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Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 review: a solid if unspectacular 1080p gaming laptop

6:13 pm | July 3, 2024

Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9: Two-minute review

If you're looking to get into the portable PC gaming scene without breaking the bank then the Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 is a viable option to consider in 2024. It's not going to give the best gaming laptops a run for their money in terms of leading performance, battery life, display, and design, but it does enough to stand out from a price-to-performance perspective.

While the manufacturer has made waves in the mid-range and premium end of the gaming laptop market, its budget offering favors function over form. My review unit features a 13th Gen i7 CPU, Nvidia RTX 4060 GPU, 16GB RAM, and a 512GB NVMe Gen 4.0 SSD - all of which is more than enough to play today's games in 1080p. You won't always be maxing everything out in the graphical settings, due to the GPU's limited 8GB GDDR6 VRAM, but Nvidia DLSS 3's Frame Generation or AMD FSR can help ease the stress.

There's also the LOQ 15 (AMD) to consider if you would rather go for a Team Red rig instead of a Team Blue offering. Regardless of CPU choice, the GPU is decidedly mainstream, so there's no great power differential. It means that the same problems largely apply, meaning a so-so display, lacking battery life, and a port placement that may be cumbersome.

That battery life really does leave a lot to be desired. Web browsing and media playback achieved just under two hours with battery saving modes and the screen brightness halved. It's not great, and this extends to battery gaming which can't even manage an hour. You'll want to keep this gaming laptop plugged in to enjoy a lengthy gaming session, or when used as a desktop replacement when hooked up to one of the best gaming monitors.

So yes, while the Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 is unlikely to wow you, it is entirely serviceable at providing a solid 1080p gaming experience. It's ultimately going to come down to the pricing of the unit; if you can find an RTX 4060 variant around the $1,000 / £1,000 / AU$1,300 mark then it's worthwhile, but I can't really recommend splashing out upwards of $1,300 / £1,300 / AU$2,000 when RTX 4070 rigs offer more power for the money.

Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9: Price and availability

1080p 144Hz refresh rate display on the LOQ 15 — (Image credit: Future / Aleksha McLoughlin)

How much does it cost? Starting from $999 / £1,049 / AU$1,297
When is it available? The Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 is available now
Where can you get it? US, the UK, and Australia

The Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 is available with a starting price of $999 / £1,049 / AU$1,297 for a variant running an RTX 4050 GPU. Alternatively, there's a more powerful version running the more capable RTX 4060 discrete graphics for around $100 / £100 / AU$300 more depending on the retailer's availability - and I'd recommend springing for that slightly more powerful GPU.

In terms of price, the Lenovo LOQ 15 is one of the more affordable gaming laptops on the market at the budget end of the spectrum. Whether you're considering an RTX 4050 or RTX 4060 version, these aren't powerhouse machines, but they are priced as such. It's less aggressive when considering you can pick up some RTX 4070 laptops such as the MSI Katana 15 and Asus TUF A15 from $1,199 to $1,349 nowadays.

Price: 4 / 5

Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9: Specs

The Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 is available in a variety of configurations from Lenovo itself or found from retailers in the US, the UK, and Australia. As touched upon above, you can find the budget rig with either an RTX 4050 or RTX 4060 GPU. A major difference is the choice of GPU, depending on price, you can get a Ryzen 7000 or Intel Raptor Lake variant.

Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9: Design

Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 keyboard — (Image credit: Future / Aleksha McLoughlin)

Durable build quality
Thick bezels around the 1080p display
Lovely full-size RGB keyboard

Display-wise, the Lenovo LOQ Gen 9 is primarily plastic with a rugged build quality. It's a far cry from the single-sheet aluminum of premium gaming laptops but feels considerably better than some budget models available. The cracks begin to show, however, when looking further into the screen. With a peak brightness of 350 nits and a 1080p IPS screen, things are serviceable but dull. The 144Hz refresh rate is smooth enough but the bare minimum for machines in 2024.

The exposed hinges and thick bezels aren't the most pleasing to look at, as Lenovo has opted for function over form here. Simply put, it's not sleek or stylish, but it gets the job done. This utilitarian approach can also be seen in the protruding rear I/O as the hinged screen is around an inch ahead. It's done to maximize airflow, sure, but it's quite an outdated idea that was common on rigs from around 10 years ago.

The design of the Lenovo LOQ Gen 9 gets a lot of things right with its excellent array of connectivity options on the left, right, and rear of the device. You're fully equipped with a full-size HDMI 2.1 port, USB-C, and USB 3.2 ports so there are no complaints here. This extends to the keyboard which features four-zone RGB backlighting with its full deck size. It's lovely to type and game on. Unfortunately, this doesn't extend to the trackpad which is small and feels cheap, but that's not a huge concern as you really should be be utilizing one of the best gaming mice instead.

Design: 3 / 5

Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9: Performance

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Side of the Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 — (Image credit: Future / Aleksha McLoughlin)

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Rear I/O of the Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 — (Image credit: Future / Aleksha McLoughlin)

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Rear fans of the Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 — (Image credit: Future / Aleksha McLoughlin)

Solid gaming performance in 1080p
The fans are very loud under stress
The 13th Gen i7 CPU is still powerful

Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 benchmarks

Here's how the Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 got on in our suite of industry-standard benchmarks and game testing.

PCMark10 - 7,328
3DMark:
Night Raid - 57,918
Port Royal - 5,532
Time Spy - 10,117
Fire Strike - 22,507
Geekbench 6:
Single - 2,358
Multi - 13,144
Cinebench R23:
Single - 1,652
Multi - 15,698
CrossMark - 1,572
Productivity - 1,500
Creativity - 1,699
Responsiveness - 1,439
Cyberpunk 2077
RT Ultra - 88fps
Ultra - 84fps
Low - 114fps
Total War: Three Kingdoms
Ultra - 80fps
Low - 246fps
Red Dead Redemption II
Ultra - 67fps
Low - 159fps
TechRadar Battery Test: 59 mins

For the most part, the Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 delivers on its promise of providing playable framerates at 1080p. The 144Hz Full HD display is fast enough seeing as you'll be getting around 60 to 90fps when maxing out games such as Red Dead Redemption II, Cyberpunk 2077, and Total War: Three Kingdoms. For the best possible experience, you're going to want to enable DLSS 3 Frame Generation and Ray Reconstruction to take the strain off of the native hardware.

While there are versions of the Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 with 14th Gen processors, our review unit with the Intel Core i7-13650HX still impresses. This can be evidenced by the CPU-bound title Total War: Three Kingdoms, reaching a staggering 246fps with the settings dialed down to low. The single-core and multi-core performance through Geekbench 6 and Cinebench R23 is also solid, even though these figures have recently been eclipsed by Meteor Lake and Ryzen 7000 models.

As mentioned further up the page, the display here is what sets the side down to an extent. Yes, it's fast enough with a 144Hz refresh rate being smooth with no screen tearing or artifacting. With that said, the colors are washed out, there's no HDR support, and the peak brightness leaves a lot to be desired. It's not an issue that's unique to the LOQ 15 Gen 9, but it also doesn't break from convention here either.

What you will notice is just how loud the fans are on this gaming laptop. It's particularly noticeable at start-up, or when under any level of moderate stress. The LOQ 15 is easily among the loudest machines I've ever tested, distractingly so at times, even drowning out gameplay and media playback from the otherwise fine 2x 2W stereo speakers.

Performance: 3.5 / 5

Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9: Battery life

Poor battery life whether gaming or media playback
Battery can be quick-charged to full in just over an hour

Battery life can make or break a laptop and, unfortunately, the Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 falls into the latter category. In our battery test, the machine was able to achieve just under two hours of media playback when prioritizing the battery life and reduced screen brightness. Simply put, you're going to want to keep the 135W power adapter close at hand to get through a lengthy film or take your gaming experience on the go. Granted, that's the case for many gaming laptops, but I'd expect a bit better from a lower-powered unit like this - there's not an RTX 4090 guzzling down power here.

The Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 features a 60Whr battery that supports quick charging, but it drains almost as quickly so it's a double-edged sword. The manufacturer claims a full charge from completely flat about 80 minutes, and my testing can verify this. It can reach 50% in about around half an hour, which is solid enough, even if the battery retention is far from impressive.

Battery life: 3 / 5

Should you buy the Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9?

closed lid of the Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 — (Image credit: Future / Aleksha McLoughlin)

Buy it if...

You can find it discounted
There are regular deals on the Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 available from both the manufacturer and major retailers in the US, UK, and Australia. For the right price, it offers a ton of value.

You play a range of less-demanding PC games
The RTX 4060 and 1080p display are a good pair for entry-level PC gaming. 8GB GDDR6 VRAM should be enough to play most titles at 60fps for the next few years, even if you won't be maxing out all settings settings.

Don't buy it if...

You can find an RTX 4070 machine for around the same price
Some variants of the Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 may be nearly as expensive as some other budget RTX 4070 models. This graphics card is considerably more powerful in 1080p and can be found inside 1440p machines, too.

You want a more powerful gaming laptop
Regardless of which variant you consider, the Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 isn't a very powerful machine. It's available with an RTX 4050 or RTX 4060 which are far from leading offerings.

Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9: Also consider

MSI Katana 15
The MSI Katana 15 is the most comparable alternative to the Lenovo LOQ 15 Gen 9 with its 144Hz refresh rate and Full HD resolution. It's available with either the RTX 4050, RTX 4060, or RTX 4070 so the pricing may be more of what you're looking for.

Read our full MSI Katana 15 review.

Asus TUF Gaming A15
The Asus TUF Gaming A15 combines excellent 1080p gaming performance with a stellar battery life and a solid design. It also has a wonderful RGB keyboard and a fast refresh rate, while being available in several different configurations.

Read our full Asus TUF Gaming A15 review.

First reviewed July 2024

Corsair One i500 review: can a gaming PC evolve gamer culture by embracing old, forgotten ways?

4:00 pm | May 6, 2024

Author: admin | Category: Computers Computing Gadgets Gaming Computers Gaming PCs | Tags: AIO, Corsair One, PC, RTX | Comments: Off

Corsair One i500: Two-minute review

The Corsair One i500 isn't necessarily the most powerful gaming PC out there, it's not very upgradeable, and in terms of style, it's the kind of product that will inspire some very strong opinions — including my own.

Its specs are such that it is an easy contender for the best gaming PC of 2024 just in terms of performance, and its price is absolutely in line with the kinds of gaming rigs I've seen running Core i9-14900K and RTX 4080 Super or RTX 4090 GPUs.

Starting at $3,599.99 / £3,499.99 (about $5,220), this isn't a cheap gaming PC, but for what you're getting in terms of specs, you'd normally be getting a standard mid-tower PC case, usually in black, with large RGB fans with a tempered glass side showing off even more RGB trim, and you'd still be paying nearly $3,500 or more for the privilege.

That is to say, most gaming PCs today lean so heavily on RGB to define their style, that 'style' isn't really even a factor when considering which one to buy. The cases might vary, they might have a wraparound glass panel to show off the insides more fully, but the fundamental design principle of 'show off the components', which are lit up like a carnival, remains the same no matter what PC you buy.

