Black Myth: Wukong is an action RPG that elegantly straddles the line between the demanding combat of Soulslike games and the adventurous exploration of classic RPGs. However, the comparison to Soulslike games stops mostly at its shrines for revives. We would put this game closer to a God of War or Nioh style as It’s a linear action-adventure game with Boss Rush type of levels. Whether you’re seeking intense battles against creatures drawn from Chinese mythology or a more forgiving experience with equally engaging encounters, this game delivers a journey that resonates with a broad spectrum of players. Its stunning presentation and generous design philosophy truly set Black Myth: Wukong apart.

You’re not just playing a game; you’re embarking on a visually spectacular odyssey, where you wield a staff as a highly agile monkey, armed with a suite of powerful spells set on a polished and well-performing engine is also technically impressive and a great benchmark for current gamers. It’s been a long time since a game has left such an impression on me.

Black Myth: Wukong Review- An Action Adventure with Cinematic Brilliance

Based on the classical Chinese novel Journey to the West, the game places you in control of the “Destined One,” a reincarnation of Wukong, a legendary monkey who once rebelled against Heaven. Your mission? To remind the various Yaoguai (mythical creatures) that Wukong is back in the game, ready to reclaim the glory Wukong deserved. The gameplay is smooth and combat can often make you feel like you are in an anime, which is why I think it is resonating with many gamers. It has all the right elements of visceral combat, amazing art, wonder, and imagination that beg you to explore it. The polish is clear and minor details, like the flourishes the character does after combat or while in battle, show how much the developer Game Science cared for its presentation.

Black Myth: Wukong offers a captivating blend of cinematic moments and challenging gameplay. The game’s chapters are interspersed with interactive artworks that summarize the story’s progress, connecting back to the source material. There are even some wonky but cool music videos/aminations that help tell the story. A particular one with a white fox was incredible to watch.

While these story elements might be difficult to follow for those unfamiliar with the original tale, they add a layer of depth and authenticity that enriches the experience. The narrative can be somewhat opaque, however, as we have to suffer with a silent protagonist yet again.

We dislike this game design choice – especially after one of the best prologues in recent memory with a fantastic voice actor for the “original Wukong”. Why could we not have that throughout the game? Sure, the Destined One, the player that you control might not be able to have the same voice but anything would have been better than nothing. It feels like a huge missed opportunity and I hope we stop seeing this, especially since the rest of the game is so well-voiced. The sheer spectacle and dramatic encounters make the journey worthwhile for sure but it would have been nice to get some feedback from your character.

Gameplay

The level design itself is mostly linear and some parts of chapter 2 are not the best but it is a worthwhile journey throughout. As you progress, you also gain keys to areas you passed before so can travel back to even near the start of the game for some powerful unlocks. This is optional but it was great to go back and find those mysteries and unlock every secret piece of armor. There is a charge staff for example that builds directly into the smash stance and buffs your damage.

The enemy types you encounter here are also great. A big criticism of some recent games like Dragon’s Dogma 2 or The First Descendant is the sheer lack of different enemy types as you progress. Elden Ring, a masterpiece itself, repeats bosses and this is fine with us as long as they have varied mechanics or fight patterns. Black Myth: Wukong bosses are varied and incredible to play with and even the one huge-head boss that I found a repeat off was different enough and required a different strategy.

There were some frustrating moments for me with certain bosses like a certain crouching one near a temple but I was able to backtrack and get some upgrades to my staff and come back and learn from my previous mistakes. You could also take a different branching path to level up and complete that area or try to brute force your way. That is what makes gaming incredibly fun and rewarding and there is plenty of this here. The game features 90 unique bosses, each with distinct mechanics and designs.

This is not to say the game is perfect, the bosses certainly have some very bad “cheese” and can lead to some “wtf was that?” moments but aren’t the worst we have ever seen. The typical enemies are hiding behind corners or mobs jumping you randomly but it’s still a great deal of fun to combat this with the tools you are given. That being said, the majority of bosses we defeated in one or two tries with some of the more difficult bosses requiring multiple attempts – keep in mind we are mediocre at these types of games.

The combat in Black Myth: Wukong is fluid and dynamic, with an emphasis on stylish staff maneuvers and well-timed dodges. Combat involves combos of light and heavy attacks, different stances, and special abilities. The game offers some deep strategic challenges based on the encounters during its chapters. Players can upgrade their abilities through a skill tree using “Sparks” and customize their builds with equipment and relics, with the flexibility of free re-specs. There is no parry without using up mana with a spell that turns you into a rock, if you time this perfectly it can help stagger large bosses and turn the tide.

Alternatively, you can build into going invisible and leaving behind a clone so you can charge a 3-focus point heavy attack that causes massive damage. There is enough variety here to keep it fun but you still only be playing with a staff throughout the game.

Speaking of focus points, this is an important part of combat, you have to string together light attacks to gain a meter that provides focus points – these you can then spend during combos or a charged heavy attack to unleash a powerful hit.

***Spoiler warning, boss fight*** (also mediocre gameplay warning)

You will also fight mid-tier enemies that you can then capture and embody during battle (spirits), you can also eventually find full-body transformations that you can turn into for a set time during battle – this really helped me during some tougher fights. Defense-wise, Black Myth is rooted in the Soulslike tradition—dodging enemy attacks, managing stamina, and strategically using health-restoring Gourds (akin to flasks). There is no block, however, and as mentioned above instead you have a parry spell that is there if needed.

But unlike many Soulslike games, Black Myth: Wukong strikes a balance that makes it accessible to a wider audience. You do not lose all your progress or “souls” when you die but instead get resurrected at your last shrine to try the level again and again where you can craft spells, tweak armor, increase spirit level, brew power-ups, and so on. It is a great system that doesn’t rely on heavily punishing the player.

The game’s linear but richly detailed environments offer a more focused experience compared to the sprawling open worlds of games like Elden Ring. Thankfully though the world feels authentic and meticulously crafted, encouraging exploration without overwhelming the player.

There are a lot of nooks and crannies to visit for secrets or unlocks and its rewarding throughout and respects your time. Not once did I feel like I fought through a tough horde of enemies just to get some measly gold, even if it occurred in some chests it still felt great.

What did not feel great, however, was the camera. Elden Ring suffered from the same issues, a large enemy locks you in a corner and you cannot tell what you are doing sometimes and are spamming dodge to try to get to a better visual area. It was frustrating at times. For example, in a later chapter, you can drop down into a path with a chest at the end, and suddenly you are surrounded by a dozen or so enemies all hitting you at once while surrounded by walls that the camera is running into – we got through it but not without some gamer rage.

Performance and Benchmarks

Visually, Black Myth: Wukong is breathtaking. The attention to detail in the environments, from the intricate architecture to the atmospheric lighting, is simply awe-inspiring. The game’s world is a visual feast, with every corner offering something new to marvel at. While the game’s design includes some typical video game constraints, such as invisible walls, these are easily forgiven given the overall beauty and immersion. The game boasts high-quality visuals and designs inspired by Chinese mythology, although it occasionally experiences frame rate issues. Maybe about 1% of my time with it I did experience some frame drops or hitching but other than that it’s been incredible.

Black Myth: Wukong does feature path tracing:

The game includes Nvidia’s DLSS Frame Generation which is an AI-driven technology that enhances gaming performance by generating new frames, integrating low latency for responsiveness, and utilizing the advanced features of NVIDIA’s Ada Lovelace architecture. This technology, combined with NVIDIA Reflex, significantly boosts performance while maintaining high image quality. It also includes AMD’s FSR 3.0 for upscaling and frame gen.

In Black Myth: Wukong, advanced ray tracing techniques, including full-resolution multi-bounce indirect lighting, reflections, and caustics, are employed to create a visually stunning and immersive experience. These techniques enhance realism, particularly in lighting, reflections, and shadows, elevating the overall graphical fidelity of the game.

Team Green is taking the cake here, although we do wish we had an RX 7900 XTX to compare with the performance numbers show the optimization, DLSS, and frame gen are working wonders to make this game perform well. AMD is playable, however, with lower-end cards performing close to Nvidia’s lower-end offerings.

Unreal Engine 5 is doing well here to not require an enormous amount of RAM like Resident Evil 4 and many recent games.
Here are the minimum requirements:

Performance:
Black Myth: Wukong 1920×1080 (medium), RT OFF

Black Myth: Wukong 1920×1080 (Cinematic), RT Very High

Black Myth: Wukong 2560×1440 (Cinematic), RT Very High

Black Myth: Wukong 2560×1440 (Cinematic), DLSS Quality

Conclusion:

In summary, Black Myth: Wukong is a remarkable achievement—a game that not only meets but exceeds the lofty expectations set by its early trailers. Black Myth: Wukong has garnered overwhelmingly positive reviews and achieved the second-highest concurrent player count on Steam, praised for its engaging gameplay, polished experience, and absence of microtransactions.

Most gamers who play on 1920x1080p will be able to fully enjoy this game but max settings will require a much more powerful card. Our 4080 Super ran this game perfectly with Full settings on and it was a blast to play.

It’s a generous, beautifully crafted adventure that offers both challenge and spectacle, making it a must-play for fans of action RPGs. Game Science has truly announced itself as a major player in the genre, and Black Myth: Wukong is a clear statement that they are here to compete with the best.

Happy gaming!

This review key was provided by Nvidia, this was not in exchange for a positive review and does not change our review process or influence our scores. Thank you, Nvidia!

The highly anticipated game Black Myth: Wukong is set to redefine gaming visuals with its integration of full ray tracing and NVIDIA DLSS 3. Developed by Game Science, this action-adventure RPG draws inspiration from the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West and promises a breathtaking blend of stunning graphics and immersive gameplay.

Leveraging the cutting-edge technology of NVIDIA RTX, Black Myth: Wukong will deliver hyper-realistic lighting, shadows, and reflections that elevate the game’s visual storytelling to new heights. The inclusion of full ray tracing ensures that every scene is rendered with unparalleled detail, creating an experience that is as visually compelling as it is engaging.

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Complementing this graphical fidelity is NVIDIA DLSS 3, an AI-powered performance multiplier. DLSS 3 uses advanced AI algorithms to boost frame rates without compromising image quality, allowing players to enjoy the game at higher resolutions and with greater smoothness. This technology not only enhances gameplay but also future-proofs the experience, ensuring that Black Myth: Wukong remains visually stunning on next-generation hardware.

With these innovations, Black Myth: Wukong stands poised to set a new standard in gaming. Players can look forward to a game that not only challenges their skills but also captivates their senses with its remarkable visual achievements.

Prepare to embark on an epic journey through a world where myth meets cutting-edge technology. Black Myth: Wukong is more than just a game; it’s a showcase of what’s possible when artistry meets the power of NVIDIA RTX.

