Should you upgrade to an RTX 4060 from RTX 2060?

The RTX 4060 is Nvidia's latest $300 budget 1080p gaming card. Prices have decreased compared to the last gen RTX 3060, which debuted for $329 in 2020. The new GPU brings Ada Lovelace architecture's improved efficiency and performance to the masses. Nvidia has marketed it as a 230% improvement over the RTX 2060, the first 60-class card to bring ray tracing and DLSS support.

However, how do the RTX 4060 and the 2060 stack up? The newer card is an improvement, for sure. But the older GPU has been massively discounted to a point where it can be picked for a fraction of what the 4060 is priced at.

However, is the old Turing GPU worth it? We try to answer this question in this article.

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RTX 4060 vs RTX 2060 specs compared

It isn't possible to make an apples-to-apples comparison between the RTX 4060 and 2060 since they are based on wildly different architectures. Thus, a more accurate test is the overall horsepower of the hardware inside the cards.

Nvidia published the following chart at the 4060 launch event. It gives us an accurate look at what to expect from each of these graphics cards.

	RTX 4060	RTX 3060	RTX 2060
Shaders	15 TFLOPs	13 TFLOPs	7 TFLOPs
RT cores	35 TFLOPs, 3rd gen	25 TFLOPs, 2nd gen	20 TFLOPs, 1st gen
Tensor cores	242 TFLOPs, 4th gen	102 TFLOPs, 3rd gen	52 TFLOPs, 2nd gen
DLSS	3.0	2.1	2.1
NV Encoder	8th gen with AV1	7th gen	7th gen
Frame buffer	8 GB	12 GB	6 GB
Memory subsystem	24MB L2, 272 GB/s (453 GB/s effective)	3MB L2, 360 GB/s	3MB L2, 336 GB/s
Average gaming power	110W	170W	138W
Video playback power	11W	13W	14W
Idle power	7W	8W	8W
TGP	115W	170W	160W
Starting price	$299	$329	$349

The newer card is cheaper, two times faster, and more power efficient. However, the 2060 is currently selling for around $230 brand new (although availability is rare) and $130 in the used market. For testing purposes, I bought one for about $120.

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Is the RTX 2060 good enough for a 2023 gaming PC?

The RTX 4060 will deliver massive performance improvements thanks to DLSS 3 (Image via Nvidia)

The RTX 2060 is outdated, with Nvidia discontinuing the GPU. However, it continues to be a very capable option for gaming at 1080p. We logged the following results at the resolution in some of the latest games:

	Highest settings, no DLSS	Highest settings, DLSS: Performance
A Plague Tale: Requiem	39	64
Atomic Heart	29	47
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2	53	71
CS: GO	389	N/A
Cyberpunk 2077 (RT: Ultra)	20	36
F1 22	44	81
Far Cry 6 (no RT)	69	N/A
Fortnite	27	53
Returnal	53	67
Shadow of the Tomb Raider (RT: Ultra)	72	83

The 2060 can easily handle every modern game. However, gamers might have to dial down the settings for a playable performance. Ray tracing performance isn't up to the mark either.

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Should you upgrade to an RTX 4060 in 2023?

The Nvidia Geforce RTX 4060 offers solid performance in video games (Image via Nvidia)

The 4060 is much faster than the RTX 2060. In addition, it supports DLSS 3, which effectively multiplies the factor of two to three. Thus, the new GPU will be a future-proof option. This isn't the case with the 2060, which is already showing its age.

In addition, both cards are plagued by VRAM issues. However, the problem is even more severe on the 2060, which features 6 GB of memory. This reflects in the smoothness of video games, as represented by the 1% low numbers published by Nvidia:

Comparison of 1% low FPS metrics in video games (Image via Nvidia)

Thus, unless you are operating on a limited budget, don't settle for the older 2060. Although the card can play most games today, gamers with this GPU might need to upgrade within a year or so.