Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB review: the disappointment is real

RT benchmarks: Hitman 3, Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, F1 22.

Review by Richard Leadbetter Technology Editor, Digital Foundry

Published on 25 May 2023

A trio of excellent ray tracing tests are put through their paces on this second battery of RT tests. Hitman 3 looks great even without RT, but IO Interactive pushes realism to the next level with a range of ultra-demanding ray tracing features. Meanwhile, Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition remains the first - and only - triple-A gaming experience to be released requiring a GPU capable of hardware-accelerated ray tracing. F1 22 is an interesting example of a fully featured RT game that perhaps doesn't benefit from all of those effects, especially when it's so brutally fast from a rasterisation perspective.

To reiterate if you're jumping straight to this page without looking at prior results, our benchmarking system offers a number of ways to get to the data you want, the presentation varying according to the device you're using. You'll get a basic overview of our findings on mobile, with metadata from the video capture of each GPU being translated into simple bar charts with average frame-rate and lowest one per cent measurements for easy comparisons.

On a desktop-class browser, you'll get the full-fat DF experience with embedded YouTube videos of each test scene and live performance metrics. Play the video, and you'll see exactly how each card handled the scene as it progresses. Below the real-time metrics is an interactive bar chart, which you can mouse over to see different measurements and click to switch between actual frame-rates and percentage differences. All the data here is derived from video captured directly from each GPU, ensuring an accurate replay of real performance.

Hitman 3

Lots of fun with IO Interactive's Hitman 3 during the review process as the most recent patch appears to have increased RT performance in the benchmark by 50 percent (!) - something that applied to all AMD and Nvidia cards tested. Is it a cosmic-level optimisation or a bug? We've asked IO to comment but in the meantime, here are the numbers.

At 1440p, the 4060 Ti is once again knocking on the door of the RTX 3070, beating its predecessor by around 12 percent. The 71 percentage point boost up against the 2070 isn't a bad increase, with a near-identical advantage versus the 2060 Super too.

Hitman, Ultra, Full RT

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition

4A Games' revised version of its excellent action adventure shooter remains the only triple-A title that demands the use of a graphics card that allows for the use of hardware-accelerated ray tracing - and it's another example of the RTX 4060 Ti moving within striking distance of the RTX 3070 in performance terms, at 1440p. It's also offering up a circa 17 percentage point lead against its predecessor, with a 63 percent upgrade vs the RTX 2060 Super.

As we'll see later, the RX 6700 XT is a very capable card for rasterisation - powerful enough and possessing enough memory to make you think twice about a potential 4060 Ti purchase - but the new Nvidia card still has a circa 40 percent lead, and it supports DLSS. There are mods to enable FSR2 for AMD though, if you can dig them out.

Metro Exodus Enhanced, Extreme, Ultra RT, Nvidia Features Off

F1 22

We're running the Codemasters racer fully maxed at its ultra high setting for this one, with the full complement of RT features engaged - though it's fair to say that their impact in improving the visuals is difficult to spot in the thick of the race. Once again, at 1440p, the 4060 Ti is more 3070 than 3060 Ti and similar to Hitman 3, there's DLSS 3 frame generation supported too (albeit far from the best implementation).

The RT here is quite friendly to AMD cards, though it requires a more expensive RX 6800 XT to beat the RTX 4060 Ti, with the new Nvidia card beating off the 6700 XT challenge to the tune of 38 percentage points. Meanwhile, there's a 71 percent lead against RTX 2060 Super - a predecessor of sorts to the RTX 4060 Ti.