For even faster frame rates, owners of GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics cards and laptops can accelerate performance using NVIDIA DLSS 3 with Frame Generation. 

In Black Myth: Wukong, DLSS 3 multiplies performance with full ray tracing enabled and every setting maxed out. That allows owners of the GeForce RTX 4090, the world’s fastest gaming GPU, to hit nearly 100 frames per second in Black Myth: Wukong’s benchmark. Additionally, owners of the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER and GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER can join in on the 4K fun, running at 74 and 66 frames per second, respectively. If you own one of these GPUs, prepare your eyes for a dazzling display of the very best graphics and gameplay.

At 2560×1440, acceleration of frame rates enables even more configurations to experience Black Myth: Wukong with full ray tracing and maxed out visuals. The GeForce 4090 surpasses 120 FPS, the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER runs at over 90 FPS, the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER exceeds 80 FPS, and the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER passes 70 FPS. And the popular GeForce RTX 4070 pops past 60 FPS, giving its many owners a fast, smooth experience in Black Myth: Wukong.

At 1920×1080, which steadfastly remains the most popular gaming resolution, virtually all GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs can surpass 60 FPS with full ray tracing enabled and all other options cranked up, thanks to a DLSS 3 boost. As for the massively popular GeForce RTX 4060, it can get 60 FPS with a few settings tweaks, or with the use of NVIDIA app’s one-click Optimal Settings.

See the full article from Nvidia here: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/black-myth-wukong-full-ray-tracing-dlss-3/

Overview: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is a powerhouse graphics card, designed for high-end gaming and demanding creative applications. It excels in delivering top-notch performance, thanks to its advanced NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture.

The RTX 4080 SUPER sits above the RTX 4080 which did not have a great reception at launch due to its higher price point. Since launch, the price has come down but its still very high. The RTX 4080 SUPER is launching at an MSRP of $999 which makes it much more attractive – the only issue is if gamers can actually find it at this price at launch and we hope so. The RTX 4080 is being replaced by the SUPER variant in its current lineup. This is the 3rd and final refresh from Nvidia at $200 cheaper than its counterpart but the performance leap is surprisingly low here.

Key Features:

1. New Streaming Multiprocessors: Enhanced performance and power efficiency, delivering up to 2x improvements.
2. 4th Generation Tensor Cores and Optical Flow: Powers AI technologies like NVIDIA DLSS 3 for improved frame rates.
3. 3rd Generation RT Cores: Offers up to 2x ray tracing performance, creating highly detailed virtual environments.
4. Ada Memory Subsystem: Increased L2 cache for better performance, reduced memory traffic, and power efficiency.
5. Shader Execution Reordering (SER): Doubles the efficiency of ray tracing operations.
6. DLSS 3.5: AI-driven graphics enhancement for higher performance and ray tracing quality.
7. NVIDIA Studio: Optimal performance for 3D rendering, video editing, and live streaming.
8. AV1 Encoder: 8th generation encoder providing 40% more efficiency than H.264, benefiting streamers, broadcasters, and video callers.

Let’s unbox this card and discuss it further on the next page.

PROS

• Improved performance over Original RTX 4070 Ti, near RTX 4080 Performance
• Larger 16GB memory pool
• No price increase

CONS

• Pricing compared to AMDs offerings

Overview
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER is a tour de force in the realm of gaming GPUs, boasting an impressive arsenal of AI-powered capabilities and ray tracing technology. Aimed squarely at PC gamers who seek the pinnacle of visual quality, this GPU offers a seamless experience in top-tier games like Alan Wake 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Resident Evil 4, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

We received the ASUS TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti SUPER from Nvidia a little later than we would like due to weather and shipping issues, hope everyone is safe out there! We had around 2 full days to test this card. However, we were able to put it through some great tests and its a fantastic addition to the lineup, replacing the existing RTX 4070 Ti and with the RTX 4080 SUPER coming shortly the lineup is stacked very well for Nvidia.

AI and Ray Tracing Performance
Central to its prowess is NVIDIA’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technology, now in its third iteration, which allows for AI-generated pixels, enhancing ray tracing performance by up to four times while maintaining superior image quality. This is particularly evident in its ability to render seven out of eight pixels through hardware-accelerated AI.

Technical Innovations
Powered by the NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture, the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER features new Streaming Multiprocessors that double performance and power efficiency. It also includes the latest generation of Tensor Cores and RT Cores, which significantly elevate ray tracing capabilities. The Ada Memory Subsystem and Shader Execution Reordering (SER) are other notable enhancements, boosting performance and efficiency.

Gaming and Studio Performance
The GPU shines in 1440p gaming, rendering games at high frame rates even at 4K resolution. Compared to its predecessors, it shows marked improvements – 1.6 times faster than the RTX 3070 Ti and 2.5 times with DLSS 3. NVIDIA Studio further enhances its appeal for creative professionals with unmatched performance in 3D rendering, video editing, and live streaming.

Specifications
Equipped with 8,448 CUDA Cores, 16GB of GDDR6X memory, and a 256-bit memory bus, the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER is designed to handle demanding games and applications. The inclusion of the 8th generation NVIDIA Encoder (NVENC) with AV1 support underscores its capability in streaming and broadcasting.

Unboxing:

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

• 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700K (Hyper-Threading/Turbo boost on; stock settings)
• ASUS PRIME Z690-P D4 motherboard (Intel Z690 chipset, v.1008 BIOS)
• CORSAIR Vengeance RGB PRO 32GB DDR4 (2×16GB, dual-channel at 3600 MHz XMP)
• RTX 4070 SUPER FE, Stock Clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• RTX 4070 FE 12GB, stock clocks; supplied by Nvidia
• ASUS TUF GAMING GeForce RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition 12GB, stock clocks; supplied by Nvidia
• RTX 3080 FE 10GB, stock clocks
• RTX 3070 FE, stock clocks
• 1 x TeamGroup 1 TB NVMe M.2 SSD
• 2 x WD Blue 1TB SATA SSD
• Corsair RM850x, 850W 80PLUS Gold power supply unit
• ALIENWARE 34″ CURVED QD-OLED GAMING MONITOR – AW3423DWF

Test Configuration – Software

• NVIDIA GeForce 551.15 game-ready press drivers; ‘Prefer maximum performance’ (on a per-game profile basis); Shader Cache Size ‘Unlimited’ (globally); fixed refresh rate (globally).
• We enable Resizable BAR
• ‘V-Sync application controlled’ in the control panel; V-Sync off in-game.
• We note and specify the main in-game display, graphics, AA, and scaling settings in the performance summary charts.
• Windows 11 64-bit Pro edition, latest updates v22H2, High-performance power plan, HAGS & Game Mode are enabled, Game DVR & Game Bar features off, Control Flow Guard (CFG) off on a per-game basis, Hypervisor and Virtualization-based security are disabled.
• We do not install ASUS tools.
• Latest DirectX
• All games are patched to their latest versions at the time of publication.
• 3DMark suite, the latest version
• RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS), the latest version
• FrameView, the latest version
• Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU), the latest version; always uninstall drivers using DDU in safe mode, clean, and restart.
• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

• We use DCH Game Ready drivers.
• The display driver is installed.
• We install the latest version of PhysX.

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

• We use the corresponding built-in or custom benchmark sequence.

Frametimes Capture

• We use FrameView for capturing frame times and analyzing the relevant performance numbers obtained from each recorded built-in or custom benchmark sequence.
  
  
• Nvidia Control Panel settings
  Here are the global Nvidia Control Panel settings:

Benchmarks:
Here is the horizontal bar chart showing the 1080p gaming performance comparison across various GPU models:

1920×1080, 1080p

Here is the horizontal bar chart showing the 2560×1440 gaming performance comparison across various GPU models.
2560×1440 Benchmarks:

3840×2160 Benchmarks

Conclusion

The GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER stands as a formidable choice for gamers and creatives alike. Its blend of AI-powered graphics, ray tracing performance, and technological innovations make it a compelling upgrade for those seeking the very best in PC gaming and content creation.

Nvidia claimed a 10% increase of the previous model and we did achieve mostly that in our testing, with some slightly lower than quoted. Its obvious this card easily surpasses the original model at the same price and its really close to the original RTX 4080 performance point at significantly less than MSRP for the RTX 4080. This will change soon with the upcoming launch of the RTX 4080 SUPER at its lowered price point of $999.00.

The real decision for gamers, in our opinion, looking for a card at this level is looking for a used RTX 4080 or something at this similar price. If you are looking for a new card that can compete with the RTX 4080 for lower entry cost then this is a good choice.

The 7900XT is the obvious value king if you could find one. In response to the SUPER launch, AMD has dropped the 7900XT from $899 to $749. We do not have one of our own to test with but if you do not care about Ray Tracing these cards will be a great value alternative. If DLSS 3 is compelling for gamers who do not mind it, it really comes down to availability and your preference for this technology.

Our RTX 4070 SUPER review is here and that is a good sweet spot for 1440p gamers at a much more palatable price point at $599.

These have been great refreshes and really what we would have liked the original versions to be at launch. The SUPER releases continue next week with the RTX 4080. We look forward to reviewing this and see you soon!

We received the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT and XFX RX 7700 XT QICK 319 last week from AMD and have been comparing them in our test bench focusing on raw performance and comparing them directly with their competitors. We received an XFX RX 7700 XT QICK 319 that will cost $459.99 and it launches today. The $499 7800 XT also launches today – with both offering Starfield to make the deal even more compelling.

As you will see AMD is here to play and fiercely sets these GPUs at the top of gamer’s lists. With some significant leads in performance when compared to thier direct competitors. Both the 7700 XT and 7800 XT have many of the same software and hardware features that can often sway many purchasing decisions like FSR 3 and AV1 encoding, but they still struggle to compete in games that feature rasterization.

Features & Specifications

Nvidia’s offerings around this price point left gamers less than impressed with lower VRAM and higher pricing. Although we loved the features like DLSS 3 and rasterization performance, which may be deal breaker for some gamers who want to experience this.

However, pricing was high for raw performance received for non-rasterized games and AMD is on the right path to briging pricing in line. Only gamers can decide if price-to-performance gains here are worth the cost of entry.

AMD is also launching FSR 3 today, September 6th. Purists who do not like upscaling will brush this aside but the latest version of the AMD’s upscaling tech is competing directly with DLSS 3 as it also includes frame generation. As you recall, frame generation is the killer feature that lets us wholeheartedly recommend Nvidia’s offerings for the 40 series of GPUs.

AMD’s FSR 3 includes “Fluid Motion Frames” (frame generation) and “Native Anti-Aliasing,” an FSR mode to sharpen anti-alias games instead of upscaling. This is very exciting and a tech many raw performance enjoyers can fully employ without losing fidelity.

