Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti 16GB prices tumble in response to AMD's new graphics cards
AMD's new Radeon RX 7700 XT and 7800 XT graphics cards haven't quite gone on sale. But they're already having an impact on the graphics card market.
As we write these words, you can take your choice between at least two versions of the Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti 16GB for $449 from Newegg. Both the ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB Advanced Edition and the MSI Ventus GeForce RTX 4060 Ti are yours for this new lower price.
That's $50 down on the $499 launch price of the 16GB version of the 4060 Ti. For starters, that now puts the 16GB 4060 Ti within $50 of the plain old RTX 4060 Ti 8GB card. More importantly, it also puts it bang on the launch price of the new AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT.
That makes for a very interesting comparison. The 7700 XT only has 12GB of VRAM, of course, but it runs over a 192-bit bus to the 4060 Ti's 128-bit bus. The net result of that, also factoring in memory speeds, is just 288GB/s of bandwidth for the 4060 Ti to the 7700 XT's 432GB/s.
Moreover, because of the 4060 Ti's 128-bit bus and the capacity of currently available graphics memory chips, the configuration of the 16GB of VRAM is a little unusual with possible negative implications for performance.
Long story short, two memory chips share a single 32-bit memory controller, with the chips «clamshelled» either side of the PCB. The 8GB card has a single memory chip per 32-bit controller.
It also makes for an intriguing comparison with the regular 8GB RTX 4060 Ti. When the price premium for the 16GB card was fully $100, it didn't look very appealing. At just $50, it's a lot more tempting in terms of adding a little future proofing.
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