with an AD107-300 GPU featuring 3072 shader cores and 8GB of GDDR6 memory connected to a 128-bit memory bus. In comparison to the Ti variant, it has 1280 fewer CUDA cores and a down-clocked memory speed of 17 Gbps (compared to 18 Gbps).
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|---|---|---|---|
| GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB | GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB | GeForce RTX 4060 | |
| Architecture | Ada (TSMC 4N) | Ada (TSMC 4N) | Ada (TSMC 4N) |
| GPU | AD106-351 | AD106-350 | AD107-400 |
| Shading Cores | 4352 | 4352 | 3072 |
| Boost Clock | 2.5 GHz | 2.5 GHz | 2.4 GHz |
| Memory | 16 GB G6 | 8 GB G6 | 8 GB G6 |
| Memory Clock | 18 Gbps | 18 Gbps | 17 Gbps |
| Memory Bus | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 288 GB/s | 288 GB/s | 272 GB/s |
| TDP | 160W | 160W | 115W |
| Interface | PCIe Gen4 x8 | PCIe Gen4 x8 | PCIe Gen4 x8 |
| MSRP | $499 | $399 | $299 |
| Release Date | July 2023 | May 2023 | June 2023 |
GeForce RTX 4060 boasts a computing power of 15 TFLOPS (~30% lower than the RTX 4060 Ti) and 8 GB of memory on a 128-bit interface. Its predecessor, the GeForce RTX 3060, hit the market in early 2021 with 12 GB of memory and a 192-bit interface. 4060 does come with an extra L2 cache (24MB) to compensate for the lower memory bandwidth. The memory speed reaches 17 Gbps, while the TDP stands at 115 watts. Performance-wise, the GeForce RTX 4060 is anticipated to outperform the GeForce RTX 3060, with the frame generation performance boosting it even higher.
The Galax RTX 4060 EX employs a sophisticated aluminium fin-stack cooler to manage the characteristic 115 W power consumption of the RTX 4060, leveraging two large fans in the process. A significant portion of the airflow from the secondary fan is directed through the heatsink before being expelled through substantial cutouts on the backplate. The card exhibits a factory overclocked speed of 2565 MHz, an increase from the 2460 MHz reference, whereas the memory speed remains consistent at 17 Gbps. Priced at the NVIDIA baseline of $299, this card represents a custom design with a factory overclock, often associated with products that exceed the standard market retail price. The model operates at a frequency of 2565 MHz.