The Corsair One i500, meanwhile, doesn't even have Corsair iCue, the company's proprietary RGB control software. It does have RGB, namely in the two trim lines that flank the case's wooden front panel, but it's limited compared to other gaming PCs. Instead, the Corsair One i500 uses a wooden front panel and fabric side panels to define its aesthetic, along with the aluminum case underneath that comes in either black or silver.

Depending on the case color, you'll get a different wooden front panel (a walnut color for the black case and a pine color for the silver), and both cost the same, so you won't have to pay a premium for one over the other. The PC also comes with a headphone hanger attachment that can fit onto either side of the case, and there are more than enough ports for whatever peripherals you have.

More than anything, this PC reminds me of the Atari 2600 from my childhood, equipped as it was with a wooden panel along the top edge like everything else was in the early 1980s. That quickly gave way to hard black plastic in later models and soon consoles and later PCs left behind natural textures for futuristic flash and forms that persist up to the present. It's in this milieu that the Corsair One i500 feels like something dropped into the gaming PC market out of a flying Delorean. After so many years of RGB and aggressive gamer aesthetic, it's still shocking how something as simple and retro as a wood panel on the front can feel so refreshing.

It's not all positive, though. If there is anything that can be considered a negative with this PC, it's its lack of easy upgradability. The small form factor case is going to limit what you can fit in it, but the GPU AIO cooler also means that any GPU upgrades in the future are not going to be as simple as dropping in a new graphics card in a few years. You can more easily upgrade the SSD and RAM, however.

But this isn't really a gaming PC for builders or tinkerers. This is much more a gaming PC for those who want the best without messing with the cables and components, but who also want their new gaming PC to reflect their significant investment. In that, the Corsair One i500 is unmatched.

Corsair One i500: Price & availability

A Corsair One i500 on a desk — (Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

How much is it? Starting at $3,599.99 / £3,499.99 (about $5,220)
When is it available? Available May 6, 2024
Where can you get it? You can get it in the US and the UK at launch, with Australia availability in June 2024.

The Corsair One i500 is available in the US and UK now, starting at $3,599.99 and £3,499.99, respectively. It will be available in Australia in June, but official pricing hasn't been released for the APAC region yet.

Both configurations available at launch come with an Intel Core i9-1400K processor and 2TB NVMe storage, and the base configuration comes with an Nvidia RTX 4080 Super and 32GB DDR5 RAM, while the max configuration comes with an Nvidia RTX 4090 and 64GB DDR5 RAM for $4,699.99 / £4,699.99.

This is more expensive than something like the current Alienware Aurora R16, which maxes out at an Intel Core i9-14900KF, RTX 4090, 64GB DDR5 RAM, and 2TB PCIe NVMe storage for $4,049.99 / £3,919. In Australia, the Aurora R16 maxes out at AU$5,772.80 for an Intel Core i9-14900KF, an Nvidia RTX 4080 Super, 64GB DDR5 RAM, and 2TB storage.

Other gaming PCs like the Acer Predator Orion 7000 and HP Omen 40L will sell for roughly the same as the Aurora R16, so the Corsair One i500 is going to be more expensive than the competition, but its competition also features much of the same style as every other gaming PC you've seen in a Best Buy or Curry's for the past decade. Whether the Corsair One i500's style is worth the extra premium will be up to you, but after all the gaming PCs I've reviewed over the years, I believe it's absolutely worth the premium.

Value: 4 / 5

Corsair One i500: Specs

Up to an RTX 4090 with AIO liquid cooling
Not easily upgradable

Specs: 4.5 / 5

Corsair One i500: Design

Gorgeous small form-factor case
Ample cooling fans
Fabric side panels might get grimey over time

The Corsair One i500's biggest appeal is its style.

I haven't seen a wood-paneled gaming device since the Atari 2600, and that device was released when I was a toddler. That's been enough time, I think, for a wood-paneled device to be cool again, and given the state of PC gaming hardware for the past several years, seeing something new is more than just refreshing.

I can't say that the Corsair One i500 will transform PC gaming culture to move beyond its decade-old Decepticon-inspired PC cases with over-the-top RGB lighting, but I hope it inspires a new paradigm for what companies can do with a gaming PC. The market desperately needs it.

In terms of specific design notes, this is technically a small form factor gaming PC, though it is bigger than something like the Asus ROG G22CH. Taller than it is wide or deep, this is more like a gaming console than a traditional gaming PC. If you've been looking for a living room PC, this will fit right in with a living room aesthetic.

If you spend this much money on a gaming PC, you should hopefully be able to upgrade to an Nvidia 5000 series graphics card in a few years, but the small form factor case is going to limit what size GPU you can fit.

On top of that, the graphics card in this case is unshrouded, relying on an AIO GPU cooler to manage heat dissipation. You could obviously take all of the fans and heatsink off of any future graphics card you buy and fit it into this PC, but understandably, this is a fairly advanced modification for a GPU.

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On top of the internals, there are a number of distinct design features that you won't really find anywhere else.

First, the side panels are covered in a soft, breathable fabric. This creates a very cool look to the PC, but fabric in tech devices tend to discolor and gunk up over time, especially if they cover a fan blowing dust out of a PC case.

Still, the fabric panels are a beautiful design touch. Another very cool feature is the tap-to-activate light on the backside of the case, which you can tap to light up the backports while you're plugging in peripherals and other cables. It's a small touch, but given that the backside of a gaming PC can often be cast in shadow, having an easy way to illuminate the area in question is incredibly useful.

Taken all together, the Corsair One i500 is the coolest prebuilt gaming PC I've ever used, and it's all the more impressive given how far it stretches past the 'accepted' gamer aesthetic into something new. I'm sure a lot of people won't like the design of this PC, but I don't care. The fact that Corsair took the risk to make a dramatically different kind of PC earns five stars in my book.

Design: 5 / 5

Corsair One i500: Performance

Fantastic gaming 4K performance
You can probably get the same kind of performance for cheaper if you don't mind less appealing aesthetics

Now, as good as the Corsair One i500 looks, this is a gaming PC, so its performance matters as much as — if not more than — its aesthetics. In this regard, you won't be disappointed with this PC.

Its starting GPU, the RTX 4080 Super, is one of the best 4K graphics cards on the market, second only to the Nvidia RTX 4090, which is an optional upgrade for the Corsair One i500. So no matter which GPU you get, you'll be able to get 4K@60FPS on just about any title on the market, especially if you enable Nvidia's DLSS 3 in games like Cyberpunk 2077 and any game that features ray tracing.

The RTX 4090, however, is the only graphics card I've ever tested that can get you close to 60 FPS in Cyberpunk 2077 with ray tracing maxed out without upscaling, so if you're looking to play 4K at native resolution, you do at least have the option of going with the RTX 4090.

Given the hardware here, this is also a very competent creative performer, so those who like to get some work done will like what's on offer here, but I wouldn't call this the best workstation PC going. This is a gaming PC through and through, and it's here that this PC excels.

Performance: 4.5 / 5

Should you buy the Corsair One i500?

Buy the Corsair One i500 if...

Don't buy it if...

First reviewed May 2024

Razer Blade 14 (2024) review: premium performance on the go

8:14 pm | April 29, 2024

Author: admin | Category: Computers Computing Gadgets Gaming Computers Gaming Laptops | Tags: Battery Life, Razer Blade, RTX | Comments: Off

Razer Blade 14 (2024): Two minute review

The Razer Blade 14 (2024) continues to impress as a gaming powerhouse in a remarkably compact form.

It remains largely unchanged in design from its predecessor, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, considering it has long been my top pick for the best gaming laptop going, and this latest refresh makes a compelling case for keeping that title.

Starting with its design, the familiar all-black CNC-milled aluminum chassis is both eye-catching and sturdy, with a weight that reinforces its premium build without sacrificing portability.

Performance-wise, the Blade 14 is more formidable than ever, thanks to its updated AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS processor and the choice between Nvidia RTX 4070 and 4060 GPUs. This setup handles everything from intense gaming sessions to demanding creative workloads with ease, supported by a cooling system that, while noisy, effectively manages heat even during extended use.

The display is another highlight, boasting a 2560x1600 resolution with a 240Hz refresh rate. It delivers vibrant colors and smooth visuals, making it a delight for both gaming and multimedia consumption. However, it does fall short of some competitors when it comes to brightness and HDR support.

Keyboard and trackpad functionality are excellent, providing comfortable typing and precise control. Razer Synapse software remains a useful tool for tweaking performance settings and personalizing the RGB lighting to enhance both aesthetics and functionality.

Battery life is decent for a gaming laptop, offering about 10 hours of light use and significantly less during gaming or high-performance tasks. Port selection is adequate, though the lack of an Ethernet port might irk some users.

Overall, the Razer Blade 14 (2024) is an excellent, if expensive, choice for those who need a powerful, portable laptop that can handle almost anything thrown its way.

Razer Blade 14 (2024): Price and availability

A Razer Blade 14 (2024) on a desk — (Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

How much is it? Starting at $2,199.99 / £2,149.99 / AU$3,999
When is it available? It is available now.
Where can you get it? You can get it in the US, UK, and Australia

The Razer Blade 14 (2024) is available now globally, starting at $2,199.99 / £2,149.99 / AU$3,999 for the base model with an RTX 4060 GPU and 16GB RAM. You can opt for my review configuration, which gets you an RTX 4070 and 32GB of RAM for $2,699.99 / £2,699.99 / AU$5,199, and honestly, this is the configuration to get. You're already spending north of two grand, so there's no reason to settle for an RTX 4060.

Still, this pricing does put it on the higher end of the 14-inch gaming laptop market, particularly when compared to alternatives like the Asus ROG Zephyrus 14 or HP Omen Transcend 14, both of which start at a lower price point. There is also the Razer Blade 14 (2023), which is still available for a lower starting price on Razer's website right now.

Given where 14-inch laptops are right now, this is easily one of the most, if not the most, expensive 14-inch laptop that isn't called the MacBook Pro. So, if you're really concerned about your budget, then the 2023 Blade 14 is likely a better bet since other than the processor and the extra RAM, there isn't much difference between the two Blade 14 models.

Value: 3.5 / 5

Razer Blade 14 (2024): Specs

Razer Blade 14 (2024): Design

Gorgeous finish and solid build
Mercury silver colorway is stunning
Mercury silver colorway costs substantially more

Razer's commitment to premium materials and build quality continues with the Blade 14.

Its chassis, crafted from a single block of aluminum, offers a sleek, durable feel with a weight that is reassuring yet portable. The design mimics the minimalist, professional aesthetic of modern ultrabooks, which might deceive some into underestimating its gaming capabilities.

The display, a speedy 240Hz QHD+ IPS panel, sports up to 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut with Calman verification for vivid, fluid-looking visuals, while the 3ms response time will make sure that the display is about as responsive as you'll find without going for mini LED or OLED panels.

The body of the Blade 14 is very reminiscent of the MacBook Pro 14-inch, though turning the laptop over, you'll find two intake fans to help keep the components cool. Of course, fans produce noise, and under load, this laptop can get rather loud. You do have some control over this though through Razer's Synapse software.