AMD’s FSR 3 will be available for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Forspoken, Cyberpunk 2077, Immortals of Aveum, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, Frostpunk 2, Squad, Starship Troopers: Extermination, Black Myth: Wukong, Crimson Desert, and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. The feature does not launch with Starfield today which only features FSR 2 and this is a miss in our book, It would have been amazing to bundle these GPUs alongside the tech launch. We will be testing this feature post-launch alongside Nvidia’s offerings.

Alongside FSR 3, Hypr-RX is also launching. This is a toggle that can automatically turn on FSR, Radeon Anti-Lag, Radeon Boost, and other image processing techniques within AMD’s software for gamers.

Let’s take a look at performance and unboxing

Nvidia has been no stranger to controversy with their 40 series of Ada Lovelace GPUs. Gamer’s are hyper-focused on a lack of VRAM and pricing structures for the new offering. With that in mind, we recently received an ASUS RTX 4060 DUAL model from Nvidia and we have been testing it for the past week. There is no Founders Edition per Nvidia, and the RTX 4060 will be available from partners at an MSRP of $299 starting tomorrow. While a lower price would have provided some market disruption, the RTX 4060 with its current feature set and architecture is a perfect upgrade for users that may still own a RTX 2060 or a GTX 1060.

According to recent Steam Hardware Surveys, around 77% of users still play on 1080p and older cards so this market will always be huge for both Nvidia and AMD. MSRP is the same as previous entries like the RTX 2060 but it may be hard to reach in the current market. There are still some RTX 2060 series entries at $279. Price is everything and we would have loved a lower price point by at least $30-50 which likely would have made this one of the most popular releases in recent memory for gamers that want access to AV1 encoding, Frame Generation and DLSS 3, and a much better RT experience.

While pricing feels high, especially for 8GB, The RTX 4060 is a welcome upgrade to older cards as it arrives with multiple new features, including DLSS 3, which brings an incredible performance uplift. The RTX 4060 comes with Nvidia’s newest RT and Tensor Cores that are more powerful than previous generation GPUs and support new features including Shader Execution Reordering (SER) and Nvidia DLSS 3 technology, all while using less power than the RTX 2060.

Generationally this is a massive jump at a much lower power consumption rate as the ASUS DUAL RTX 4060 uses just 115 watts. The new NVIDIA Ada Lovelace GPU Architecture also features a new SM design that runs at dramatically higher clock speeds and significantly increases the capacity of the L2 cache on the RTX 4060 to a whopping 24MB. Nvidia frequently mentioned this cache as a powerful tool to help the 8GB of VRAM run more efficiently and powerful. We review just how much later in our benches, but regardless more VRAM would have been welcome.

As mentioned, the RTX 4060 supports AV1 encoding which in and of itself is a good enough reason to upgrade from older generations of cards if you are a broadcaster, the quality leap of your content will dramatically increase. 

The RTX 4060 Feature set

The elephant in the room for most any will be being bound by the RTX 4060 8GB of VRAM capacity and the $299 price point. “Modern Gaming” might be pushing games out on PC in poor states, but mostly games like Forza 5 and Doom run amazing and proves these cards can run these games well. Nvidia cannot wave a wand to fix a bad PC port, but for $299 gamers on a budget may balk at the lack of future proofing. We suggest waiting for the RTX 4060 Ti’s 16GB benchmarks to arrive if you are at all on the fence, however if you are a 1080p gamer and the feature set is at all enticing to you, this is a great upgrade if you are still on a RTX 2060 or lower if you can find one at MSRP.

Nvidia’s leap in games with DLSS 3 is undeniably incredible and there is enough of an incremental upgrade for those on older generations to think twice. Now we have over 50 games announced with DLSS 3 and more on the way.

Comparing generation-to-generation there is a giant leap thanks to TGP/power improvements. We also have to consider AMD’s offerings at this price point even though at the moment, FSR 2.0 is well behind DLSS 3 in performance. The value proposition in comparison to the rest of the rather expensive 40 series is obvious, but the RTX 4060 may not offer the raw GPU power upgrade many want to see especially for the high asking price, even if it matches previous generations. You can still get a RX 3060 with 12GB of GDDR6 for $289, for most gamers who do not care about the current feature set the RTX 4060 begins to feel like it should be in the xx50 class.

However, we do have to note one key innovation that’s been added to the memory subsystem in Ada GPU’s is its larger L2 cache. This new memory subsystem is a dramatic improvement over the previous generation.

When compared to a 128-bit Ampere GPU, the Ada L2 cache architecture delivers a 16x increase in capacity. In addition, the L2 cache bandwidth in Ada GPUs has been significantly increased versus prior GPUs. This allows more data to be transferred between the cores and the L2 cache as quickly as possible.
Ada’s larger L2 cache results in significantly more L2 cache hits, while also reducing traffic across the memory bus.

This change, per Nvidia, resulted in the performance of the 24MB L2 cache reducing memory bus traffic from 40% to 60% over the performance of a 2MB L2 cache. This translates to massive increases in effective performance. An Ada GPU with 288 GB/sec of peak memory bandwidth is the equivalent of an Ampere GPU that needed 554 GB/Sec.

Couple this improvement with DLSS 3, which has the fastest adoption of any of Nvidia’s technologies to date and you will notice why we do encourage you to take a look at your options if you are on older hardware as this is fantastic upgrade, especially from a 20 series.

The ASUS DUAL RTX 4060 Board

The GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card incorporates many of the new design elements that are also found on NVIDIA’s RTX 4070 Ti, RTX 4080, and RTX 4090 Founders Edition boards. The ASUS DUAL RTX 4060 card features a dual bios, dual fan design that looks great and compact compared to its big brothers.

Our Plan

Nvidia is in an interesting spot with the RTX 4060, it decided to release the 8GB for the RTX 4060 Ti model first so let’s see how well it performs in comparison.

For this review, we are planning to benchmark the RTX 4080, RTX 4070 Ti, RTX 4070, RTX 4060 Ti, RTX 3070, and RTX 3080 within our test build at 1440p and 1080p.

The NVIDIA Ada Lovelace GPU Architecture also features a new SM design that runs at dramatically higher clock speeds and significantly increases the capacity of the L2 cache on the RTX 4060 to 24MB versus the 3MB L2 cache that was available on the RTX 3060. Increasing the size of the L2 cache improves performance, reduces latency, and increases power efficiency, as data accesses can remain on-chip rather than having to go out across the GPU’s memory interface to external graphics memory

We want to test if it really can hold up with 8GB of VRAM to deliver a potential amazing value proposition compared to the RTX 3060.

Features & Specifications

The RTX 4060 technological innovations include:

• New Streaming Multiprocessors (SM) – The new SM delivers up to 2x performance and power efficiency
• 4th Generation Tensor Cores and Optical Flow – Enable and accelerate transformative AI
  technologies, including the new frame rate multiplying Nvidia DLSS 3
• 3rd Generation RT Cores – Up to 2x ray tracing performance, delivering incredibly detailed
  virtual worlds like never before
• Shader Execution Reordering (SER) – SER improves ray tracing operations by 2x, boosting FPS up to 44% in Cyberpunk with RT: Overdrive Mode
• DLSS 3 – A revolutionary breakthrough in AI-powered graphics that massively boosts
  performance using AI to generate additional high-quality frames
• Nvidia Studio – Unmatched performance in 3D rendering, video editing, and live streaming
• AV1 Encoders – The 8th generation Nvidia Encoder (NVENC) with AV1 is 40% more efficient than H.264, enabling new possibilities for streamers, broadcasters, and video callers

Key Features from Nvidia

• Dedicated 3rd generation ray tracing cores (46)
• Dedicated 4th generation Tensor cores (184)
• Nvidia DLSS 3 support
• Game Ready and Nvidia Studio drivers
• Nvidia GeForce Experience
• Nvidia Broadcast
• Nvidia G-Sync
• Nvidia GPU Boost
• PCI Express Gen 4
• Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate support
• Support for Vulkan RT APIs, Vulkan 1.3, and OpenGL 4.6
• HDCP 2.3 support
• DisplayPort 1.4 support: up to 4K at 240Hz or 8K at 60Hz with DSC, HDR
• HDMI 2.1 support: up to 4K 240Hz, Gaming VRR, HDR

Specifications

Nvidia’s MSRP price for RTX 4060 Ti GPU is $399, a GPU made for 1080p.

Here is the RTX 4060 in GPU-Z:

According to GPU-Z, the RTX 4060 has the default GPU clock of 1830 compared to the RTX 4060 Ti’s 2310 MHz with a boost of 2505MHz vs 2525MHz for the Ti.

Below is the advanced general information on the RTX 4060 as reported by the GPU-Z tool.

As you can see from the GPU-Z screenshots, you can even increase both power and temperature limits to some degree, and while there is little room for overclocking, but there is some additional potential performance for gamers looking to get more from their builds but gains might be nominal at best.

A Closer Look at the ASUS DUAL RTX 4060

Packaging

The box cover highlights a sleek approach to the packaging. I am a huge fan of the presentation Nvidia has been providing for its FE line so while this is not as flashy its still a classic GPU unboxing experience.

Accessories

As we open the box, it folds out beautifully displaying the brand new RTX 4060. Beneath the card is not much, this GPU does not feature a (12VHPWR) PCIe connector and instead uses the classic PCI-E connector. There is minimal documentation included with most of the important packaging centered around the GPU itself.

The Card

The RTX 4060 is a small dual-fan graphics card with classic RTX aesthetics that are still refined and look great. There is no RGB on the RTX 4060.

The IO panel connectors are 3 DisplayPorts and 1 HDMI connection.

Inside the case

The RTX 4060 looks subtle and classic inside a case. I would personally love to build an SFF PC using this card. It is the perfect size offering a powerful small gaming rig at a reasonable price compared to the sky-high prices we have seen these last few years. We like that it is small and discrete but some may not like the unlit logo
Next is our testing configuration, methodology, and more.

Our Benchmarking PC

We benchmark using FrameView on a recent install of Windows 11 Pro Edition 22H2, at 3440×1440 using an AMD Ryzen 7800x3d with stock clocks and 32GB of DDR5 G.Skill Trident Z 6000MHz memory on an Asrock X670E Pro RS motherboard. All games and benchmarks are the latest versions, and we use the latest GeForce 536.20 press drivers for our testing. The games tested, display driver, settings, and hardware are identical except for the GPUs we compare.

Let’s unbox and take a closer look at this graphics card.

