Nvidia RTX 4060 vs AMD Radeon RX 7600: Which is better for budget gaming?

The RTX 4060 is the latest graphics card from Nvidia. The card is meant to compete against the AMD RX 7600, a GPU that debuted last month. Both these cards boast improved graphics performance, ray tracing, and temporal upscaling features. They are competitively priced at around $300, making them the cheapest cards to be launched in the last few months.

The 4060 is currently up for sale, and gamers can buy the GPU starting at $299. There are also high-end triple-fan variants that are selling for $349. This makes it slightly costlier than the AMD graphics card, which is priced at $269.

In this article, we will compare the two budget entries from AMD and Nvidia and figure out which is the better pixel pusher for gaming.

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Is the Nvidia RTX 4060 worth the extra money over the Radeon RX 7600?

These budget graphics cards primarily cater to 1080p gaming. Both companies haven't pushed for massive gen-on-gen improvements. Instead, the focus has been on delivering a budget offering that doesn't drill a hole in gamers' pockets. Let's look at what the cards have to offer before checking out their performance.

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Specs

It is not possible to accurately compare the specs of the RTX 4060 and the Radeon RX 7600. These GPUs are based on wildly different architectures with very little in common.

The detailed specs are as follows:

	Nvidia RTX 4060	AMD Radeon RX 7600
Graphics processor	AD107	Navi 33
Shading units/CUDA cores	3,840	2,048
Tensor cores	120	N/A
RT cores	30	32
Compute units	N/A	32
Memory size	8 GB	8 GB
Memory type	18 Gbps 128-bit GDDR6	18 Gbps 128-bit GDDR6
TDP	115W	165W
Price	$299	$269

Both the RTX 4060 and the RX 7600 come with 8 GB of video memory. This has been criticized by multiple experts as modern video games tend to use much more than 8 GB in heavy workloads. However, the cards are among the cheapest options in the market, so the companies had to cut costs somewhere.

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Performance differences

The RTX 4060 and the RX 7600 are expected to perform similarly, given that they are in the same market segment. However, there are some differences between the cards, as indicated by multiple benchmarks.

The 4060 is slower than the 7600 across most video games. Do note that these numbers are without any form of upscaling (DLSS or FSR) applied. The latest Nvidia GPU supports DLSS 3, so gamers can use frame generation to effectively multiply their framerate in some video games. In this regard, the RX 7600 falls behind.

	Nvidia RTX 4060	AMD Radeon RX 7600
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	87	90
Borderlands 3	89	109
CoD: Modern Warfare II (2022)	66	77
Horizon: Zero Dawn	121	122
Cyberpunk 2077	49	56
Red Dead Redemption 2	67	64
Watch Dogs: Legion	83	84

However, for those looking for raw rendering power (mainly those that play competitive titles like Fortnite, CS: GO, Valorant, and more), the AMD card is the better option since these games don't support DLSS 3. Relying on technologies like Super Resolution and frame generation will add a ton of latency that will result in a competitive disadvantage.

In addition to all of this, the AMD card is cheaper, so those on a tight budget can always consider the RX 7600 over what Team Green has to offer. Do note, however, that when pitched against the RTX 4060, the 7600 might suffer in heavy ray tracing and content creation workloads.