Razer's THX audio is another standout feature of the laptop, thanks to its top firing speakers, but this does cut back on what keyboard space is available for everything else, and on a 14-inch laptop, typing space is at a premium.

Typing on the Blade 14 is still a pleasure, and the keys are adequately spaced and have a great feel to them, even after typing for several hours.

Finally, there are a good number of ports, including two USB-A and two USB-C ports, the latter of which allow for power delivery and features DisplayPort output for a second screen.

Design: 5 / 5

Razer Blade 14 (2024): Performance

Best-in-class performance for a 14-inch laptop
RTX 4070 GPU is powerful enough to handle just about any game
For the price, there are more powerful gaming laptops out there

While the aesthetic appeal of the Razer Blade 14 is undeniable, at the end of the day, this is a gaming laptop, and so you're going to want it to perform at the highest level possible, especially considering the investment you're making in this device.

Fortunately, the Blade 14 delivers outstanding performance thanks to its Ryzen 9 8945HS processor and RTX 4070 GPU, leveraging both to get the most frames per second of any 14-inch laptop we've tested this year so far.

Despite its size, the laptop's cooling system manages heat relatively well, although it can get quite loud under load. The high-performance components do not throttle significantly, which is impressive given the limited space for air circulation and the fact that the GPU can be pushed to 140W, making this the most powerful RTX 4070 laptop you're going to find right now (something backed up by my testing data).

In the end, you're going to want this laptop to game at its best and possibly transition into a mobile workstation for high-end design work or content creation on a regular basis. It will certainly be able to swing that with ease, especially if you opt for the Mercury colorway, which gives the Blade 14 something of a distinguished look about it that won't be out of place in meetings.

Performance: 5 / 5

Razer Blade 14 (2024): Battery life

Decent enough battery life with light-use
The 140W GPU drains the battery quick
Relatively fast charging

Battery performance is solid, with Razer promising up to 10 hours of power life — under the right settings, of course. However, like most gaming laptops, intense gaming sessions will drain the battery very quickly, though the laptop does supports fast charging that'll get you up to 80% in an hour.

Unfortunately, it does seem to get less battery life than its predecessor, and it's battery performance is the only metric where this average falls below the 14-inch class average in our tests.

That said, the power brick is portable enough, and the Blade 14 itself is more than capable of hopping from power outlet to power outlet if needed thanks to its slender build and lightweight construction.

Finally, this is a gaming laptop, after all, so if you're hoping for all-day battery life, there isn't a gaming laptop out there that will give it to you, so it's hard to knock off too many points here.

Battery Life: 3.5 / 5

Should you buy the Razer Blade 14 (2024)?

Buy the Razer Blade 14 (2024) if...

Don't buy it if...

Also consider

If my Razer Blade 14 (2024) review has you considering other options, here is another laptop to consider:

How I tested the Razer Blade 14 (2024)

I spent the better part of three weeks with the Razer Blade 14 (2024), using it as my everyday laptop for work, content creation, and gaming in the evenings.

In addition to its real world use, I also ran our standard battery of benchmarks on the device, including synthetic, creative, gaming, and battery benchmarks.

I've been reviewing gaming laptops for nearly half a decade, and have a Master's Degree in Computer Science. I am also a lifelong gamer, so I'm better positioned to judge the merits and value of this laptop than many in the industry.

First reviewed April 2024

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super review: second only to the RTX 4090, and finally worth buying

5:00 pm | January 31, 2024

Author: admin | Category: Computers Computing Computing Components Gadgets | Tags: GPU, RTX | Comments: Off

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super: two minute review

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 wasn't my favorite graphics card - by a long shot - when it was released in late 2022, so in a lot of ways the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super that's just gone on sale has a pretty easy bar to clear, and it does so by delivering better performance than its non-Super sibling at a much lower price.

To be clear, you are mostly getting a price cut on the RTX 4080 with this card, with some extra performance akin to some well-tuned overclocking. In a different universe, this card could have been released in 2022 and pretty much buried the rival AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX out the gate, rather than give Team Red a chance to own the sub-$1000 premium tier essentially all on its own.

However, now that the Nvidia RTX 4080 Super is available for a US MSRP of $999.99 (about £800/AU$1,400), the market as it stands has just had a GPU whale-bellyflop its way into it, and there's only so much you can relitigate the past in a review like this.

An Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super on a desk — (Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

On its merits, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super is essentially the best graphics card you can buy right now, other than the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090. It provides a roughly 1.4% performance gain (geometric mean) on the Nvidia RTX 4080 with most of that coming in terms of synthetic benchmarks.

On the other side, it manages to outperform the RX 7900 XTX by about a geometric average of about 7% both in synthetic performance and gaming, across raster and ray-traced workloads, both with graphics upscaling and native resolutions.

It even comes within 18% overall of the RTX 4090, which is a hell of a thing considering it costs about 40% less at MSRP. In short, if you're an enthusiast looking for the best 4K graphics card but you're not a creative professional who needs the kind of power that an RTX 4090 brings to the table, then the RTX 4080 Super is the perfect card for you.

If you're lucky enough to pick up a Founders Edition of the RTX 4080 Super, you'll get the same gorgeous black finish that we saw on the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super, and considering how quickly these cards are probably going to sell out, these might be something of a showpiece for those wanting to flex.

That said, if you're the type of gamer who lives and breathes RGB, then one of Nvidia's AIB partners will likely offer a better card for your build. Expect them to run higher than MSRP, however, which unfortunately negates the key advantage of this card.

There's no doubt that this card is a seriously premium purchase no matter which way you go though, so someone looking for the best cheap graphics card or the best 1440p graphics card to satisfy a midrange price point will still only be window shopping the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super, but at least with the Super, it might not be so out of your reach as it once was.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super: Specs & features

While you are getting more from the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super in terms of specs — including more compute units, faster clock speeds, and faster memory — the TGP of the card is still 320W, so even though you have more of everything, you everything ends up just a bit underpowered as a result, leading to a card that is slightly faster in terms of performance, but not by much.

You would need about 336W to power all of the added hardware in the RTX 4080 Super to the same extent that the base RTX 4080's hardware was, so if you have an overclocking target, you know where you need to be. Thankfully, Nvidia does let you overclock its cards, so you do have some headroom if you want to squeeze the most out of those extra shaders.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super: Price & availability

How much is it? US MSRP listed at $999.99 (about £800, AU$1,400)
When is it out? It was released on January 31, 2024
Where can you get it? You can buy it in the US, UK, and Australia

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super is available in the US, UK, and Australia (among other markets) from January 31, 2024, with a US MSRP of $999.99 (about £800 / AU$1,400).

This puts it directly against the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX in terms of price, and effectively takes the lead as the best value among the top-tier premium cards. It's also about 17% cheaper than the RTX 4080 it effectively replaces.

Considering that the original launch price of the RTX 4080 essentially knocked 1.5 stars off its final score from me, that $200 price difference really is that big a deal at this stage since it puts enough room between it and the $1,600 price point of the RTX 4090 to make the RTX 4080 worth buying.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super: Performance

In terms of performance, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super offers the best bang for your buck of any of the top-tier premium cards, rivaling the performance of even the RTX 4090.

Of course, this was true of the base RTX 4080, but where the RTX 4080 Super really delivers is bringing this level of performance below the $1,000 price point that separates the enthusiast segment from the creative professional class who have company money to throw around.

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Synthetic benchmark results for the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super — (Image credit: Future / InfoGram)

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On synthetic performance, the RTX 4080 Super is second only to the RTX 4090 overall, and where it falters against the RX 7900 XTX is mostly when dealing with 3DMark Fire Strike and Time Spy workloads (both regular as well as Extreme and Ultra versions), but as expected, whenever ray tracing is involved, the RTX 4080 Super shines.

The RTX 4080 Super also outperforms the RX 7900 XTX when it comes to raw compute performance, so machine learning workloads will run much better on the RTX 4080 Super than the RX 7900 XTX.

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Creative benchmark results for the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super — (Image credit: Future / InfoGram)

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In terms of creative performance, the RTX 4080 Super walks away the winner against the RX 7900 XTX, even if you don't factor in the fact that Blender Benchmark 4.0.0 workloads wouldn't even run on the RX 7900 XTX (though the RX 7900 XT was able to run them, just not nearly as well).

The RTX 4090 is still the card you'll want for creative workloads, 100%. But if money is a bit tighter than it used to be now that interest rates are non-zero and money means something again to VCs, the RTX 4080 Super is a good compromise.

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Gaming benchmark results for the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super — (Image credit: Future / InfoGram)

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The gaming performance of the Nvidia RTX 4080 Super is likewise second only to the Nvidia RTX 4090, with strong native 4K ray tracing performance before you even factor in DLSS, which — thanks to Frame Generation and Nvidia Reflex — drives frame rates up even further on games that support it.

While barely a blip higher than the RTX 4080 non-Super in gaming performance (about 0.4% better overall), it is about 7% better than the RX 7900 XTX, which retails for the same price currently.

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Final performance figures for the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super — (Image credit: Future / InfoGram)

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With an average (geomean) frame rate of about 80 fps at 4K compared to the RTX 4090's 87 fps average, the RTX 4080 Super all but eliminates any real need to splurge on the RTX 4090 if you're just looking to game.

The RTX 4090 might be the best graphics card for creatives or machine learning scientists out there, but for gamers, you are much better off with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super, since that extra $600 can buy you a whole lot of other components like the best SSD or best processor for gaming, something even the PC gaming enthusiasts out there can appreciate.

A masculine hand holding the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super — (Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Should you buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super?

Buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super if…

Don’t buy it if…

Also consider

How I tested the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super

I spent about a week and a half with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super all together, with much of that time spent benchmarking the card on our test bench.

I did use the card as my primary workstation GPU for content creation, and in addition to my standard battery of benchmark tests, I also used the card for high-end 4K gaming on titles like Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty.

I've been reviewing computer hardware for years now, and having extensively tested and retested every major graphics card release of the last two generations, with nearly two dozen graphics card reviews completed in the last 18 months, I know how a card like this is supposed to perform given its price and target audience, so I'm well-equipped to give you the buying advice you need to help you make the right decision with your money.

First reviewed in January 2024

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super review: the true RTX 4080, overshadowed by the looming RTX 4080 Super

5:00 pm | January 23, 2024

Author: admin | Category: Computers Computing Computing Components Gadgets | Tags: CPU, GPU, RAM, RTX, RX | Comments: Off

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super: two minute review

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super is a difficult card to rate, despite it being without a doubt one of the best graphics card releases of this generation.

For a US MSRP of $799.99, you're essentially getting a pared-down Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080, including 16GB GDDR6X VRAM, a wider 256-bit memory bus so you can actually play the best PC games at 4K (with tweaks), with noticeably less power draw. On the flipside, you're also getting a card that is only marginally better than the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, despite its seriously upgraded specs.

As far as the design goes, unfortunately, there is no Founders Edition for the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super, so you don't get the sleek-as-hell all-black metallic finish of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super. Instead, you'll have about a half-dozen or so board partners like Asus, MSI, and others making these GPUs. Which card you get will determine a lot from overclock settings to cooling and RGB lighting effects.

