RTX 4060 Ti 16GB Roughly 40% Faster Than 8GB at Higher Resolutions

The RTX 4060 Ti 16GB might be one of the least attractive GPUs due to its $500 price point, but according to a review by Daniel Owen, the GPU is substantially quicker than the $100 cheaper 8GB model in several modern games. In his review, Owen compared the RTX 4060 Ti 16GB to the 8GB model to see how much of a performance difference the extra VRAM capacity would provide. He found the RTX 4060 16GB provides roughly 40% extra performance in several modern 2023 titles at 1080p and 1440p resolutions. At 4K resolution, the additional VRAM is even more beneficial, giving the 16GB card twice the performance of the 8GB model (on average).

It's worth mentioning that the 4060 Ti 16GB's capacity is only advantageous in games that spill over 8GB of memory capacity. Nonetheless, Owen's review found that quite a few 2023 titles will take advantage of more than 8GB of memory.

The tech YouTuber compared the 16GB version of the RTX 4060 Ti to the 8GB version in seven modern AAA 2023 titles, including Rachet and Clank: Rift Apart, Jedi Survivor, Forespoken, Cyberpunk 2077, Resident Evil 4, Remnant 2 and The Last of Us Part 1. Testing was also conducted at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions with various game settings (including RT settings) to see how the GPUs behave in different scenarios.

Rachet and Clank: Rift Apart is one of the most sensitive applications to the 4060 Ti 16GB's extra memory capacity. At 1080p Very High with RT enabled, the 16GB was 34% faster than the 8GB model. At 1440p, this lead was boosted to 43% and at 4K, the 4060 Ti 16GB was 85% quicker. With RT disabled, the 4060 Ti 16GB lost a bit of its lead but was still more than 30% faster at 1080p and 1440p, and over 50% quicker at 4K.

Lowering graphics quality settings to High (with no RT) made the 16GB card a whopping 50% quicker than the 8GB model at 1080p. We're not sure how this is possible, but we suspect this might be a bug with the game. So take this result with a grain of salt.

Another VRAM-sensitive title is Resident Evil 4 (2023), where the RTX 4060 Ti 16GB was 12% faster at 1080p, 9% faster at 1440p, and 24% quicker at 4K — with the game running at its maximum settings with RT effects. Tho interestingly, the 1% lows in this game are particularly sensitive to the 8GB limitation on the lower-end 4060 Ti, revealing a 77% to 113% performance advantage in 1% lows for the 16GB card at 1080P, 1440P, and 4K.

However, not all of the latest 2023 releases need more than 8GB of memory to perform well. Owen found that the RTX 4060 Ti 16GB saw no noteworthy performance improvements with Remant 2 and Jedi: Survivor at 1080P or 1440P — even with both games running in their highest graphical settings (with RT enabled on Survivor). The only exception is at 4K resolution, where the 16GB card was 7% faster in Remant 2 and 14% more performant in Jedi: Survivor compared to the 8GB model.

For a full breakdown of the rest of the games Daniel Owen tested, check out his full review on his YouTube channel.

As far as VRAM utilization is concerned, all of the games that performed better on the 16GB card did not use the whole 16GB. The most demanding title was Resident Evil 4, utilizing just 12.1GB of memory at the game's maximum settings at 4K resolution. The rest of the games (and tested resolutions) sat below 12GB, with most hovering in the 9GB to 11GB range. This is great to see and means the RTX 4060 Ti 16GB will have the additional memory capacity to spare as it ages.

Turns Out, DLSS 3 Frame Gen Consumes Extra VRAM

Daniel Owen also tested VRAM utilization with resolution upscaling to see how that might benefit the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB. Interestingly Owen found that DLSS 3 frame generation negatively affects VRAM consumption and consumes more video memory than standard DLSS upscaling with frame generation disabled.

In testing with Cyberpunk 2077, he found that the game will consume 8426MB of VRAM at 1440P RT Ultra settings on the 16GB 4060 Ti. With DLSS Quality, memory usage drops by over a full Gigabyte down to just 7249MB, but with Frame Generation enabled, VRAM usage goes back up to 8GB (or 8000MB) roughly.

The RTX 4060 Ti 8GB suffers from the same problem, but less so since the game is approaching the hardware's 8GB limit. The 8GB memory is still a bottleneck, providing less FPS than the 16GB card, even with DLSS enabled. (To clarify, DLSS quality mode saw the closest performance gap between the two cards.)

Overall, Owen found that the more expensive RTX 4060 Ti 16GB can be substantially faster in some games, particularly at 4K resolutions, than its 8GB counterpart, proving that 8GB can be a bottleneck even on a mid-range GPU like the 4060 Ti. However, Owen's results also demonstrate that the 16GB's additional capacity is not-beneficial in all games, at least for now. It'll be interesting to see how games evolve down the road and if we'll see more of a performance gap between the two cards if games utilize more than 8GB of memory.