Test Configuration

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

• AMD Ryzen 7800x3d (stock settings)
• Asrock X670E PRO RS motherboard (AMD AM5 chipset, v 1.07 BIOS)
• G.Skill Trident Z 32GB DDR5 (2×16GB, dual-channel at 6000 MHz XMP)
• RTX 4060 Ti 8GB, stock clocks; supplied by Nvidia
• RTX 4060 Ti 8GB, stock clocks; supplied by Nvidia
• RTX 4070 FE 12GB, stock clocks; supplied by Nvidia
• ASUS TUF GAMING GeForce RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition 12GB, stock clocks; supplied by Nvidia
• RTX 3080 FE 10GB, stock clocks
• RTX 3070 FE, stock clocks
• 1 x TeamGroup 1 TB NVMe M.2 SSD
• 2 x WD Blue 1TB SATA SSD
• Corsair RM850x, 850W 80PLUS Gold power supply unit
• ALIENWARE 34″ CURVED QD-OLED GAMING MONITOR – AW3423DWF

Test Configuration – Software

• NVIDIA GeForce 536.20 game-ready press drivers; ‘Prefer maximum performance’ (on a per-game profile basis); Shader Cache Size ‘Unlimited’ (globally); fixed refresh rate (globally).
• We enable Resizable BAR
• ‘V-Sync application controlled’ in the control panel; V-Sync off in-game.
• We note and specify the main in-game display, graphics, AA, and scaling settings in the performance summary charts.
• Windows 11 64-bit Pro edition, latest updates v22H2, High-performance power plan, HAGS & Game Mode are enabled, Game DVR & Game Bar features off, Control Flow Guard (CFG) off on a per-game basis, Hypervisor and Virtualization-based security are disabled.
• We do not install Asrock tools.
• Latest DirectX
• All games are patched to their latest versions at the time of publication.
• 3DMark suite, the latest version
• RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS), the latest version
• FrameView, the latest version
• Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU), the latest version; always uninstall drivers using DDU in safe mode, clean, and restart.
• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

• We use DCH Game Ready drivers.
• The display driver is installed.
• We install the latest version of PhysX.

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

• We use the corresponding built-in or custom benchmark sequence.

Frametimes Capture

• We use FrameView for capturing frame times and analyzing the relevant performance numbers obtained from each recorded built-in or custom benchmark sequence.

Benchmark Suite:

PC Games

DX11 Games

• Total War: Warhammer III (DX11)

DX12 Games

• Chernoblyte (DX12)
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (DX12)
• Cyberpunk 2077 (DX12)
• F1 2022 (DX12)
• Far Cry 6 (DX12)
• Resident Evil 4 (DX12)
• Red Dead Redemption 2(DX12)
• Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12)
• Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DX12)
• Dirt 5 (DX 12)

Vulkan Games

• DOOM Eternal (VK)

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

• DLSS Feature Test
• Fire Strike Ultra
• Time Spy

Nvidia Control Panel settings

Here are the global Nvidia Control Panel settings:

Noise, Temperatures, and Power Consumption

Unfortunately, we did not have time to check out the overclocking potential, but temperatures were controlled and the RTX 4060 runs very cool. We never heard the fans come on and they stayed extremely quiet throughout our test runs

The RTX 4060 is quiet, and its fans never spin up at idle, even under a heavy or full load to be irritating or noticeable. When gaming it spins up to full often under very heavy loads – like Resident Evil 4 with all features turned on. It is as silent as the RTX 4070 and RTX 4070 Ti we tested previously.

Nvidia Performance Graphs and information

The biggest selling point for the RTX 4060 at $299 has to be DLSS 3, and AV1 encoding. If you care at all about VRAM, then there are still some great offerings available around this price point and there is a lot going for keeping older generations of card until we see a massive raw performance uplift.

However, we do have that uplift with DLSS as a whole, better RT performance, and less power consumption in the 40 series. This is the gigantic upgrade is some games- even if some purists may not like frame generation – the performance increase and quality retention is simply stunning. On our QD-OLED display, we could barely see any image quality differences but performance increased dramatically and beat older generation cards easily. The price just needs to come down to match the current climate.

Let’s head to the performance charts to compare the graphics performance of the RTX 4060.

Gaming Performance Charts

The NVIDIA Ada Lovelace GPU Architecture also features a new SM design that
runs at dramatically higher clock speeds and significantly increases the capacity of the L2 cache on the RTX 4060 to
24MB versus the 3MB L2 cache that was available on the RTX 3060. Increasing the size of the L2 cache improves
performance, reduces latency, and increases power efficiency, as data accesses can remain on-chip rather than
having to go out across the GPU’s memory interface to external graphics memory

The NVIDIA Ada Lovelace GPU Architecture also features a new SM design that
runs at dramatically higher clock speeds and significantly increases the capacity of the L2 cache on the RTX 4060 to
24MB versus the 3MB L2 cache that was available on the RTX 3060. Increasing the size of the L2 cache improves
performance, reduces latency, and increases power efficiency, as data accesses can remain on-chip rather than
having to go out across the GPU’s memory interface to external graphics memory

The NVIDIA Ada Lovelace GPU Architecture also features a new SM design that
runs at dramatically higher clock speeds and significantly increases the capacity of the L2 cache on the RTX 4060 to
24MB versus the 3MB L2 cache that was available on the RTX 3060. Increasing the size of the L2 cache improves
performance, reduces latency, and increases power efficiency, as data accesses can remain on-chip rather than
having to go out across the GPU’s memory interface to external graphics memory

The NVIDIA Ada Lovelace GPU Architecture also features a new SM design that
runs at dramatically higher clock speeds and significantly increases the capacity of the L2 cache on the RTX 4060 to
24MB versus the 3MB L2 cache that was available on the RTX 3060. Increasing the size of the L2 cache improves
performance, reduces latency, and increases power efficiency, as data accesses can remain on-chip rather than
having to go out across the GPU’s memory interface to external graphics memory

Main Performance Gaming Summary Charts

Here are BTR’s summary charts of games, six hybrid, and three non-synthetic tests. We note and specify the main in-game display, graphics, AA, and scaling settings on the performance summary charts below. The benches were run at 2560×1440 and 1920×1080.

FireStrike Graphics Score:
3060: 29501
3070: 17807
4060: 25884
4060 Ti: 32678
4070: 42120
Timespy Graphics Score – DX12 1440p:
3060: 8102
3070: 13432
4060: 10908
4060 Ti: 13285
4070: 17881
4070Ti: 22467
Averaged Framerates & Relative GPU Performance

The RTX 4060 is a clear improvement but at a significantly higher buy-in price for not much raw horsepower gain compared to the previous generation. In comparison to the rest of the 40 series lineup, the RTX 4070’s performance is unmatched for budget/value gamers but the RTX 4060 Ti and RTX 4060 sit in limbo while we wait for the 16GB version and its non-Ti counterpart.

Average Frames
The RTX 4060 is not going to be a 4k or 1440p capable card but with some tweaks as mentioned and lower settings it might be *just* fine, but it mostly shines at 1080p. This downgrade sits solely with the VRAM. It is not really outclassing its older generations by the expected margins if we leave our DLSS 3.

Final Thoughts & Verdict

This has been an enjoyable exploration evaluating the new RTX 4060. Overall, it is the best 40 series value for your money currently available but only if you are completely new to PC gaming and want to build a great 1080p machine right now. This is only if you want to enjoy the software offerings of Nvidia, with DLSS 3 and AV1 included in the 40 series, then its obvious that is biggest story here. Pricing is off and Nvidia is relying on its software to entice gamers, and it will for many. However, it truly depends on the games you play. If you are playing games that do not take advantage of DLSS then we suggest waiting or using your budget on an 30 series card with higher amounts of VRAM.

The price – has – to come down in order for to outright recommend this to anyone brand new to PC gaming, or current owners of the previous generation. It is easy, at 1080p, to suggest an upgrade for 10 and 20(60) series owners if you need to upgrade at this time.

Nvidia’s technology is incredibly exciting but in 4-5 years this card may not hold up to more modern demands if you expect more than it what it was designed for in games that do not support its most impressive features. More VRAM is just around the corner with the 16GB model so you have to discuss whether that price increase is worth the wait.

Games like RE 4 and MW2 were always either too close for comfort or much beyond the VRAM limit at max graphics and we had to lower some settings to get it to run a simple benchmark. We had some struggles at 1440p. The RTX 3060 Ti is significantly better at 1440p as well as the AMD RTX 6700XT. 8GB of VRAM 100% is enough for games today – but the way the industry is headed currently that may not stand the test of time.

However, when Nvidia is involved and DLSS 2/3 makes the RTX 4060 steadily pull ahead of previous generations and even makes some games playable at 1440p. This is amazing technology and it shows its worth immediately whenever enabled. The RTX 4060 is a fairly capable GPU that is going to struggle with its current price point in the market.

We do implore you to look at our upcoming DLSS 3 comparison of the current generation. This technology is finally allowing Nvidia to realize the dream that has been ray tracing. We can now maintain great performance while having the full suite of RTX features on an mid-level card. Safe to say, we like the RTX 4060 for multi-generational upgrades. When this card comes down in price in the future it is going to be a fantastic offering. The RTX 4060 will be available from partners at an MSRP of $299 starting tomorrow

–Happy gaming!

We recently received an RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition from Nvidia and we have been testing it for the past week by using 11 PC games plus hybrid benchmarks. The Founders Edition will be available at $399 starting tomorrow. Just like, Nvidia launch the RTX 4070 as the GPU to be a great upgrade to the seven-year-old 10 series cards the same is being done here for the RTX 2060 family of cards. While it is true the DLSS 3 and Ada lovelace architecture are incredible, some will find 8GB of VRAM is a really hard pill to swallow.

Thankfully, this is not really an issue for most gamer’s and in reality a fault of bad modern PC ports. According to recent Steam Hardware Surveys, around 77% of users still play on 1080p and older cards so this market will always be huge for both Nvidia and AMD. The thing is – they have to compete with themselves and often we found that if you just look at raw power the 4060Ti is nominally faster than its older siblings when we remove DLSS comparisons.

Our first knock on the new 4060 family is the pricing feels oddly high, especially for 8GB. The RTX 4060 Ti is a welcome upgrade to older cards as it arrives with multiple new features, including DLSS 3, which brings an incredible performance uplift. For this reason alone, this new entry in the 40 series is extremely exciting. This will surely move the needle for most to upgrade if they play the games that support these features. The raw performance uplift is likely much larger in the 16GB version of this same card which is yet to release.

The RTX 4060 Ti comes with Nvidia’s newest RT and Tensor Cores that are more powerful than previous generation GPUs and support new features including Shader Execution Reordering (SER) and Nvidia DLSS 3 technology, all while using less power than the RTX 3060 Ti. The new NVIDIA Ada Lovelace GPU Architecture also features a new SM design that runs at dramatically higher clock speeds and significantly increases the capacity of the L2 cache on the RTX 4060 Ti to a whopping 32MB versus the 4MB L2 cache that was available previously on the RTX 3060 Ti. Nvidia frequently mentioned this cache as a powerful tool to help the 8GB of VRAM run more efficiently and powerful.