The Asus Tuf Gaming model I reviewed is identical to the Asus Tuf Gaming RTX 4070 Ti I reviewed, and it's a massive chonky card for what it's worth. Given the power requirements and the need to dissipate a lot of heat, you can fully expect that whatever RTX 4070 Ti Super card you pick up, it's going to be a triple-slot monster.

An Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super sitting on a desk — (Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

In terms of performance, there's no getting around the fact that this is essentially the Nvidia RTX 4080 we should have gotten a year ago (it's built off the RTX 4080's AD103 GPU, rather than the RTX 4070 Ti's AD104), and for that, it is one of the best 4K graphics card models to hit the market this year. It's gaming performance is superb pretty much across the board, with the only area it struggles to be playable is where every other graphics card struggles other than the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090, and that's native ray tracing at 4K.

Even there, however, this card manages to average about 32fps (though its average minimum/1% fps dips below the 24fps that registers as fluid motion, so yeah, it can sometimes be a bit of a slideshow).

Unfortunately, the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is also right there further complicating the picture for this card. Outside of creative workloads that rely on CUDA (like Blender or V-Ray), the RX 7900 XT goes toe-to-toe with the RTX 4070 Ti Super in terms of gaming performance, though the RTX 4070 Ti Super will generally handle ray tracing better.

Surprisingly though, AMD's FSR seems to be at the point where it is battling Nvidia DLSS to a draw by and large, with the only real difference being whether you have ray tracing turned up to its highest setting or not. Given the recent price cut for the RX 7900 XT down to $749.99 in the US, anyone looking at the RTX 4070 Ti Super will have to ask themselves some hard questions.

This is especially true given the big looming release set to drop at the end of January, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super. Though 25% more expensive at MSRP than the RTX 4070 Ti Super, given the high cost of entry for this card, it suffers from a similar problem as the original RTX 4080 had; it's too close in price to a clearly better card, and so ultimately, you'll almost certainly be better off buying the RTX 4080 Super in a week's time. Which is a shame, because the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super is a fantastic card that really should have hit the scene a whole lot sooner than it is.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super: Price & availability

How much is it? MSRP listed at $799.99 (about £640, AU$1,120)
When is it out? It was released on January 24, 2024
Where can you get it? You can buy it in the US, UK, and Australia

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super goes on sale January 24, 2024 for a listed MSRP of $799.99 in the US, which is about £640 in the UK and AU$1,120 in Australia.

This is the same MSRP as the Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti is replaces, which is definitely a positive given the generally terrible pricing of Nvidia best graphics cards this generation.

As stated above though, AMD isn't sitting on its laurels, and it's dropped the price of its competing RX 7900 XT graphics card to counter this release. And, given, their relative levels of performance, it's a smart move as it makes the RX 7900 XT a better value as a result, at least enough to be competitive in the absence of any RX 7050 XT-series releases thus far.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super: Specs & features

16GB VRAM
Wider memory bus
Slightly faster clock speed

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super: Performance

Marginally better than RTX 4070 Ti
Loses to RX 7900 XT in gaming performance
Extra VRAM makes 4K gaming much smoother

Where it counts, the RTX 4070 Ti Super is a fantastic graphics card for work and play, though it's definitely more of a refresh of the RTX 4070 Ti, which is unfortunate since it really should have shown better performance given its specs.

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Benchmark results for the Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti Super — (Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

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In terms of synthetic performance, the RTX 4070 Ti Super averages about 4.5% better performance than the RTX 4070 Ti, and about 13% slower performance than the RTX 4080, which more or less matching the RX 7900 XT. On this latter point, much like other AMD vs Nvidia comparisons, in pure rasterization, AMD comes out on top with Nvidia winning out in ray tracing workloads.

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Creative benchmark results for the RTX 4070 Ti Super — (Image credit: Future / Infogram)

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For creative performance, the RTX 4070 Ti Super greatly outperforms the RX 7900 XT, but falls well short of where the RTX 4080 lands. If you're looking for the best creative graphics card, then, the RTX 4080 Super is definitely going to be one to look out for considering it's only going to retail for $200 more and should be much more powerful.

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1080p gaming benchmarks for the RTX 4070 Ti Super — (Image credit: Future / Infogram)

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In gaming performance, no card really comes close to the RTX 4080, but the RTX 4070 Ti Super more or less ties the RTX 4070 Ti and the RX 7900 XT.

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1440p gaming benchmarks for the RTX 4070 Ti Super — (Image credit: Future / Infogram)

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In 1440p gaming performance, the additional 4GB VRAM in the RX 7900 XT starts to become a factor to the RTX 4070 Ti's detriment, but overall, the RTX 4070 Ti Super comes up about 3.5% behind the RX 7900 XT, and roughly tied with the RTX 4070 Ti.

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4K gaming benchmarks for the RTX 4070 Ti Super — (Image credit: Future / Infogram)

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At 4K, the additional 4GB VRAM in the RTX 4070 Ti Super vs the RTX 4070 Ti starts to really have an impact, giving the RTX 4070 Ti Super about 6.5% better performance on average but a nealy 10% higher fps floor at 4K than the RTX 4070 Ti.

The RTX 4070 Ti Super also runs about even with the RX 7900 XT as well.

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Final benchmark results for the RTX 4070 Ti Super — (Image credit: Future / Infogram)

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Wrapping things up, a couple of other points I definitely want to hit on, namely that the biggest thing holding this card back in a lot of ways is its TGP. With the same TGP as the RTX 4070 Ti, you get the sense that this card leaves something on the table in terms of performance given its specs. On the plus side though, it does manage to squeeze some extra performance from the same amount of power, which is a good thing. If you want to try and overclock this card to tap into its full potential, have at it.

It's not going to run particularly hot (unless you overclock the hell out of it) and it's gaming performance is exceptional, even into 4K, where you can expect to average about 70 fps at 4K when not using ray tracing, or you can turn ray tracing on and flip DLSS to balanced or performance for the same amount of frames or better.

It's ultimate value proposition isn't as good as the RX 7900 XT's, but it's better than the RTX 4070 Ti's, and since AIBs are likely to be switching themselves over to the Super rather than keep putting out non-Super RTX 4070 Ti's, this card is effectively giving you something extra for no additional cost.

The ultimate value tell though will be how the Nvidia RTX 4080 Super performs, and it's unfortunately the case that the success of this card depends very much on how well Nvidia's last major graphics card of this generation is received.

Should you buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super

Buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super if…

Don’t buy it if…

Also consider

How I tested the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super

Test system specs

This is the system we used to test the Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti Super:

CPU: Intel Core i9-14900K
CPU Cooler: MSI MAG Coreliquid E360 AIO Cooler
RAM: 32GB Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5-6000
Motherboard: MSI MPG Z790 Tomahawk WiFi
SSD: Samsung 990 Pro 4TB NVMe M.2 SSD
Power Supply: Thermaltake PF3 1050W ATX 3.0
Case: Praxis Wetbench

I spent about a week working with the Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti Super, running our standard battery of tests on it and similar cards in its price category.

I ran it through a number of real world use cases where it will be used, primarily gaming and content creation.

I've been reviewing computer hardware, including graphics cards, for years now, and I am intimately familiar with the kind of performance you should expect from a graphics card at this price point. I bring that knowledge to bear on my graphics card reviews and make sure that every graphics card I compare to the card under review is retested using the most up-to-date drivers to get the best relevant data for comparison, even (as in this case) it means I only test the most relevant competing cards to provide the reader with the most important comparative data when they are considering making their next graphics card purchase.

First reviewed in January 2024

I spent about a week working with the Nvidia RTX 4070 Super, including using it as my main work PC graphics card for content creation work. I ran our standard battery of tests on it and its two main competitor cards due to time constraints (you can see my RTX 4070 review for its relative performance versus many more cards, and than consider a roughly 12%-15% better performance over that for the RTX 4070 Super).

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super review: the best midrange graphics card on the market, with some caveats

5:00 pm | January 16, 2024

Author: admin | Category: Computers Computing Computing Components Gadgets | Tags: CPU, GPU, RAM, RTX, RX | Comments: Off

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super: Two minute review

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super is a graphics card with a lot of expectations built up around it after it's announcement at CES 2024, and if you've yet to upgrade your graphics card in a minute and you've been waiting for a sign, this release is what you've been waiting for, whether you end up buying it or going with a competing card from AMD or Intel.

Looking across the lineup of Nvidia graphics cards in 2023, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 definitely reviewed as one of Team Green's best thanks to fantastic performance and a more accessible price compared to the rest of the GPU market at the time. At $599.99 in the US (about £480/AU$840), the RTX 4070 Super is going to retail (at MSRP) for the same launch price as the card it refreshes, while the RTX 4070 will see a healthy price cut when the RTX 4070 Super goes on sale on January 17, 2024.

In terms of what you're getting for that same amount of money, you're going to get substantially more SMs for more processing power as well as a slightly faster base clock speed. But, sadly, we're still stuck with just 12GB GDDR6X VRAM which does hamper this card's 4K potential. If you're looking for the best 4K graphics card, you may have to wait to see what the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super or Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super have to offer later in January.

If what you're looking for is the best 1440p graphics card on the market, well, in terms of sheer performance, look no further. Between upgraded specs and DLSS 3 with Frame Generation, Nvidia Reflex, and a host of other tech packed into this card, you'll be playing the best PC games at high settings with the best 1440p monitors for many years to come.

Still, it's not an unqualified win for Nvidia here. For one, the price of the Nvidia RTX 4070 Super is still $100 (about £80/AU$140) more than the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT that it's directly competing with. And while the RTX 4070 Super does outperform the best AMD graphics card for the midrange on a number of levels, gaming sadly isn't one of them, unless you lean heavily on ray tracing.

Even in places where you factor in DLSS, without frame generation, Nvidia lags behind the RX 7800 XT overall when it comes to gaming. And once AMD releases its own frame generation tech for FSR in the coming weeks, the advantage Nvidia gets from DLSS 3 with Frame Generation will likewise tighten up. On this point, gamers are going to have some harder questions to ask themselves than anyone else, and the price of the RX 7800 XT alone might be more than enough to tip the scales for them.

Still, it's hard to argue that Nvidia hasn't delivered an absolutely phenomenal card with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super, and for midrange users out there who want fantastic gaming as well as content creation features and raw performance, this is almost certainly going to be at the top of the list when making your choice about a new upgrade.

An Nvidia RTX 4070 Super on a purple deskmat on a desk — (Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super: Price & availability

How much is it? US MSRP $599.99 (about £480, AU$840)
When is it out? January 17, 2024
Where can you get it? You can buy it in the US, UK, and Australia

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super goes on sale on January 17, 2024, for $599.99 in the US (about £480/AU$840), which is the same price as the launch MSRP of the RTX 4070 when it launched in April of 2023.

And while we love to see prices stay more accessible for gamers and creators, Nvidia is still charging a premium for its card vis-à-vis AMD's competing RX 7800 XT, which has competitive performance for about $100 less.

