New leaks concerning the rumored RTX 4060 Ti have left many PC gaming lovers scratching their heads. Not solely does the GPU sound fairly unimpressive thus far, however it additionally exhibits Nvidia’s dedication to at least one unusual alternative — the 12-pin energy connector. Sure, the very same one which’s been getting a lot unhealthy press not too long ago.
Seeing this weird resolution makes me surprise — is Nvidia’s dedication to the high-end a part of the market actually the fitting method to go?
A lukewarm response
The information concerning the upcoming RTX 4060 Ti broke out because of kopite7kimi on Twitter, who’s a dependable leaker. Even so, it’s essential to do not forget that nothing is confirmed till Nvidia itself speaks up, and even then, because the “unlaunched” RTX 4080 12GB taught us, it’s nonetheless not fairly closing till it’s on the cabinets.
With that disclaimer out of the way in which, let’s see what the Twitter tipster needed to share. In line with the tweet, the RTX 4060 Ti will function the AD106-350-A1 GPU, and it’ll include 4,352 CUDA cores, in addition to simply 8GB of GDDR6 reminiscence clocked at 18Gbps. Kopite7kimi didn’t point out this, however earlier leaks predicted a 128-bit reminiscence bus — this interprets to a bandwidth of 288GB/s. The cardboard has a vastly elevated cache when in comparison with the earlier iteration, now sporting 32MB as an alternative of 4MB.
For sure, the response of the web at giant has been lukewarm thus far. A fast look on the RTX 3060 Ti tells us why. The previous-gen card additionally comes with 8GB of GDDR6 reminiscence, has extra cores (4,864), and may need extra bandwidth due to the 256-bit bus (448GB/s versus 288GB/s). Remember that the bandwidth of the 4060 Ti is much more unconfirmed than the remainder of the leak, so deal with it with warning.
In any case, these specs aren’t very spectacular, though the rise in cache will definitely be an enchancment. However there’s extra to it.
Doubling down on a controversial resolution?
The leaker noted that the card has “a very short reference board,” and that it still uses the CEM5 connector. This is what made me pause.
This implies that Nvidia might still be using the new 12VHPWR connector that we already know from the RTX 4090 and the RTX 4080, and that’s despite the fact that the 4060 Ti is said to come with a total board power (TBP) of 220 watts.
For reference, there have been cases of melting connectors on the RTX 4090, and the 12VHPWR connector is thought to be the problem. Nvidia hasn’t made any official statements about this other than that it’s investigating the issue, and the problem is not widely spread, but I can’t help but wonder why Nvidia would use this connector at all.
Assuming the RTX 4060 Ti really does come with a TBP of 220 watts, there is no need for Nvidia to use this connector in the first place. In fact, Nvidia also used a 12-pin connector (albeit a different one, without the extra four “sense pins”) on the RTX 3060 Ti — but Nvidia’s board partners didn’t follow its lead, and the majority of them went with an 8-pin design instead.
Sticking with an 8-pin connector would certainly be sufficient for a fairly middle-of-the-pack card. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nvidia’s partners once again go with an 8-pin design for the RTX 4060 Ti and only the Founders Edition cards use Nvidia’s 12-pin solution.
High-end cards for a midrange market
In this generation, the pricing of Nvidia’s cards leaves a lot to be desired. We have the RTX 4090, starting at $1,600, and the RTX 4080, starting at $1,200. Somehow, the way these cards are priced makes the RTX 4090 seem like a good deal, but it isn’t — both GPUs are very expensive.
Nvidia’s approach so far couldn’t be more different from Intel’s. Intel is a new player in the GPU market, and Arc Alchemist GPUs are far from a widespread success, but a recent interview with Intel’s Raja Koduri delivers some food for thought. Koduri made Intel’s stance clear — to target the majority of PC builders, going super high-end is not the way to go.
“High-end has no limit right now. What is the definition of high-end? Is it 600 watts? Obviously, our partners and our customers want some halo SKUs for bragging rights, and we always like to figure out ways to enable that,” Koduri told Gadgets360. “But my priority at this point is getting that core audience, with one power connector. And that can get you up to 200 to 225W.”
The Intel exec is not wrong — the “core audience” is not composed of people who will be buying $1,600 cards along the lines of the RTX 4090. The RTX 4060, RTX 4060 Ti, and the RTX 4070 are the cards you’d expect to see the most of in this generation, so this should be the market that Nvidia tries to cater to with good pricing and adequate specs.
So far, in terms of specifications, the RTX 4060 Ti is shaping up to be quite average, and then we also have the weird choice of a power connector. Nevertheless, if Nvidia can keep this card affordable, it will likely succeed anyways.
Unfortunately, the pricing of the first two cards in the Ada range doesn’t give me much hope for the rest of the lineup. Let’s hope that the new AMD RX 7900 XTX can put some heat on Nvidia and motivate it to keep the prices reasonable.
Editors’ Recommendations