The RTX 4060 Ti supports AV1 encoding which in and of itself is a good enough reason to upgrade from older generations of cards. 

The RTX 4060 Ti Feature set

The elephant in the room for most any will be being bound by the RTX 4060 Ti’s 8GB of VRAM capacity as modern games skyrocket in their usage. Nvidia cannot wave a wand to fix a bad PC port, but for $399 gamers on a budget may scoff at the lack of future proofing. We suggest waiting for the RTX 4060 Ti’s 16GB benchmarks to arrive if you are at all on the fence.

However, we can confidently say Nvidia has made a leap in games with DLSS 3 that is undeniably incredible and there is enough of an incremental upgrade for those on older generations to think twice. Now we have over 50 games announced with DLSS 3, including the upcoming Diablo IV.

Comparing generation-to-generation there is a giant leap thanks to TGP/power improvements. There is also no price category competition from AMD right at this moment but we know there are rumors of a card coming soon in this range. At the moment, FSR 2.0 is well behind DLSS 3 in performance so the value proposition in comparison to the rest of the rather expensive 40 series is obvious, but the RTX 4060 Ti may not offer the raw GPU power upgrade many want to see in benchmarks.

One key innovation that’s been added to the memory subsystem in Ada GPU’s is its larger L2 cache. This new memory subsystem is a dramatic improvement over the previous generation.

When compared to a 128-bit Ampere GPU, the Ada L2 cache architecture delivers a 16x increase in capacity. In addition, the L2 cache bandwidth in Ada GPUs has been significantly increased versus prior GPUs. This allows more data to be transferred between the cores and the L2 cache as quickly as possible.
Ada’s larger L2 cache results in significantly more L2 cache hits, while also reducing traffic across the memory bus.

This change, per Nvidia, resulted in the performance of the 32MB L2 cache reducing memory bus traffic from 40% to 60% over the performance of a 2MB L2 cache. This translates to massive increases in effective performance. An Ada GPU with 288 GB/sec of peak memory bandwidth is the equivalent of an Ampere GPU that needed 554 GB/Sec.

Couple this improvement with DLSS 3, which has the fastest adoption of any of Nvidia’s technologies to date and you will notice why we do encourage you to take a look at your options if you are on older hardware as this is fantastic upgrade, especially from a 20 series.

GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition Board

The GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition graphics card incorporates many of the new design elements that are also found on NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, RTX 4080, and RTX 4090 Founders Edition boards. The RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition board is crafted with premium materials and components including a die-cast aluminum body and dual axial fans. It looks compact and sleek in our PC case and is perfect for smaller cases.

Our Plan

Nvidia is in an interesting spot with the RTX 4060 Ti, it decided to release the 8GB model first so let’s see how well it performs.

For this review, we are planning to benchmark the RTX 4080, RTX 4070 Ti, RTX 4070, RTX 3070, and RTX 3080 within our test build at 1440p and 1080p.

We think comparing the RTX 4060 Ti’s performance against current family and iconic cards from Nvidia’s previous RTX generation of GPUs may be worth it for Turing or Ampere users considering an upgrade to Ada Lovelace.

The GeForce RTX 4060 Ti is based on the AD106 GPU and equipped with 4,352 CUDA Cores providing 22 FP32 Shader-TFLOPS of power for rendering traditional rasterized graphics, 136 Fourth Generation Tensor Cores offering 353 FP8 Tensor-TFLOPS (with Sparsity) for AI processing and DLSS, 34 Third Generation Ada RT Cores capable of 51 RT-TFLOPS for powering next generation raytraced graphics, 8GB of GDDR6 memory, and 32MB of L2 cache. Like all GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs, the RTX 4060 Ti is packed with Ada innovations including Shader Execution Reordering (SER), the new RT core engines, and DLSS 3.

We want to test if it really can hold up with 8GB of VRAM to deliver a potential amazing value proposition compared to the RTX 3060.

Features & Specifications

The RTX 4060 Ti technological innovations include:

• New Streaming Multiprocessors (SM) – The new SM delivers up to 2x performance and power efficiency
• 4th Generation Tensor Cores and Optical Flow – Enable and accelerate transformative AI
  technologies, including the new frame rate multiplying Nvidia DLSS 3
• 3rd Generation RT Cores – Up to 2x ray tracing performance, delivering incredibly detailed
  virtual worlds like never before
• Shader Execution Reordering (SER) – SER improves ray tracing operations by 2x, boosting FPS up to 44% in Cyberpunk with RT: Overdrive Mode
• DLSS 3 – A revolutionary breakthrough in AI-powered graphics that massively boosts
  performance using AI to generate additional high-quality frames
• Nvidia Studio – Unmatched performance in 3D rendering, video editing, and live streaming
• AV1 Encoders – The 8th generation Nvidia Encoder (NVENC) with AV1 is 40% more efficient than H.264, enabling new possibilities for streamers, broadcasters, and video callers

Key Features from Nvidia

• Dedicated 3rd generation ray tracing cores (46)
• Dedicated 4th generation Tensor cores (184)
• Nvidia DLSS 3 support
• Game Ready and Nvidia Studio drivers
• Nvidia GeForce Experience
• Nvidia Broadcast
• Nvidia G-Sync
• Nvidia GPU Boost
• PCI Express Gen 4
• Microsoft DirectX 12 Ultimate support
• Support for Vulkan RT APIs, Vulkan 1.3, and OpenGL 4.6
• HDCP 2.3 support
• DisplayPort 1.4 support: up to 4K at 240Hz or 8K at 60Hz with DSC, HDR
• HDMI 2.1 support: up to 4K 240Hz, Gaming VRR, HDR

Specifications

Nvidia’s MSRP price for RTX 4060 Ti GPU is $399, a GPU made for 1080p.

Here is the RTX 4060 Ti in GPU-Z:

According to GPU-Z, the RTX 4060 Ti has the default GPU clock of 2310 MHz with a boost of 2525MHz.

Below is the advanced general information on the RTX 4070 FE as reported by the GPU-Z tool.

As you can see from the GPU-Z screenshots, you can even increase both power and temperature limits to some degree, and while there is little room for overclocking, there is some additional potential performance for gamers looking to get more from their builds. RTX 4060 Ti partner boards should be interesting to see based on their cooling methods and pricing.

A Closer Look at the RTX 4060 Ti Founder’s Edition

Packaging

The box cover highlights a sleek approach to the packaging. I am a huge fan of the presentation Nvidia has been providing for its FE line. It offers a very premium unboxing experience. The graphics card image for the recent RTX cards is iconic and that shape is also shown on the box.

Accessories

As we open the box, it folds out beautifully displaying the brand new RTX 4060 Ti FE. Beneath the card are the new standard 16 PIN (12VHPWR) PCIe connector and an installation guide with a QR code to visit Nvidia’s website for more guides and information if needed.

The Card

The RTX 4060 Ti FE is a small dual-fan graphics card with classic RTX aesthetics that are still refined and look great. There is no RGB on the RTX 4060 Ti FE.

The IO panel connectors are 3 DisplayPorts and 1 HDMI connection.

Inside the case

The RTX 4060 Ti looks subtle and classic inside a case. I would personally love to build an SFF PC using this card. It is the perfect size offering a powerful small gaming rig at a reasonable price compared to the sky-high prices we have seen these last few years. We like that it is small and discrete but some may not like the unlit logo

Next is our testing configuration, methodology, and more.

Our Benchmarking PC

We benchmark using FrameView on a recent install of Windows 11 Pro Edition 22H2, at 3440×1440 using an AMD Ryzen 7800x3d with stock clocks and 32GB of DDR5 G.Skill Trident Z 6000MHz memory on an Asrock X670E Pro RS motherboard. All games and benchmarks are the latest versions, and we use the latest GeForce 531.93 press drivers for our testing. The games tested, display driver, settings, and hardware are identical except for the GPUs we compare.

Let’s unbox and take a closer look at this graphics card.

Test Configuration

Benching Methodology

Test Configuration – Hardware

• AMD Ryzen 7800x3d (stock settings)
• Asrock X670E PRO RS motherboard (AMD AM5 chipset, v 1.07 BIOS)
• G.Skill Trident Z 32GB DDR5 (2×16GB, dual-channel at 6000 MHz XMP)
• RTX 4060 Ti 6GB, stock clocks; supplied by Nvidia
• RTX 4070 FE 12GB, stock clocks; supplied by Nvidia
• ASUS TUF GAMING GeForce RTX 4070 Ti OC Edition 12GB, stock clocks; supplied by Nvidia
• RTX 3080 FE 10GB, stock clocks
• RTX 3070 FE, stock clocks
• 1 x TeamGroup 1 TB NVMe M.2 SSD
• 2 x WD Blue 1TB SATA SSD
• Corsair RM850x, 850W 80PLUS Gold power supply unit
• ALIENWARE 34″ CURVED QD-OLED GAMING MONITOR – AW3423DWF

Test Configuration – Software

• NVIDIA GeForce 531.94 game-ready press drivers; ‘Prefer maximum performance’ (on a per-game profile basis); Shader Cache Size ‘Unlimited’ (globally); fixed refresh rate (globally).
• We enable Resizable BAR
• ‘V-Sync application controlled’ in the control panel; V-Sync off in-game.
• We note and specify the main in-game display, graphics, AA, and scaling settings in the performance summary charts.
• Windows 11 64-bit Pro edition, latest updates v22H2, High-performance power plan, HAGS & Game Mode are enabled, Game DVR & Game Bar features off, Control Flow Guard (CFG) off on a per-game basis, Hypervisor and Virtualization-based security are disabled.
• We do not install Asrock tools.
• Latest DirectX
• All games are patched to their latest versions at the time of publication.
• 3DMark suite, the latest version
• RivaTuner Statistics Server (RTSS), the latest version
• FrameView, the latest version
• Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU), the latest version; always uninstall drivers using DDU in safe mode, clean, and restart.
• ISLC (Purge Standby List) before each benchmark.

GeForce Driver Suite-related

• We use DCH Game Ready drivers.
• The display driver is installed.
• We install the latest version of PhysX.

Hybrid & Non-Synthetic Tests-related

• Single run per test.

Game Benchmarks-related

• We use the corresponding built-in or custom benchmark sequence.

Frametimes Capture

• We use FrameView for capturing frame times and analyzing the relevant performance numbers obtained from each recorded built-in or custom benchmark sequence.