Still, despite not being the best cheap graphics card on the market, for what you're getting, the price on the RTX 4070 Super is a very good value overall. While not quite AMD levels of performance for price, this is about as good a value as you're going to get from an Nvidia GPU on the market today (at least until we see what the RTX 4070 Ti Super and RTX 4080 Super are working with later this month).

Value score: 4/5

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super: Design

Gorgeous all-black finish
Same size as base RTX 4070
Still requires 16-pin power

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super Founders Edition is easily one of the sexiest graphics cards I've laid hands on in a long while. The all-black shroud, fans, and trim give it a very sleek look that might not have any of the flash of RGB bedazzled third-party cards, but as far as Nvidia's lineup goes, this is easily the most attractive.

In every other way, barring the Super branding, this card is identical to the original RTX 4070, so it comes with all its positives and negatives as well. Its smaller than its larger siblings, so its much more manageable in a wider variety of cases, but it is still heavy enough that some kind of GPU support is going to be needed if you don't have a vertical card adapter for your case.

The cooling solution is also fairly good and has plenty of power for cooling. Its 16-pin connector means that if you don't have an ATX 3.0 power supply, you'll need to use a two-8-pin-to-one-16-pin adapter, which might make cable management a bit of a hassle.

Design score: 4.5/5

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super: Features & specs

21% higher SM count
Slightly faster base clock
STILL just 12GB VRAM

When it comes to the RTX 4070 Super, there is a lot to appreciate here. For the same price as the RTX 4070, you're getting a far more SMs (56 to the RTX 4070's 46, a 21% increase), so that also means that you're getting a hefty upgrade in terms of CUDA cores (7,168 to 5,888), ray tracing cores (56 to 46), and tensor cores (224 to 184) over the original RTX 4070.

You're also getting a slightly higher base clock rate of 1,980MHz , which is about 3% faster than the base RTX 4070. For that, the RTX 4070 Super also has a 220W TGP, which unfortunately means that you're not going to get any RTX 4070 Super cards with an 8-pin connector like you can with the RTX 4070.

Beyond that, there isn't too much different spec-wise with the RTX 4070 Super than you have with the RTX 4070, and this unfortunately includes the 12GB GDDR6X VRAM configuration. Mind you, this is plenty for 1440p gaming, but if you've got one of the best 4K monitors, you'll have to accept some settings compromises if you want to game seriously at 4K.

This is a dual-slot card that is identical in size to the RTX 4070 Founders Edition, as well as utilizing the same cooling solution, so it will run a slight bit hotter thanks to the increased power flowing into the card, but it's not a whole lot so that it'd be noticeable.

An Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super slotted into a test bench — (Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super: Performance

Outstanding overall performance
12GB VRAM hampers 4K potential
Falls behind RX 7800 XT somewhat in gaming performance

In terms of performance, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super is about as solid a graphics card as you'll find in the midrange, offering fantastic gaming performance, while outshining the competition in non-gaming tasks like content creation and compute-heavy workloads.

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Benchmark results for the Nvidia RTX 4070 Super — (Image credit: Future / Infogram)

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During synthetic workload tests, the RTX 4070 Super loses out somewhat to the RX 7800 XT on some tests while winning out on others, so when you don't factor in ray tracing, it's a bit of a wash. Once ray tracing is included, however, you so end up with about 23% stronger ray tracing performance for the RTX 4070 Super, which is expected given the maturity of Nvidia's tech versus AMD's.

It's also worth noting that the Nvidia RTX 4070 Super's compute performance is about 18% better than the RX 7800 XT, and overall, the RTX 4070 Super outperforms the RTX 4070 by about 17%, on average.

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Moving on to creative benchmarks, as expected, the Nvidia RTX 4070 Super outperforms the AMD RX 7800 XT when it comes to 3D rendering tasks thanks to the strength of Nvidia's CUDA processing, which most renderers use.

In terms of rasterization performance, the two cards are about even, while the RTX 4070 Super pulls slightly ahead of the RX 7800 XT in terms of video encoding, but only by about 1%. Over its predecessor, the RTX 4070 Super renders 3D scenes and rasterizes noticeably faster, but it's pretty much even on the video encoding side.

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When it comes to gaming performance, however, the RX 7800 XT pulls ahead of the RTX 4070 Super in a big way, especially at lower resolutions.

In 1080p gaming, the RTX 4070 Super consistently lags behind the RX 7800 XT when ray tracing isn't factored in, and when it is, this advantage is generally diminished (on average) when bringing balanced upscaling to bear, though the RTX 4070 Super and the RTX 4070 tend to do much better than the RX 7800 XT when pure ray tracing is involved.

Against its predecessor, the RTX 4070 Super offers about a 14% average FPS increase over the RTX 4070 at 1080p, an advantage that I expect will grow wider once better drivers are released to support the RTX 4070 Super post-release.

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The story is similar with 1440p gaming where the RX 7800 XT does generally outperform the RTX 4070 Super when ray tracing isn't involved, and lags behind when it is.

Upscaling helps here as well, but broadly speaking, the RTX 4070 Super is going to outperform the RX 7800 XT when ray tracing, and overall provides about a 9% better fps than the RTX 4070, on average. I suspect this latter figure will be higher once post-release drivers are installed, since the RTX 4070 outperforms the RTX 4070 Super in Metro: Exodus when it shouldn't, and so i believe this game is a bit of a driver outlier.

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At 4K, the RX 7800 XT manages to hold up better in absolute terms thans to its larger 16GB frame buffer vs the RTX 4070 Super's 12GB, but the GDDR6X memory and more mature ray tracing cores make ray tracing at 4K a better overall experience with the RTX 4070 Super than with either of the two other cards tested against here.

Ultimately, then, it comes down to whether you're really all that enthusiastic about ray tracing performance. If so, the RTX 4070 Super is the card you're going to want, but at $100 cheaper, the RX 7800 XT offers a much more compelling option for pure rasterized graphics than the RTX 4070 Super. This, ultimately, keeps the RTX 4070 Super from running away with the title of best midrange graphics card, but it's a much tougher fight for the RX 7800 XT than it was when it first launched against the RTX 4070.

Performance score: 4.5/5

Should you buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super?

Buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super if…

Don’t buy it if…

Also consider

How I tested the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super

Test system specs

This is the system we used to test the Nvidia RTX 4070 Super:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
CPU Cooler: MSI MAG Coreliquid E360 AIO Cooler
RAM: 64GB Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5-6000
Motherboard: Gigabyte X670E AORUS Extreme
SSD: Samsung 990 Pro 4TB NVMe M.2 SSD
Power Supply: Thermaltake PF3 1050W ATX 3.0
Case: Praxis Wetbench

First reviewed in January 2024

We pride ourselves on our independence and our rigorous review-testing process, offering up long-term attention to the products we review and making sure our reviews are updated and maintained - regardless of when a device was released, if you can still buy it, it's on our radar.

Read more about how we test

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060: the best midrange graphics card for the masses

4:00 pm | June 28, 2023

Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: CPU, DLSS, RAM, RTX | Comments: Off

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060: Two-minute review

Nvidia really wants you to know that the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 is a card for those who are still running a GTX 1060 or RTX 2060, and it's really Team Green's best marketing strategy for this card.

To be clear, the Nvidia RTX 4060 is respectably better than the Nvidia RTX 3060 it replaces, and comes in at a lower launch MSRP of $299 (about £240/AU$450) than its predecessor. Its 1080p gaming performance is the best you're going to find under $300, and its 1440p performance is pretty solid, especially when you turn on DLSS. If you're playing a game with DLSS 3 and frame generation, even better.

Unfortunately, the card's 4K performance suffers due to the limited video memory it's working with, which is a 50% decrease from the initial RTX 3060 run's 12GB VRAM pool (though at least it doesn't go below the 8GB of the later RTX 3060s).

You also get more sophisticated ray tracing and tensor cores than those found in the Ampere generation, and this maturity shows up in the card's much-improved ray tracing and DLSS performance.

There are also some added bonuses for streamers as well like AV1 support, but this is going to be a lower-midrange gamer's card, not a streamer's, and for what you're getting for the price, it's a great card.

The real problem for this card though is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. For more than a year after the RTX 3060 Ti hit the scene, it topped our best graphics card list for its spectacular balance of price and performance, punching well above its weight and even outshining the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070.

Ever since the crypto bubble popped and Nvidia Lovelace cards started hitting the shelves, the last-gen Nvidia Ampere cards have absolutely plummeted in price, including the RTX 3060 Ti. You can now get the RTX 3060 Ti for well below MSRP, and even though the RTX 4060 outperforms the RTX 3060 by roughly 20%, it still falls short of the RTX 3060 Ti, so if you are able to get an RTX 3060 Ti for near or at the same price as the RTX 4060, it might be a better bet. I haven't seen the RTX 3060 Ti drop that low yet, but it's definitely possible.

The reason why the RTX 3060 Ti is competitive here is especially because many of the best features of the RTX 4060 depend on other people implementing Nvidia's DLSS 3 technology in their products. DLSS 3 with Frame Generation is incredible for most games (though there are some latency issues to work out), but the number of games that implement it is rather small at the moment.

Many newer games will have it, but as we've seen with the recent controversy over Starfield partnering with AMD, one of the biggest PC games of the year might not have DLSS implemented at all at launch. It's a hard thing to hold against the RTX 4060 as a solid negative, since when the technology is implemented, it works incredibly well. But it's also unavoidable that Nvidia's biggest selling point of this generation of graphics cards is explicitly tied to the cooperation of third-party game developers.

With something like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070, DLSS 3 is a nice feature to have, but it doesn't make or break the card. With the RTX 4060, its appeal is deeply tied to whether or not you have this tech available in your games, and it seriously undercuts the card when it isn't. Its non-DLSS performance is only better than the RTX 3060 by a standard gen-on-gen uplift at 1080p, and without DLSS, 1440p gaming is possible, but will be severely hampered by the limited VRAM. 4K gaming, meanwhile, would be out of the question entirely.

All that said, the Nvidia RTX 4060 is still going to be one hell of an upgrade for anyone coming from a GTX 1060 or RTX 2060, which is really where this card is trying to find its market. RTX 3060 gamers will honestly be better off just saving up some more money for the RTX 4070 than worrying about the RTX 4060 (and you can probably skip the Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti, honestly).

If you're looking for the best cheap graphics card from Nvidia, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 is probably as good as it's going to get for a while, since there have been few - if any - rumblings about an Nvidia RTX 4050 or Nvidia RTX 4050 Ti coming to the budget segment any time soon. Whether it's worth upgrading from an RTX 3060 is debatable, but if money is tight and looking for an upgrade from the Pascal- or Turing-era 60-series cards, you'll absolutely love this card.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060: Price & availability

An Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 on a table with its retail packaging — (Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

How much is it? US MSRP $299 (about £240/AU$450)
When is it out? June 29, 2023
Where can you get it? Available globally

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 is available on June 29, 2023, for an MSRP of $299 (about £240/AU$450), which is about 10% less than the RTX 3060 was when it launched in 2021.

There is a caveat to this pricing in that there is no Nvidia Founders Edition of the RTX 4060, so it is only available from third-party partners like Asus, PNY, and others. These manufacturers can charge whatever they want for the card, so you can expect to see many of the cards priced higher than Nvidia's MSRP, but there will be those like the Asus RTX 4060 Dual that I tested for this review that will sell at MSRP.