Benchmark Suite:

PC Games

DX11 Games

• Total War: Warhammer III (DX11)

DX12 Games

• Chernoblyte (DX12)
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (DX12)
• Cyberpunk 2077 (DX12)
• F1 2022 (DX12)
• Far Cry 6 (DX12)
• Resident Evil 4 (DX12)
• Red Dead Redemption 2(DX12)
• Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12)
• Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition (DX12)
• Dirt 5 (DX 12)

Vulkan Games

• DOOM Eternal (VK)

Hybrid Tests (3DMark)

• DLSS Feature Test
• Fire Strike Extreme
• Fire Strike Ultra
• Time Spy
• Time Spy Extreme

Nvidia Control Panel settings

Here are the global Nvidia Control Panel settings:

Noise, Temperatures, and Power Consumption

Unfortunately, we did not have time to check out the overclocking potential, but temperatures were controlled and the RTX 4060 Ti runs very cool.

The RTX 4060 Ti is quiet, and its fans never spin up at idle, even under a heavy or full load to be irritating or noticeable. When gaming it spins up to full often under very heavy loads – like Metro Exodus with all features turned on. It is as silent as the RTX 4070 and RTX 4070 Ti we tested previously.

Nvidia Performance Graphs and information

The biggest selling point for the RTX 4060 Ti FE at $399 has to be DLSS 3. There is a lot going for keeping older generations of card until we see a massive raw performance uplift but we have it as long as you like DLSS as a whole.
This is the gigantic upgrade – while some purists may not like frame generation – the performance increase and quality retention is simply stunning. On our QD-OLED display, we could barely see any image quality differences but performance increased dramatically and beat older generation cards easily.

In our testing, the RTX 4060 Ti FE with DLSS 3 is almost 2.6 times faster than the RTX 2060 Super and it nearly doubles the performance of the RTX 3060 Ti while using less power.

Let’s head to the performance charts to compare the graphics performance of the RTX 4070 FE.

Gaming Performance Charts

Main Performance Gaming Summary Charts

Here are BTR’s summary charts of games, six hybrid, and three non-synthetic tests. We note and specify the main in-game display, graphics, AA, and scaling settings on the performance summary charts below. The benches were run at 2560×1440 and 1920×1080.

FireStrike Graphics Score:
3060: 29501
3070: 17807
4060 Ti: 32678
4070: 42120
Timespy Graphics Score – DX12 1440p:
3060: 8102
3070: 13432
4060 Ti: 13285
4070: 17881
4070Ti: 22467
Timespy Extreme Graphics Score
3060: 3102
4060 Ti: 6345
4070: 8531
Averaged Framerates & Relative GPU Performance

The RTX 4060 Ti is a clear improvement but at a significantly higher buy-in price for not much raw horsepower gain compared to the previous generation. In comparison to the rest of the 40 series lineup, the RTX 4070’s performance is unmatched for budget/value gamers but the RTX 4060 Ti sits in limbo while we wait for the 16GB version and its non-Ti counterpart.

Average Frames
The RTX 4060 Ti is going to be a 1440p capable card but with some tweaks as mentioned, but it mostly shines at 1080p. It is not really outclassing its older generations and loses outright to the RTX 3070. It is around 10% faster than the RTX 3060 Ti and about that much slower than the RTX 3070 in most cases.

Final Thoughts & Verdict

This has been an enjoyable exploration evaluating the new RTX 4060 Ti. Overall, it is the best 40 series value for your money currently available but only if you are completely new to PC gaming and want to build a great 1080p machine right now. Otherwise, we suggest waiting.

Still, we have to remember the RTX 3060 Ti was great for 1440p gaming but the VRAM issues of modern games are likely not going away so it is a major concern that have just 8GB even with the improved L2 cache and DLSS 3 availability.

Nvidia’s technology is incredibly exciting but in 4-5 years this card may not hold up to more modern demands if you expect more than it what it was designed for in games that do not support its most impressive features. More VRAM is just around the corner with the 16GB model so you have to discuss whether that price increase is worth the wait.

Games like RE 4 and MW2 were always either too close for comfort or much beyond the VRAM limit at max graphics and we had to lower some settings to get it to run a simple benchmark. This may have been a driver issue but we are unsure at the moment.

Thankfully, RTX 4060 Ti is compact and amazingly efficient compared to the RTX 30 series and its 40 series brothers. The idle fan stop is huge for us, and support for AV1 encoding is stellar for a lot of streamers at this price.

Not everyone cares about DLSS and its effect on an image. For this, the RTX 4060 Ti performed above the RTX 3060 Ti in most cases but barely at around 10% faster at 1080p. It was also well above the RTX 2060 but loses in almost every game to the RTX 3070 at 1440p.

However, the RTX 4060 Ti user base will see enough significant performance gains on 20 and 10 series cards to be able to make this a worthwhile consideration.

The gap widened significantly with frame generation/DLSS 3 – So much so that this is a no-brainer if titles with that technology available are what you mostly play.

However, this is not a “wow” with the raster performance jump over the previous generation. Instead, the RTX 4060 Ti is more efficient, more compact, and has much better features especially if you are still on a 10-series card. This is a worthy point in time with a card that is finally available at a reasonable price as a poster child for the generational leaps Nvidia is making with its technology and DLSS 3.

For a hundred dollars more you could buy an RTX 4060 Ti 16GB when it releases or a current AMD offering – for now but the rumor mill is swirling with a pending release. This would have been a slam dunk if there was no 8gb version and instead we had a $300-400 RTX 4060 Ti at launch. The lineup of cards would have been perfect and much more appealing to nearly every gamer.

We do implore you to look at our upcoming DLSS 3 comparison of the current generation. This technology is finally allowing Nvidia to realize the dream that has been ray tracing. We can now maintain great performance while having the full suite of RTX features on an mid-level card. Safe to say, we like the RTX 4060 Ti for multi-generational upgrades but we suggest waiting for its own competition and what AMD may offer in this price range. The RTX 4060 Ti 16gb should be very nice and the normal RTX 4060 in July should be interesting to compare!

–Happy gaming!

NVIDIA today announced the GeForce RTX 4060 family of GPUs, with two graphics cards that deliver all the advancements of the NVIDIA® Ada Lovelace architecture — including DLSS 3 neural rendering and third-generation ray-tracing technologies at high frame rates — starting at just $399. That is a price point we love to see, especially when compared to rest of the launch MSRP of the 40 series of RTX cards like the $599 RTX 4070, the $849 TUF GAMING RTX 4070 Ti, the $1199 RTX 4080, and especially the $1599 RTX 4090.

The GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and GeForce RTX 4060 are exciting entries for the largest majority of gamers. As much as we love to discuss max resolution, max graphics, and all it’s joys – if we look at Steam Charts around 77% of gamers still play on 1080p and older graphics cards.

The GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and GeForce RTX 4060 can deliver unparalleled performance at fantastic value — bringing for the first time to the company’s popular 60-class twice the horsepower of the latest gaming consoles, including ray tracing for premium image quality on top games.

“The RTX 4060 family delivers PC gamers both great value and great performance at 1080p,
whether they’re building a gaming battle box or an AI-assisted creation station,” said Matt
Wuebbling, vice president of global GeForce marketing at NVIDIA. “These GPUs deliver an
incredible upgrade, starting at just $399, putting Ada Lovelace and DLSS 3 in the hands of
millions more worldwide.”

DLSS Brings AI-Accelerated Performance to 300+ Titles

The GeForce RTX 4060 family provides access to the 300+ games and applications that now
support DLSS, with eagerly anticipated titles coming this soon like The Lord of the Rings: Gollum and Diablo IV to include DLSS 3. A DLSS 3 plug-in for Unreal Engine 5 is also coming soon. These are major launches that you could double your performance if upgrading from a RTX 2060 Super.

DLSS 3 showcases the growing importance of AI in real-time games by creating new, high-quality frames for smoother gameplay. Improvements in hardware coupled with DLSS 3 massively increases performance, which uses AI to output higher-resolution frames from a lower-resolution input. This technology alone has seen some massive popularity and adoption. We especially loved the fan-made mod for Jedi Survivor, the performance uplift of that mod made it playable for many gamers. Another fan-favorite feature is also here, with the exceptional responsiveness that is maintained through NVIDIA Reflex, which reduces input lag.

The Ultimate Graphics Cards for 1080p Gaming

From our early looks, The GeForce RTX 4060 Ti is on average 2.6x faster than the RTX 2060 SUPER GPU and 1.7x faster than the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GPU. For titles without frame generation, the RTX 4060 Ti is 1.6x faster than the RTX 2060 SUPER GPU.
The RTX 4060 Ti’s memory subsystem features 32MB of L2 cache and 8GB or 16GB of ultra-highspeed GDDR6 memory. The RTX 4060 has 24MB of L2 cache with 8GB of GDDR6. The L2 cache reduces demands on the GPU’s memory interface, ultimately improving performance and power efficiency.

This is very important to discuss prior to the inevitable backlash from the community with the 8GB of VRAM on the base RTX 4060Ti. Nvidia discusses this in depth here and it’s a great blog post we encourage everyone to read:

A Deeper Look At VRAM On GeForce RTX 40 Series Graphics Cards

Ray tracing performance has improved significantly from the previous generation, thanks to
advancements like Shader Execution Reordering, cutting-edge Opacity Micromap and Displaced Micro-Mesh Engines. These innovations enable even the most demanding games to
simultaneously implement multiple ray tracing effects, and even full ray tracing, also known as
path tracing, for unparalleled realism and immersion.

Perfect for Content Creators

The GeForce RTX 4060 family of GPUs comes backed by the NVIDIA Studio platform, which
brings creators RTX acceleration and AI tools at a more accessible starting price. Serving
livestreamers, video editors, 3D artists and others, the platform supercharges over 110 creative apps, provides lasting stability with NVIDIA Studio Drivers and includes a powerful suite of AIpowered Studio software, such as NVIDIA Omniverse, Canvas and Broadcast.

Creators of many disciplines can benefit from new fourth-generation Tensor Cores, which
provide a significant performance increase for AI tools compared with the last generation.
Accelerated AI features allow creators to automate tedious tasks and apply advanced effects
with ease.
3D modelers rendering high-resolution, ray-traced scenes can expect up to 45% faster
performance than with the previous-generation GeForce RTX 3060 family. Adding AI-powered
DLSS 3 — including within Omniverse, a hub for interconnecting existing 3D workflows to
replace linear pipelines with live-sync creation and real-time collaboration — greatly accelerates the viewport in real-time 3D rendering applications, enabling a more fluid editing experience with full lighting, materials and physics.

Broadcasters can use the eighth-generation NVIDIA video encoder, called NVENC, with best-inclass AV1 hardware encoding, and benefit from 40% better encoding efficiency. Livestreams will appear as if bitrate was increased by 40% — a big boost in image quality for popular broadcast apps like OBS Studio. Broadcasters can also benefit from NVIDIA Broadcast and its set of AI effects that improve microphones and webcams, turning rooms into home studios.

Video editors can benefit from a host of AI tools like auto-reframe, smart object selection and
depth estimation, now available in top applications such as Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci
Resolve, and export in AV1 for reduced file sizes.
GeForce RTX Offers a Graphics Card for Every Kind of User
With this latest launch, the GeForce RTX 40 Series now has an option for every resolution and
every user.

NVIDIA will celebrate the 4060 family’s launch with 100 streamers, and give away 460 of the
new cards to members of the gaming community as part of its “Summer of RTX” event. Learn
more on the sweepstakes webpage.

Availability
The GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB will be available starting Wednesday, May 24, at $399. The
GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB version will be available in July, starting at $499.

GeForce RTX 4060 will also be available in July, starting at $299. An NVIDIA Founders Edition design of the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB will be available directly from NVIDIA.com and select retailers.

Custom boards for the entire RTX 4060 family, including stock-clocked and factory-overclocked models, will be available from top add-in card providers such as ASUS, Colorful, Gainward, GALAX, GIGABYTE, INNO3D, KFA2, MSI, Palit, PNY and ZOTAC, as well as from gaming system integrators and builders worldwide.

Vampires are a horror genre staple so it’s quite shocking we haven’t really had an amazing game release featuring them as the central villain in quite some time. So when Arkane, the makers of amazing games like Prey and Dishonored, announced Redfall in June of 2021, it captured my bloodlust. Xbox’s current weak place in the market is begging for a great release which puts a ton of extra pressure for Redfall to exceed expectations.

The excitement for Redfall’s hero-based looter-shooter gameplay centering around vampires has such a high ceiling because of this atmosphere. Microsoft needs a win. It’s Arkane, so we know they have a history of hitting it out of the park with combat, stealth, and a great story. But after delays, the announcement that consoles would be locked to 30fps at launch, and after a quiet launch week, some concern set in.

The press embargo was set right before tomorrow’s release at 8:01 PM ET today. A red flag went up instantly. This is a review-in-progress as we were provided a key close to release and have not had time to complete the entire story but have completed the majority of its major missions. In fact, a 69.4GB patch dropped this morning adding DLC.

After playing, I understand the fear of reviewers about gameplay spoiling major elements of the latter half of the game. For FPS fans, Redfall provides some great gameplay elements to sink your teeth and time into, but it also lacks direction and its vision is muddied with formulaic systems and some glaring issues. Let’s take a deeper look at Redfall in our review of the PC version for Steam. Thank you to Nvidia and to Arkane for providing a review copy for our coverage!

Characters

Redfall has you choose one of four main characters which is one of the biggest draws for me upon release. Going in with friends to experience a 4-player massacre of vampires and their minions could be a real blast. Central to Redfall is its first person and hero shooter design. The four playable characters at launch are cryptozoologist inventor, Devinder Crousley; telekinetic student, Layla Ellison; combat engineer, Remi de la Rosa; and special forces sniper, veteran Jacob Boyer. Redfall has more character releases planned later.

Each character has a trio of upgradable special powers, two are useable for limited times, and an “ultimate” that recharges more slowly over time. Each power has its own unique spin on combat and abilities to play with. Vampires invade the area known as Redfall, and after some opening events, there is no physical way to escape from the area. You and the town’s citizens are fish trapped in a bucket being saved for feeding time.

The opening sequence is pretty great and sets the tone well. The massive cascade of frozen water serves as an ominous foreshadowing of the immense power our enemies hold. Our characters had previous run-ins with the main antagonists that provided them with their abilities.

I really disliked that Bungie made us go to their website to read “grimoire” cards to understand the lore. The same thing is done here with Redfall – most of the backstory ends up by being briefly told in side conversations, and if you want more, you need to read one of the many, many notes strewn across the world or by gathering 100 items that provide more exposition from a central character. It is hard to describe how grandiose the game can be and yet so small at the same time before you actually jump in to play.

Disappointingly, Redfall at times can feel paper thin, and I believe it could have been truly great with more time in the coffin until it was ready to withstand the heat of the sun and its place in the current landscape. Gamers will notice.

We want the deep world-building and narrative that Arkane is known for, and if more time was needed for a sophisticated presentation, I would have begged for it. Without going into later story spoilers, Redfall’s premise is that a biotech corporation known as Aevum was working with a scientist seeking immortality, an experiment went wrong and the vampire hoard was unleashed. Almost immediately, many of the town’s residents became cultists who wanted this same immortality and began to worship and defend the vampires with the promise that once they die they would be reincarnated as all-powerful beings.

A once idyllic island town is now the center for survivors, and you are someone luckily granted special powers that you have right off the bat. Conceptually, its a great setting for this game and it was very interesting to explore. With vampire nests to destroy, bosses to defeat, safehouses to set free, and so much loot to gather for upgrades – the base systems are there for a great time.

But while Redfall’s premise does an amazing job of setting up some great missions, the presentation feels extremely dated. So much so I am not sure that most players will stay long enough to experience the latter half of the game which begins to feel incredible at times.

Let’s take a deeper look at the gameplay.

Gameplay

After the opening sequence, your first mission is to approach a surrounded firehouse with survivors inside. Cultists are standing outside, literally, not banging on the walls or trying to break in – they are standing there in groups just waiting to pick survivors off. This is the same immersion-breaking feeling most of the encounters have in the game. Something feels like it was missed or changed in development.

Most gamers won’t care about small details as they may just care about the overall story and the gunplay. Well, after first picking off the cultists, you meet your first set of survivors for your new home base. There is little to no backstory for the characters without reading interactable letters, and they sort of just fall into place as expert base builders with a doctor, a gun expert, a clergywoman, and more. Redfall is shockingly light on explanations and barebones in so many other similar places that lowered our expectations for the rest of the game.

This base is never attacked and is literally just a place you come back to get supplies, make occasional small talk, and interact with a missions table to get photo cutscenes between your custom character and the survivors. I believe the reason for this is because of only having four characters and it may have been easier to just replace their skin for the cutscenes. I understand that the visuals needed to be presented, but with such barebones characters it would have made me care more about them if they actually talked to you.

Between missions, they will talk to each other and then later you get in-game conversations with dynamic character movements and interactions that I really enjoyed especially near the end of the first half of the game. If this was more fleshed out, I would have cared much more about these characters and saving them.

However, none of it matters as once a major defeat occurs, in order to progress the story you have to leave the main island and can never return. I’d prefer to go back and experience those levels again when I want to and have fun in the sandbox that was created, but its completely shut off.

The second area feels more like the real main game in almost every way. Characters are more vocal, the area feels more dense and packed with hidden items and more enemies to fight. The story is finally fleshed out and its vast world is begging to be explored. Only in the second half is where Redfall shines and becomes extremely fun.

Gunplay

We suggest not playing the healer characters during single-player as they won’t offer much utility. Some of the abilities become extremely powerful with later unlocks like Jacob’s raven damaging anyone in its path. However, the AI needs some serious work and I often found myself ignoring gun perks and upgrades as a necessity to improve my experience.

None of it is truly fundamental to the experience and most hero’s abilities would help multiplayer sessions. However, story progression is not shared due to the nature of the game’s design but the loot and levels you gain are.

Flawed AI is one of the biggest issues we ran into. It’s bad. I mean really bad especially for the poor cultists who get the short straw. They funnel in the same path, get stuck on rocks, have clunky animations, and have no real cognition or ability to flank and outsmart you while at the same time having god-aim. It’s a bad combo especially when being sniped at from a distance.

I am not sure any patches can address this, but with Jacob at launch, AI is broken and basically stuck in easy mode. Even on higher difficulties and with later invisibility unlocks, I could cycle between walking directly into a large group of enemies, grabbing the quest item, and then going invisible again, and they would just go on their way. The same could be said about shooting from a specific area – the AI just funnels directly to you and poses no real challenge ala Deathloop.

Other characters have similar “cheese” but I would recommend increasing the difficulty of the game for a better challenge. The shooting experience is still fantastic – from sniper rifles to UV lasers that petrify the enemy vampires – it is a blast to play.

In some well-designed areas like the vampire nests, it reminded us of entering the Elder Scroll’s Oblivion Gates. These moments however are few and far between if you love to fully explore the world. Some missions are surprisingly good but getting there is such a slog that some may never progress to experience them. The moment-to-moment gameplay constantly clashes badly with each other. It is tiring especially when combined with performance issues.

Speaking of vampire nests, these are some of the best gameplay areas in Redfall. They pack strong vampires in large numbers that can overwhelm you quickly even with Jacob’s invisibility and it requires careful planning. Conversely, there is little punishment for dying as progress does not reset and there are typically no timers, so if you can go in gun blazing.

Vampire nests reached another level that let me see the vision for Redfall which makes it hurt to see it ignored for the rest of the gameplay. The tone, the atmosphere, and with your back against the wall fighting off vampire hoards is such an amazing concept!

In one mission, you go to investigate a boat and as soon as the quest item is picked up it triggers an angry mob that immediately surrounds your only exits with deadly red mist, a mini-boss, and a mob of bloodthirsty vampires. You can see this all unfold beneath you from the boat’s windows. Your only option is to bite back and fight your way out. The game is filled with these bursts of incredible and stunning moments with fantastic and engaging gunplay that is then mixed with poor performance, bad lip-syncing, and horrible AI.

I am really reminded of Destiny 1’s live service launch which was obviously a victim of a large form of rewrite and rebuild. Perhaps Redfall had a similar fate but we will never know. Arkane has promised gamers that this will be their most supported game yet and we really hope so. The core gameplay is incredible but it reminds us of Cyberpunk 2077’s promise of a better future when all we need now is the vampire killing fun we have been salivating for.

The loot, the loot, the loot, the loot, the loot

Let’s talk loot. Vampire bosses keep repeating “the blood, the blood, the blood, the blood” but all I care about is if they will give me fun weapons to kill them with. Loot and gameplay can keep a game alive for a long time especially if there are fun quests or some great special weapons or “exotics” to chase. A community can grow quickly when secrets are found or the best load-outs to defeat bosses are found.

Redfall’s weapons scale with your level and just pump out higher numbers of damage. Pistols, shotguns, automatic rifles, UV lasers, stake launchers, snipers, and flare guns round out a fun and worthwhile experience. Unfortunately, as the game fleshes out you see how exploration is broken by other reward types. So build-crafting with the right perks and skill point selections doesn’t make much of a difference now.

Pistols are often one-shot minions, flare guns burn and stun lock vampires, and stake launchers massively chunk any boss or special vampire. It’s all amazing fun and the combo load-outs you run can really allow for great gameplay loops. Although the cultists are really bad enemies, they serve little to no threat until much later when their level just means their incredible accuracy can health-chunk you within a second or two if you get careless. I died a lot early being overrun in confined space by the fast vampire attacks as they surrounded me. Some enemy abilities can also one-shot you. This would not be much of an issue in multiplayer but it felt bad in single-player mode.