While this card is cheaper than most, it's not the cheapest of the current generation. That would be the AMD Radeon RX 7600, which has an MSRP of $269.99 (about £215/AU$405), which still offers the best performance-to-price value of any of the current-gen cards. Still, given the actual level of performance you get from the RTX 4060, it definitely offers a compelling value over its rival cards, even if they are cheaper in the end.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060: Features and chipset

3rd-gen ray tracing and 4th-gen tensor cores
Only 8GB VRAM
DLSS 3 with Frame Generation under $300

In terms of specs, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 is a marked improvement over the Nvidia RTX 3060 thanks to a smaller TSMC 5nm process node compared to the RTX 3060's 8nm Samsung node. It also features much faster clock speeds, with a roughly 39% faster base and boost clock speed.

You also have a faster memory speed, but a smaller VRAM pool and smaller memory bus, so you end up with a roughly 25% smaller memory bandwidth, which really puts a ceiling on higher resolution performance.

Still, with faster clock speeds, more mature ray tracing and tensor cores, and a lower TGP than its predecessor, this is one of the most powerful and energy-efficient graphics cards in its class.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060: design

There is no reference design for the Nvidia RTX 4060, since there is no Founders Edition, so the design of the card is going to depend entirely on which version you get from which manufacturer.

In my case, I received the Asus GeForce RTX 4060 Dual OC edition, which features a dual fan design and a much smaller footprint befitting a midrange card. Thankfully, the card uses an 8-pin power connector, so there's no need to fuss with any 12VHPWR adapter cables.

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It comes with the now-standard three DisplayPort 1.4 and one HDMI 2.1 video outputs on this generation of Nvidia cards, so those with one of the best USB-C monitors will once again be out of luck here.

The card is a dual-slot width, so you shouldn't have any issues getting it into a case, and it's light enough that you really should be able to get away without having to use a support bracket.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060: Performance

An Nvidia RTX 4060 slotted into a test bench — (Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Best-in-class 1080p gaming performance
Huge improvement if coming from RTX 2060 or older

Test system specs

This is the system we used to test the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060:

CPU: Intel Core i9-13900K
CPU Cooler: Cougar Poseidon GT 360 AIO
RAM: 64GB Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5-6600MHz
Motherboard: MSI MAG Z790 Tomahawk Wifi
SSD: Samsung 990 Pro 2TB NVMe M.2 SSD
Power Supply: Corsair AX1000
Case: Praxis Wetbench

When it comes to 1080p, the Nvidia RTX 4060 offers the best gaming performance under $300.

The AMD RX 7600 gives it a run for its money in pure rasterization performance, and even manages to beat out the RTX 4060 on occasion, but once you start cranking up ray tracing the RTX 4060 absolutely pulls away from its rivals.

This is especially true when you flip the switch on DLSS, which makes 1440p gaming a very feasible option with this card. While this definitely isn't going to be one of the best 1440p graphics cards, on certain titles with certain settings, you'll be surprised what you can get away with.

Synthetic Benchmarks

When it comes to synthetic benchmarks, you get the typical blow-for-blow between Nvidia and AMD cards that we've seen in the past, with AMD outperforming on pure rasterization tests like 3DMark Time Spy and Firestrike, while Nvidia pulls ahead on ray tracing workloads like Port Royal and Speedway.

The RTX 4060 and RX 7600 are close enough in terms of raw performance that it might as well be a wash on average, but it's worth noting that the RTX 4060 is about 20% better on average than the RTX 3060. I point that out mostly to contrast it with the RTX 4060 Ti, which was only about 10-12% better than the RTX 3060 Ti on average.

A 20% improvement gen-on-gen, on the other hand, is much more respectable and justifies considering the RTX 4060 as an upgrade even with an RTX 3060 in your rig. You might not actually make that jump for an extra 20% performance with this class of GPU, but it's at least worth considering, unlike with the RTX 4060 Ti.

Gaming Benchmarks

Where the RTX 4060 really takes off though is in gaming performance. Compared to the RX 7600, it's more or less even when just playing at 1080p with max settings without ray tracing or upscaling. Notably, the RTX 4060 actually underperforms the RX 7600 by about 9% in Cyberpunk 2077 when you're not using ray tracing or upscaling.

Crank ray tracing up to Psycho in Cyberpunk 2077 though, and the value of the RTX 4060 really starts to show through. The RX 7600 absolutely tanks when RT is maxed, but that's not universal across the board. In other games, the RX 7600 is competitive, but Cyberpunk 2077 really is AMD's Achilles' Heel. Meanwhile, the RTX 3060 holds up fairly well on some titles, while the RTX 4060 pulls ahead by a substantial amount on others.

With upscaling turned on, the RTX 4060 manages to substantially outperform both the RTX 3060 and the RX 7600. If you leave the base DLSS settings and don't mess with frame generation, the RTX 4060 pulls off a clean win on Cyberpunk 2077, while it has a slightly lower average framerate than the RTX 3060, but a higher minimum framerate, it's a much more stable experience across the board.

Once you turn on frame generation though, things swing dramatically in the RTX 4060's favor. You can even increase the resolution in Cyberpunk 2077 to 1440p with Frame Generation on and you'll get more fps on average and at a minimum than you would with the RTX 3060 at 1080p, while the RX 7600 simply can't keep up at this level.

Unfortunately, a lot of this is dependent on developers implementing Nvidia's new technology. Without DLSS 3 with Frame Generation, you still get respectably better performance than the RTX 3060, but nothing that absolutely blows you away.

Meanwhile, the RX 7600 offers a compelling alternative if you're looking to save some money and don't care about 1440p or ray tracing.

Still, if you can toggle a setting and give yourself an extra 50 fps on a demanding game, there really is no comparison, and on this alone, the RTX 4060 wins out by default.

Should you buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060?

A man's hand holding up the Nvidia RTX 4060 — (Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Buy it if...

You want the best 1080p gaming under $300
This card is a 1080p champ in its weight class, even if it walks right up to the line of the middle midrange.

You want fantastic ray tracing support
Nvidia pioneered real-time ray tracing in games, and it really shows here.

Don't buy it if...

You want the best value
While the RTX 4060 is very well-priced, the AMD RX 7600 offers a much better price-to-performance ratio.

You don't care about ray tracing or upscaling
Ray tracing is honestly overrated and a lot of games don't offer or even need upscaling, so if you don't care about these features, Nvidia's RTX 4060 might not offer enough for you to spend the extra money.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060: Also consider

How I tested the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060

I spent about a week testing the card
I looked at the cards gaming performance and raw synthetic performance
I used our standard battery of graphics card tests and several current PC games to push the GPU to its limits.

I spent extensive time testing the RTX 4060 over a number of days, using synthetic tests like 3DMark and Passmark, while also running several games on the card at different settings and resolutions.

I also tested its closest rival card as well as the card it is replacing in Nvidia's product stack and compared the performance scores across the cards to assess the card's overall performance.

I did this using the latest Nvidia and AMD drivers on a test bench using all of the same hardware for each card tested so that I could isolate the graphics card's contribution to the overall performance I found in-game or in synthetic benchmarks.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed June 2023

PNY GeForce RTX 4070 XLR8 OC: better than the real thing

11:28 pm | May 23, 2023

Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: RGB, RTX | Comments: Off

PNY GeForce RTX 4070 XLR8: Two-minute review

The PNY GeForce RTX 4070 XLR8 OC is a fantastic improvement on an already fantastic product, I just wish it was a little cheaper.

Starting at $679 (about £560 / AU$1,020), the RTX 4070 XLR8 OC is a third-party version of our current top pick for best graphics card of 2023, so it's not surprising that the RTX 4070 XLR8 brings fantastic 1440p gaming performance to the table. It does manage to do so with a lot more flair than the Founders Edition card from Nvidia, however, and this is coming from someone who is generally anti-RGB.

Where the PNY card succeeds in its design is that, while bold, it's fairly subdued but allows for just enough customization to let you blend this card in fairly cleanly into just about any build.

A PNY GeForce RTX 4070 XLR8 OC graphics card on a purple desk mat — (Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Assuming the card fits. Lightweight though it is at just 1.87 lbs (about 0.84kg), it is a good bit longer than the RTX 4070 Founders Edition, 305.1mm to the Founders Edition's 242mm. So if you've got a tight case, make sure you have the clearance for this one before you try to cram it into place.

As a dual-slot card, it's going to take up some room, but it feels like it takes up less space than the RTX 4070 Founders Edition despite being a couple of millimeters thicker. A huge part of that is the decision by PNY to go with the 8-pin power connector rather than Nvidia's 12VHPWR cable, the latter of which requires an cumbersome adapter if you don't have an ATX 3.0 power supply with the new power cable leads.

I really can't emphasize how much easier working with a single 8-pin cable is versus having to try and finagle two 8-pin cables into an adapter cable and then into a graphics card.

While not the absolute worst — which would be the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 and it's 4-to-1 8-pin adapter cable — even two 8-pins plugged into an adapter can wreak havoc on your cable management, especially if you've got a fairly tight fit in your PC case. The 8-pin power connector alone makes this card worth buying over the Founders Edition card.

Yes, I would pay an $80 premium just to not have to use a 12VPWR cable.

Fortunately, you do get some additional features to make the RTX 4070 XLR8 even more appealing than just it's power input. Though the card comes with the same base and boost clocks as the Founders Edition (unlike the PNY GeForce RTX 4080 XLR8 OC, which shipped with higher boost clock speeds), the PNY RTX 4070 XLR8 OC starts at stock speeds but PNY's VelocityX software allows you to overclock the card to a degree.

Just be sure that the card you're buying is the overclockable model, as the non-OC and OC cards look identical other than their price, and price can be a moving target sometimes.

You also get a triple-fan cooling solution for the RTX 4070 XLR8 OC, which is 50% more fans than the Founders Edition, though I didn't notice too much of a difference in terms of temperature. But it's there, with the PNY RTX 4070 XLR8 staying about 4-5°C cooler under load, but with the RTX 4070's max temperature only hitting about 68°C, neither card was ever really at risk for throttling.

In terms of performance, at its stock clock speeds, the PNY GeForce RTX 4070 XLR8 OC has its performance land within 1% to 2% on either side of the Founders Edition's performance, which is what I expected. If you want to do a deeper dive into this card's performance, definitely check out my Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 review for all my relevant testing data.

A PNY GeForce RTX 4070 XLR8 running on a test bench in an office — (Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Overclocking the card gets you somewhat better performance, but given that it's strictly an 8-pin card (which means you can only really push 200W safely), I wouldn't push the overclocking too hard for too long unless you want to burn your card out much faster.

All told, the premium price is a tougher pill to swallow than it should be, but given that one of the RTX 4070's better selling points was its price, it's hard to not wrinkle your nose a bit.

Still, if the RTX 4070 is what you're after and you want some extra bells, whistles, and a touch of RGB, you can't go wrong with the PNY GeForce RTX 4070 XLR8 OC.