That said, you don’t have to worry about dying in a mission because no progress is lost and you have so much junk loot currency that you will likely never spend. You do not lose any progress from dying, any damage or defeated enemies stay dead, and your mission status is retained. Most of the world’s junk loot like bleach, toilet paper, water bottles, etc. that you pick up gets converted into a currency for purchases back at the home base.

Things like med kits, better guns, and lock picks can be purchased with converted drop currency. However, most of the rewire/hack kits just lead to more junk loot or heals, which enemies drop, and are strewn literally everywhere. Most of the lock picks do the same.

There was no master sword moment or a huge loot drop that I was super excited for. This is because they aren’t necessary because vampire nests and a later world event granted me the best loot in the game. Most of your old loot is junked as you move on to the next mission anyway.

The combos are fun though as you need to either stake, petrify, or burn vampires. You can mix using a UV gun to petrify groups of vampires and then shotgun them one by one to dispatch a large group easily. If you take too long as Jacob, you can just go invisible with no real danger. I did this for the first big boss and didn’t even lose 50% health because a large power weapon pumps out such large chunks of damage the boss gets health gated and frozen before they can even react. I broke the game rather easily. Balancing needs to occur and much more AI work is needed. There was a huge patch today that hopefully addresses some of these woes.

PC Performance

I am beginning to call DLSS 3 a godsend but it should not be necessary just to enjoy a major release. The industry has lately given PC gamers the short end of the stick, but that is a topic for another day. We started our playthrough with our Ryzen 7800x3D build with an RTX 4070 Ti and 32 GB of DDR5-6000mhz RAM on our TeamGroup 2TB NVMe drive. Ours is far beyond a typical system, but from the onset we had massive crashes, stuttering, bugs, and large frame dips. Microstutters and texture problems also occurred.

The latest Nvidia driver helped and DLSS 3 almost doubled our performance. This still did not address some areas of town where we would dip into the low teens. Entering the menu could often cause the game to crash. Glitches like this ruined some major moments of our playthrough but with patches this may be resolved soon.

DLSS looks incredible and is a must-have feature. It nearly doubled performance on the RTX 4090 which was already performing great except for the 1% lows. The same could be said for our RTX 4080 and 4070 Ti. The newly released RTX 4070 also performs well but the game really needs some serious performance improvements.

There was a large 69.4GB patch today so we redid our benchmarks. Here are our numbers using maxed/Epic settings:

Testbed 1:

Intel 13900KF/RTX 4090 FE/2x16GB DDR5 6400/Win 11 – 3840 x 2160

TAA high/No DLSS – 124.3 av /  42.1 1% low

Quality DLSS 3 – 178.0 av / 72.7 1% low

DLSS 3 in particular allows for stunning gameplay and steady framerates with comparable image quality to native. Unfortunately, Redfall is sadly locked at 30FPS for the console launch with 60 FPS mode coming soon but now we can understand why: It just needs more time in development.

Testbed 2:
Post-Day 1 Patch with AMD Ryzen 7800x3D, 2x16GB DDR6 6000, TeamGroup 2TB NVMe, Win 11.
3840×2160, Epic Preset DLSS comparison:

Conclusion – try if you have Game Pass

We can not recommend Redfall at launch. I was very excited for Arcane Austin’s Redfall, despite the console war chatter, the state of Xbox, and red flags coming out from the game development cycle. I still loved my time with it, and in many moments I was having a good deal of fun, but most of the time the world proved to be empty or uninteresting.

I would not have continued as far as I progressed if I did not enjoy some of the big set pieces so much. I believe anyone with Game Pass should play it, even at 30fps on console. However, it’s a messy mix of RPG, looter shooter, and a multiplayer game that lacks a cohesive and consistent presentation. Couple this with terrible AI and a plethora of bugs and there are very high highs and very, very low lows. 

Redfall can technically be played solo, but we recommend the experience with friends as it is much better. It is also not going to be the major release to start the Xbox renaissance that we so desperately need. This review score is going to be low, but I am still rooting for it. There is something there at the core that is clawing at the surface to come out and be enjoyed. It is your choice if you want to power through the mud to get to the meat of it.

If you can withstand some glitches, read the story in text form with barebones character development, and have friends to play with then you will have a decent time. That said, the world is already so empty that traversing its many roads with no vehicles or large enemy population it can feel lonely walking large swaths of areas as a solo player. At times, I grew so frustrated with the experience I found myself begging for a story, begging for those cool moments, and I often felt unrewarded and angry.

Redfall releases later today on Xbox Series consoles, PC, Game Pass, and is Steam Deck verified.

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Vestibulum luctus, dolor vel facilisis egestas, augue enim commodo lorem, vitae auctor nulla nulla ut tortor. Sed sapien massa, efficitur vel arcu at, convallis euismod sapien. Ut at augue vel nisi consequat porttitor. Aliquam vel vestibulum diam. Vestibulum ligula elit, volutpat in eleifend nec, viverra at nisi. Quisque auctor euismod tincidunt. Integer ornare rutrum sodales. Praesent accumsan lobortis enim, ut facilisis risus pulvinar sit amet. Suspendisse eget gravida nisl. Nullam ut risus ultrices, sodales metus sit amet, vestibulum metus. Aenean porta dolor ut ante hendrerit, eget commodo lectus lobortis. Suspendisse est dui, consectetur in laoreet ut, rutrum sit amet odio.

Sed malesuada sodales dui. Nullam ultricies ac nibh sit amet aliquam. Nulla efficitur arcu felis, vitae ullamcorper sem lobortis in. Sed consequat orci in eros varius imperdiet. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia curae; Nam dictum feugiat rutrum. Mauris eu tempor felis. Praesent quis lectus a urna scelerisque pellentesque. Ut pellentesque ligula a lorem posuere volutpat. Praesent vitae enim elementum, malesuada metus in, pharetra turpis. Pellentesque ut mauris ut purus congue malesuada vitae ut quam. In pretium, ipsum non interdum sollicitudin, elit nunc porta massa, vitae venenatis metus nisl ut ligula. Sed aliquet nibh arcu, at convallis nisl fermentum id.

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Fusce tempor mattis rutrum. Suspendisse dignissim libero ex, vitae rhoncus enim bibendum at. Sed pulvinar, neque eget tincidunt scelerisque, libero nulla cursus est, sed dictum est magna sit amet urna. Sed blandit urna velit, non vestibulum lectus luctus id. Sed ut porta sapien, eu tincidunt massa. In semper, sem ac vehicula laoreet, ipsum tellus tincidunt arcu, nec mollis enim turpis nec sapien. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Phasellus vitae faucibus nibh, vitae aliquam risus. Praesent suscipit tincidunt dui eu rutrum. Curabitur dolor ligula, commodo vitae rutrum a, pharetra ac diam. Aenean orci massa, consequat sollicitudin accumsan eu, maximus dignissim massa. Pellentesque semper vulputate risus non maximus. Nullam eget velit in leo rutrum vehicula. Pellentesque sit amet pharetra urna, vel consectetur elit. Curabitur lorem magna, scelerisque a purus nec, elementum scelerisque velit.

Maecenas elit nisi, placerat a leo nec, ultricies tincidunt ante. Nullam et ante elit. Aenean ullamcorper egestas consectetur. Donec euismod quam quis sollicitudin accumsan. Curabitur feugiat orci enim, sagittis mattis nisi malesuada sed. Nullam ac lorem porta, semper urna vel, tempus sapien. Vestibulum iaculis id eros id interdum. Pellentesque laoreet varius lectus sit amet tempor. Curabitur suscipit massa eu nibh tincidunt, et vehicula magna mollis. Integer in augue euismod, feugiat libero at, fermentum leo. Donec pulvinar arcu placerat pretium condimentum.

Vivamus nisl odio, semper at erat non, aliquet sollicitudin nisi. Curabitur nunc ligula, semper vel erat nec, ultrices ultricies dolor. Aliquam eleifend arcu in dui tincidunt pharetra. Sed nec mattis urna. Vestibulum sed leo tellus. Quisque finibus feugiat leo, eu lobortis arcu sodales aliquam. Suspendisse viverra accumsan lectus ut sodales. Nulla ac sodales nisl. Nunc malesuada quis nunc nec pretium. Mauris euismod tristique lorem vel rutrum. Sed vitae tortor et dolor tincidunt egestas.

A heading

Vestibulum luctus, dolor vel facilisis egestas, augue enim commodo lorem, vitae auctor nulla nulla ut tortor. Sed sapien massa, efficitur vel arcu at, convallis euismod sapien. Ut at augue vel nisi consequat porttitor. Aliquam vel vestibulum diam. Vestibulum ligula elit, volutpat in eleifend nec, viverra at nisi. Quisque auctor euismod tincidunt. Integer ornare rutrum sodales. Praesent accumsan lobortis enim, ut facilisis risus pulvinar sit amet. Suspendisse eget gravida nisl. Nullam ut risus ultrices, sodales metus sit amet, vestibulum metus. Aenean porta dolor ut ante hendrerit, eget commodo lectus lobortis. Suspendisse est dui, consectetur in laoreet ut, rutrum sit amet odio.

Sed malesuada sodales dui. Nullam ultricies ac nibh sit amet aliquam. Nulla efficitur arcu felis, vitae ullamcorper sem lobortis in. Sed consequat orci in eros varius imperdiet. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia curae; Nam dictum feugiat rutrum. Mauris eu tempor felis. Praesent quis lectus a urna scelerisque pellentesque. Ut pellentesque ligula a lorem posuere volutpat. Praesent vitae enim elementum, malesuada metus in, pharetra turpis. Pellentesque ut mauris ut purus congue malesuada vitae ut quam. In pretium, ipsum non interdum sollicitudin, elit nunc porta massa, vitae venenatis metus nisl ut ligula. Sed aliquet nibh arcu, at convallis nisl fermentum id.

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Fusce tempor mattis rutrum. Suspendisse dignissim libero ex, vitae rhoncus enim bibendum at. Sed pulvinar, neque eget tincidunt scelerisque, libero nulla cursus est, sed dictum est magna sit amet urna. Sed blandit urna velit, non vestibulum lectus luctus id. Sed ut porta sapien, eu tincidunt massa. In semper, sem ac vehicula laoreet, ipsum tellus tincidunt arcu, nec mollis enim turpis nec sapien. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Phasellus vitae faucibus nibh, vitae aliquam risus. Praesent suscipit tincidunt dui eu rutrum. Curabitur dolor ligula, commodo vitae rutrum a, pharetra ac diam. Aenean orci massa, consequat sollicitudin accumsan eu, maximus dignissim massa. Pellentesque semper vulputate risus non maximus. Nullam eget velit in leo rutrum vehicula. Pellentesque sit amet pharetra urna, vel consectetur elit. Curabitur lorem magna, scelerisque a purus nec, elementum scelerisque velit.