PNY GeForce RTX 4070 XLR8: Price & availability

How much does it cost? $679 (about £560 / AU$1,020)
When is it available? Available now
Where can you get it? Available in the US, UK, and Australia

The PNY GeForce RTX 4070 XLR8 OC is available now in the US, UK, and Australia with an MSRP of $679 (about £560 / AU$1,020). This price puts it a good bit higher than the RTX 4070 Founders Edition, but it's not entirely out of step with third-party graphics card pricing.

And while the price isn't great, this is more on Nvidia's head than PNY's since Nvidia is the one who significantly raised the price on the RTX 4070 over the RTX 3070. At the moment, AMD hasn't released the RX 7700 XT or RX 7800, which would be the natural competitors for this card, so it's uncertain how this card will stack up against AMD's lower-premium class of GPUs until those are released in the next few months, presumeably.

PNY GeForce RTX 4070 XLR8: Specs

Should you buy the PNY GeForce RTX 4070 XLR8?

Buy it if...

You want the RTX 4070 with some extras
The performance of the RTX 4070 XLR8 OC is on par or slightly better than the reference card.

You want to have customizeable RGB
The Nvidia RTX 4070 Founders Edition is pretty staid in terms of appearance, so the XLR8 version definitely lets you liven things up a bit.

Don't buy it if...

You want a cheap graphics card
The RTX 4070 might be one of the best graphics cards on the market, but it definitely isn't one of the best cheap graphics cards.

You have a very tight case
The PNY RTX 4070 XLR8 OC is a pretty long graphics card, so make sure you have clearance for it.

PNY GeForce RTX 4070 XLR8 OC: Also consider

How I tested the PNY GeForce RTX 4070 XLR8 OC

I spend about three weeks with the PNY GeForce RTX 4070 XLR8 OC
I used it to play games, produce and edit creative content, and more
I used our standard battery of benchamarking tools to test it

I used the PNY GeForce RTX 4070 XLR8 OC as the graphics card in my main PC at home for about three weeks.

During that time, I played PC games like Cyberpunk 2077, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and more. I also used Adobe Creative Suite extensively to edit photos and video.

I also ran my standard battery of benchmark tests to assess how much the PNY GeForce RTX 4070 XLR8 OC deviated from the baseline RTX 4070, if at all.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed May 2023

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti: A DLSS and ray tracing upgrade, but not much else

4:00 pm |

Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: CPU, DLSS, RAM, RTX | Comments: Off

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti: two minute review

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti is without a doubt one of the most anticipated graphics card launches of this generation, and now that it's here, it should be an easy win for Nvidia over archrival AMD. I wish that were the case.

That's not to say that the RTX 4060 Ti doesn't hold up well against AMD's midrange offerings at the moment, it absolutely does, and there's no question that the features this card brings to the table are impressive, especially DLSS 3, which is the first time a properly midrange GPU (under $500/£500/AU$750) is seeing this feature.

It goes without saying that Nvidia is leaning into DLSS 3 as its biggest selling point, and as I'll get into later, it definitely delivers significantly better performance than the RTX 4060 Ti should be capable of given its various specs — even factoring in the expanded cache which widens up the memory bandwidth of the card despite still having just 8GB GDDR6 VRAM to work with.

The decision to go with 8GB VRAM for this card — a 16GB VRAM variant is going to be released in July 2023 for an MSRP of $499 (about £400/AU$750) — is probably the only thing that kept the price on this card under $400. With an MSRP of $399 (about £320/AU$600), the Nvidia Founders Edition RTX 4060 Ti 8GB is the same price as the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti it is replacing, and generally, it offers a pretty good value for that money, with some caveats.

In terms of native, non-DLSS performance, there isn't a whole lot of improvement over the previous generation, which is definitely going to disappoint some, if not many. Given the kinds of performance advances we've seen with higher-end cards, we were hoping to see that extend down into the heart of the midrange, but it seems those benefits generally stop at the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070.

Instead, you have a card that relies very heavily on DLSS for carry its performance over the line, and where it works, it is generally phenomenal, offering a real, playable 1440p gaming experience, and even brushing up against some decent 4K performance with the right settings.

This is something AMD has really struggled to match with its FSR, and so Nvidia really has a chance to score a major blow against AMD, but as we'll see, the best AMD graphics card in the last generation's midrange, the AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT, actually outperforms the RTX 4060 Ti in non-ray tracing workloads, including gaming, so this does not bode well for Nvidia once AMD releases its current-gen midrange cards.

This is somewhat exacerbated by the fact that the RTX 4060 Ti's ability to use its new features is fairly limited, and while features like DLSS 3 with Frame Generation are available on the best PC games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Returnal, as of the launch of the RTX 4060 Ti, there are only 50-ish games that support DLSS 3.

This list will surely grow over time, but you certainly won't get this kind of support on games that may be just recent enough to push the RTX 4060 Ti in terms of its performance, while being just old enough that you'll never see a DLSS 3 patch for it.

I can say that if you're coming from an RTX 2060 Super or older, then this card is absolutely going to blow your mind. It's effectively the RTX 3060 Ti's NG+, so if you missed what I consider to be the best graphics card of the last generation, you'll get all that and more with the RTX 4060 Ti. If you're coming from an Nvidia Ampere card though — especially from greater than the RTX 3060 Ti — chances are you are going to find this is really a downgrade with some neat features to soften the blow.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti: Price & availability

An Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti — (Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

How much is it? MSRP listed at $399 (about £240, AU$600)
When is it out? It is available starting May 24, 2023
Where can you get it? You can buy it in the US, UK, and Australia

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB is available starting May 24, 2023, with an MSRP of $399 (about £240, AU$600). This is the same launch price of the Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti that this card is replacing, so we're glad to see that Nvidia didn't increase the price on this variant with this generation.

This also puts it on par with the AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT, which initially launched for $549 (about £440/AU$825), but which you can find under $400 right now, even without discounts, at major retailers. AMD hasn't released an RX 7700 XT yet, which would be this card's more natural competition, so comparing the RX 6750 XT and the RTX 4060 Ti isn't really fair, but it's all we have for now until AMD launches its RTX 4060 Ti challenger.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti: Features and chipset

Only uses one 8-pin...but still requires a 16-pin converter?
3rd-generation ray tracing and 4th-generation tensor cores
288.0 GB/s memory bandwidth, but 32MB L2 cache boosts effective bandwidth to 554.0 GB/s (according to Nvidia)

The Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti is the first properly midrange Nvidia Lovelace graphics card, and so it is built on TSMC's 5nm process, with about 22.9 billion transistors across 34 streaming multiprocessors (SM), which come with 128 shader cores (CUDA), 4 fourth-generation tensor cores, and 1 third-generation ray tracing core per SM.

The clock speed is a solid 2,310MHz base clock, which is about a 64% improvement over the RTX 3060 Ti's 1,410MHz, with a boost clock of 2,535MHz, or about 52% faster than the RTX 3060 Ti's 1,665MHz.

The biggest difference between the two cards is the memory bus. The Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti uses a 128-bit bus for 8GB GDDR6 VRAM, while the RTX 3060 Ti uses a 256-bit bus for the same amount of VRAM. The RTX 4060 Ti has a faster memory clock (2,250MHz), which combined with the expanded L2 cache (32MB), the RTX 4060 Ti has a slightly faster effective memory speed of 18 Gbps to the RTX 3060 Ti's 15 Gbps, while having a much faster effective memory bandwidth.

Still, this really does smack of over-engineering. The move to a 128-bit bus doesn't seem necessary, and given what we've seen of other Lovelace cards, like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070, I definitely think Nvidia could have stuck with a higher bus width and it wouldn't be catching nearly the grief it is getting over this.

What's more, even though the performance of the RTX 4060 Ti is better than the RTX 3060 Ti, I really think that had this card had the same bus width as the RTX 3060 Ti, this card would absolutely anything that approached it in the midrange. As it stands, the RTX 4060 Ti is great, but fails to score the knockout it really needed.

It is worth mentioning though that this card also uses significantly less power than the RTX 3060 Ti. That card had a TGP of 200W, while the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB comes in at 160W, which is a 20% improvement in efficiency. This is great for keeping your build under 600W, and it's a move in the right direction for everyone and deserves to be praised.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti: Design

The Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition keeps the same black heatsink with chrome trim as the other Founders Edition cards this generation, and — unfortunately — it also sticks with the 12VHPWR 16-pin power connector. Fortunately, you only need to plug a single 8-pin into it, so it is at least somewhat easier to manage in a case.

Also easier to manage is the size of the card. Using the same dual-fan design as previous Founders Edition cards, the RTX 4060 Ti pretty much shrinks these down a bit. While it's still a dual-slot card, it comes in at just under 9.5 inches long and 4.5 inches tall, making it the kind of card that will easily fit in your case.

There's not much flash here, but that's a given with the Founders Edition, so if you're looking for visual bells-and-whistles like RGB or super-cooling features like a triple fan design, you're going to want to look at any of the third-party cards that release alongside this one for those.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti: Performance

DLSS 3 is the real draw here
Improved ray tracing performance
Baseline performance not much improved over the RTX 3060 Ti

When it comes to performance, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti really leans on DLSS 3 for most of its major performance gains, and while this can be substantial, some are going to feel somewhat disappointed.

Test system specs

This is the system we used to test the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti:

This is largely because even with the introduction of some pretty advanced tech, there aren't a lot of games out right now that can really leverage the best features of this card. While three of the games I use as benchmarks — F1 2022, Cyberpunk 2077, and Returnal — all feature frame generation, these are also three of the latest games out there from major studios that have the time and staffing to implement DLSS 3 with Frame Generation in their games.

There is a DLSS 3 plug-in coming for Unreal Engine, which should definitely expand the number of games that feature the tech, that's still going to be a ways off at this point before that starts to trickle down to the gamers who will actually be using this card.

I'll get more into DLSS 3 and Frame Generation in a bit, but a quick glance over the underlying architecture for the RTX 4060 Ti tells something of a story here, as shown by synthetic benchmarks using 3DMark and Passmark 3D.

Synthetic Benchmarks

As you can see, the RTX 4060 Ti beats out the RTX 3060 Ti, but only just barely, getting about 11% better performance than the card it's replacing. This is, okay, I guess, but hardly the generational leaps that previous Lovelace cards have been making.

For example, the RTX 4070 offers a roughly 21% jump over the RTX 3070 on these same synthetic benchmarks. In fact, this puts the RTX 4060 Ti just ahead of the RX 6750 XT, and ultimately just behind the RTX 3070 in terms of raw performance.

As a gaming card, the performance outlook is better, but not by a whole lot overall.

Gaming Benchmarks

On games with heavy effects-based visuals like Metro: Exodus and Cyberpunk 2077 where the advanced architecture of the RTX 4060 Ti can be leveraged, it does edge out the competition, sometimes. The RX 6750 XT still manages a slightly better fps on Returnal at 1080p, on average, when not using ray tracing or upscaling tech, for example.

The RTX 4060 Ti also gets crushed in CS:GO at 1080p, relatively speaking, which I chalk up entirely to pushing textures through the smaller memory bus of the RTX 4060 Ti. The 192-bit bus on the RX 6750 XT's 12GB GDDR6 VRAM and the 256-bit bus on the RTX 3060 Ti's 8GB GDDR6 really show up in cases like this.

Things do start to turn in the RTX 4060 Ti's favor once you start fiddling with ray tracing. The third-generation ray tracing cores on the RTX 4060 Ti are definitely much more capable than the RTX 3060 Ti's and especially more than the RX 6750 XT's, which are second-generation and first-generation cores, respectively.

The RTX 4060 Ti is the first midrange card I've tested that is going to give you playable native ray-traced gaming at 1080p consistently on max settings, though it will struggle to get to 60 fps on more demanding titles like Cyberpunk 2077.

But lets be honest, nobody is playing any of these games with native resolution ray tracing, you're going to be using an upscaler (and if you aren't then you really need to start).

Here, the performance of Nvidia's DLSS really shines over AMD's FSR, even without frame generation. In both Cyberpunk 2077 and Returnal, the RTX 4060 Ti can get you over 120 fps on average when using the DLSS Ultra Performance preset, and if you want things to look their best, you can easily get well north of 60 fps on average with every setting maxed out, even ray tracing.

Now, one of the things that the wider memory bus on the RTX 3060 Ti gave that card was a faster throughput when gaming at 1440p. Now, not every game is going to run great at 1440p, but for a lot of them, you're going to be able to get a very playable frame rate.

The RTX 4060 Ti improves over the RTX 3060 Ti here, but not nearly as much as it should, and on games like F1 2022 and CS:GO where that memory bandwidth difference is going to show, well, it shows up here at 1440p, too.

Of course, once you turn on ray tracing, most games are going to turn into a slide show, but unsurprisingly, the RTX 4060 Ti manages to score a win here on every ray-traced game I tested.

That said, you are really pushing it here on these settings, and you're better off using upscaling if you're going to go for 1440p, especially with settings turned up.

The biggest win for the RTX 4060 Ti here is with Cyberpunk 2077, where it manages 67% better performance at max quality settings than the RX 6750 XT, but maddeningly, it's only about 13% better than the RTX 3060 Ti on the quality preset. On ultra performance, the RTX 4060 Ti is about 52% better than the RX 6750 XT, but again, only 13% better than the RTX 3060 Ti.

When it comes to Returnal, the RX 6750 XT is essentially tied with the RTX 4060 Ti on the quality preset for FSR 2.1 and DLSS, respectively. Bump this up to ultra performance, and the RTX 4060 Ti does better, beating out the RX 6750 XT by about 22% and the RTX 3060 Ti by about 17%.

I imagine the RTX 4060 Ti will perform more or less the same across most games that still rely on DLSS 2.0, which number more than 200. For those games that really leverage DLSS 3 with Frame Generation though, it really is another story entirely.

With Frame Generation, you can get about a 40-60% performance improvement on games that support it. This isn't nothing, since this can even get you playing Cyberpunk 2077 at a playable framerate at 4K on ultra performance. The RTX 3060 Ti and RX 6750 XT really don't have any answer to this, and so they are going to lag behind considerably on any games that have DLSS 3 with Frame Generation.

Does Frame Generation increase latency on some titles, along with other issues? Sure. Will it matter to gamers who get to play Cyberpunk 2077, Returnal, and other titles that play like they were RTX 3080 Ti's? Probably not.

Will any of this matter to anyone who doesn't play those games? Obviously not. And that is ultimately the issue with this card. For what it does well, it has no peer at this price, but if you already have an RTX 3060 Ti, then there is really very little reason to upgrade to this card. Hell, if you have an RX 6750 XT, you might feel like you're better off just waiting to see what AMD has in store for the RX 7700 XT, and I would not blame you in the slightest.

This isn't a whiff by Team Green by any means, but there's no getting around the fact that the performance of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti absolutely leaves a massive opening for AMD to exploit in the coming months with the RX 7700 XT, or even the RX 7650 XT.

Should you buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti?

Buy it if...

Don’t buy it if…

Also consider

How I tested the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti

I spend several days with the RTX 4060 Ti running benchmarks, playing games, and generally measuring its performance against competing cards.

I paid special attention to its DLSS 3 Frame Generation technology, since this is one of the card's biggest selling points, and played several games at length with the tech turned on.

Having covered and tested many graphics cards in my career, I know how a graphics card perform at this level.

Read more about how we test

PNY GeForce RTX 4080 XLR8 OC: the RTX 4080 to buy — if you must

3:00 am | May 10, 2023

Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: RTX | Comments: Off

PNY GeForce RTX 4080 XLR8 OC: Two-minute review

The PNY GeForce RTX 4080 XLR8 has a lot of things going for it, but one of those is not that it's something other than an RTX 4080.

In my Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 review, I found that the Founders Edition card had excellent performance, and the same is true with PNY's XLR8 OC version. In fact, its performance is slightly better, on average, than the base reference model thanks to this card being overclocked and having some third-party extras that the Nvidia reference card lacks.

While the underlying GPU architecture and memory between the two are the same — so you get the same number of SMs, RT cores, Tensor cores, and the like, as well as 16GB GDDR6X VRAM — you do get faster clock speeds with the XLR8 OC card. The base clock speed is the same, but the boost clock is about 2% faster, while the memory clock speed is about 3% faster.

A PNY GeForce RTX 4080 XLR8 — (Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Toss in some RGB lighting (if that's your thing) and a triple-fan cooling solution with a larger heat sink, and you have a card that will throttle less, have customization options that many PC gamers will love, and everywhere I've seen it, you can get it for less than Nvidia's frankly outrageous $1,199 (about £960, AU$1,740) MSRP.

I've seen the PNY RTX 4080 XLR8 OC retailing for $1,189 (about £950 / AU$1,725) on PNY's website, and found it selling for even less on most retail sites I checked.

This isn't the biggest savings, but you do get some extras here that the reference card lacks and sales make this card a lot more accessible than the RTX 4080 was at launch. If you are going to pick up the PNY RTX 4080 XLR8 OC though, make sure you are actually buying the OC version of the card since PNY also makes a non-OC XLR8 version for slightly less, and they are otherwise identical and easily confused online.

On the design front, the RTX 4080 XLR8 OC looks much more like a gamers' RTX 4080 than Nvidia's reference design, so if you're looking to outfit your gaming PC with a new GPU and you want it to match the look of your other addressable RGB components, this will do that much better than Nvidia's reference card will.

The RTX 4080 XLR8 OC sticks with the same 3-to-1 8-pin-to-12VHPWR cable adapter that its other cards have gone with since Nvidia Ampere launched in 2020, so if you don't have an ATX 3.0 PSU with a dedicated 12VHPWR cable, cable management with this card will be challenging, though less so than with the laughably tentacled RTX 4090.

Cable management will also be a concern here as the RTX 4080 XLR8 OC is larger than the RTX 4080 reference card, which is already a monster GPU. At 13-inches long, this card is just over 7% longer than the reference card, and about 17% thicker, taking up 3.5 slots. It has the same display output as the base RTX 4080, so three DisplayPort 1.4a ports and an HDMI 2.1 port, with no USB Type-C output.

If you want to know more about the kind of performance the RTX 4080 is capable of, I would refer you back to the original RTX 4080 review, since the effective difference isn't enough to thoroughly rehash here.

On that note, given the effectively identical performance of the base Nvidia RTX 4080 and the PNY RTX 4080 XLR8 OC, the PNY RTX 4080 XLR8 OC suffers from the same problem as the base reference card, which is that you can get the best AMD graphics card on the market for cheaper.

In my AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX review, I found that the 7900 XTX effectively outperformed the RTX 4080 (with the exception of some ray-tracing workloads and overall creative performance), and did so while costing roughly 16% less than Nvidia's MSRP, making it the best graphics card for gamers overall.

A PNY GeForce RTX 4080 XLR8 on its retail packaging — (Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

You can get the PNY RTX 4080 XLR8 OC for less than Nvidia's MSRP, but it's still going to be much more expensive than AMD's flagship GPU, so unless you need to do rendering work in Lumion or Blender, the RX 7900 XTX is going to be a much better bet for just about everyone, and those who must have an Nvidia RTX card, the RTX 4070 Ti offers a far better value and creatives should be going to the RTX 4090 anyway.

All things considered, the problems with the PNY RTX 4080 XLR8 OC are hard to get around, but only because it's an RTX 4080, and there isn't much PNY can do about that. That said, if you absolutely cannot spend the money to get the RTX 4090 and you need an RTX card, rather than the RX 7900 XTX, then the PNY RTX 4080 XLR8 OC at least offers you a better proposition than Nvidia's base model, and it does so while mitigating the price somewhat.

So, if it's gotta be an RTX 4080 for whatever reason, do yourself a favor and make it the PNY GeForce RTX 4080 XLR8 OC. At least that way you'll get something extra thrown in to help choke down the price you're going to have to pay.

PNY GeForce RTX 4080 XLR8: Specs

While the base specs of the RTX 4080 Founders Edition and the PNY RTX 4080 XLR8 OC are essentially the same, there are a few differences worth noting beyond the differences in aesthetic design.

PNY GeForce RTX 4080 XLR8: Price & availability

How much does it cost? $1,189 (about £950 / AU$1,725)
When is it available? Available now
Where can you get it? Available in the US, UK, and Australia

The PNY GeForce RTX 4080 XLR8 is available now for $1,189 (about £950 / AU$1,725), which is slightly less than Nvidia's official MSRP, but not by a whole lot. There are still plenty of sales you can find on this card to help defray the cost even further, but it's still selling for way too high when the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX offers better performance when it comes to gaming and costs about 16% less.

The RTX 4090 is much more expensive, but considering how much you are splurging on a card like this, there is no reason to not just spend the money to get an RTX 4090, which is much more expensive but is the best graphics card on the market by a mile, especially for creative workloads like architectural design and 3D modeling.

Should you buy the PNY GeForce RTX 4080 XLR8?

Buy it if...

You can't afford the RTX 4090
If the RTX 4090 is out of reach (an understandable concern, for sure), then this is the next best Nvidia graphics card in terms of raw performance.

You want an overclocked card
The Nvidia RTX 4080 Founders Edition can't be overclocked, but you have some wiggle room with the PNY RTX 4080 XLR8 OC to boost some performance with some settings tweaks.

Don't buy it if...

You can afford the RTX 4090
I really can't stress enough that the RTX 4090 should be the graphics card to buy if you can afford to get it. It's the best there is, and there's no reason to settle for second best at this price point.

PNY GeForce RTX 4080 XLR8: Also consider

How I tested the PNY GeForce RTX 4080 XLR8

I spent several weeks with the PNY GeForce RTX 4080 XLR8
I used the PNY GeForce RTX 4080 XLR8 for gaming and content creation
I tested it with our standard battery of benchmarks

In addition to running the standard battery of tests on this card, I also used it as my main GPU for work and gaming for several weeks. This included creative workflows like Photoshop and Lumion, as well as gaming on the most demanding titles like Cyberpunk 2077.

I have been reviewing computer hardware for several years now, and have an extensive computer science background to make sense of the data I'm collecting.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed May 2023