PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Verto review: better thermals and smaller form factor make this PNY card a winner

PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Verto: Two-minute review

The PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Verto graphics card marks the arrival of a true budget graphics card for this generation, and it's one the market desperately needs. 

The PNY RTX 4060 Verto lacks some of the frills and razzle-dazzle of many of the best graphics cards from other third-party manufacturers – or even PNY's XLR8 Epic-X RGB branded cards – but this lightweight and downright svelte GPU is the best cheap graphics card for budget builders looking for a more compact card without sacrificing too much in terms of power.

The PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Verto is available now for $299/£299 (about AU$450), which is the same price as Nvidia’s MSRP. That doesn’t mean that the card doesn’t have some nice extras that the Nvidia Founders Edition (if it existed) might not have had.

Looking at the card, the actual PCB underneath the fan shroud is fairly small, which means the heat sink for the GPU actually overextends the circuit board. This allows for some improved airflow to help keep the GPU cool under load.

Pulling down just 115W, the RTX 4060 sips power judiciously, and that translates directly into better thermal performance. In terms of heat, the PNY RTX 4060 Verto typically runs about 5°C cooler than the Asus Dual GeForce RTX 4060 OC Edition I tested for my Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 review back in June 2023, but given that the Asus card ran at higher clocks, you should expect it to run hotter.

Speaking of OC, the PNY RTX 4060 Verto is not an OC card, so it doesn't ship from the factory with higher base/boost clock speeds than Nvidia's reference design, but PNY’s VelocityX software tool does allow for some modest software overclocking and optimizations.

The PNY RTX 4060 Verto is a genuine dual-slot card, as opposed to the chonkier 2.5-slot Asus Dual RTX 4060 OC, making the PNY card much easier to squeeze into a case. It only requires a single 8-pin power connector, so no need to worry about adapter cables, and the card is light enough that you can almost certainly get by without needing to use a support bracket, though having one handy never hurts.

The PNY RTX 4060 Verto card has identical specs to the Nvidia reference design, which unfortunately includes 8GB GDDR6 VRAM on a 128-bit memory bus, supplemented by an expanded 24MB L2 cache. This, in theory, should allow the PNY RTX 4060 Verto to get better memory performance with a tighter bus and VRAM pool, but in practice, this isn’t really noticeable. Everyone would have been better off with 12GB VRAM or a wider memory bus (preferably both).

In terms of performance, there isn’t much difference between the Asus Dual GeForce RTX 4060 OC Edition and the PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Verto cards. The Asus card pulls ahead by about 1% - to - 2% on average thanks to its faster clock speeds, but in practice, this translates into a difference of 102 fps in a game with the Asus Dual versus 100 fps in a game with the PNY Verto.

For the most part, you can take all the performance numbers I pulled together for my RTX 4060 review and divide any given score or fps by 1.015 and you’ll pretty much land on the PNY Verto’s performance numbers (without using PNY VelocityX software overclocking), give or take a few points on either end.

This means that like the Asus Dual RTX 4060, the PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Verto does just OK at 1440p (the best 1440p graphics card, this is not) and absolutely tanks when attempting serious 4K gaming with ray tracing turned on (even with DLSS 3). No, this is strictly a 1080p graphics card, but for what it sets out to do, it does better than any other 1080p GPU at this price.

Where the PNY RTX 4060 Verto has the advantage over the Asus Dual though is twofold. First, in terms of thermals, the better airflow over the heat sink really makes a difference here. While the Asus Dual maxed out at about 70°C, with a minimum of 54°C, the PNY RTX 4060 Verto topped out at around 65°C with a lower minimum of 47°C.

In terms of power draw, the PNY RTX 4060 Verto never drew more than 116.285W, while the Asus Dual RTX 4060 pulled in a maximum of 120.498W. Certainly not the biggest difference, and you’re not likely to notice it unless you’re looking through HWiNFO64 data on GPU temperatures and power draw.

Ultimately, the appeal of the PNY RTX 4060 Verto is its tight form factor and lightweight design, helped out by its low power draw and better heat dissipation. The problems with the RTX 4060 Verto are actually problems with the RTX 4060 itself, namely the tighter memory bus and VRAM pool, so there’s really nothing that PNY can do about that.

If you absolutely must have control over fan and GPU clock speeds and the like, you can do that to an extent through VelocityX, but, in the end, this is the budgeteer’s RTX 4060, and of the RTX 4060s I’ve seen thus far, the PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Verto is arguably the best 1080p graphics card you’re going to find at this price.

PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Verto: Price & availability

• How much does it cost? $299/£299 (about AU$450)
• When is it available? Available now
• Where can you get it? Available in the US, UK, and Australia

The PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Verto is available now for $299/£299 (about AU$450) through PNY’s website in the US, as well as other US retailers, and with various retailers in the UK and Australia. Since the card isn’t available directly from PNY in those regions, the price you’ll pay for the PNY RTX 4060 Verto will vary by ±10% of these base prices. 

PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Verto: Specs

Should you buy the PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Verto?

Buy it if...

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PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Verto: Also consider

How I tested the PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Verto

• I spent about a week and a half testing the PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Verto
• I tested it using our standard benchmarking tools
• I used the card to play PC games and produce creative content

I spent about a week and a half with the PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Verto on a dedicated basis, using it as my primary GPU for both work and PC gaming at home.

I also used it to produce a lot of creative content, mostly through Photoshop, as well as running our standard benchmark suite. I did not test the PNY GeForce RTX 4060 Verto as extensively as I would have if I had not already tested an RTX 4060 and collected its performance data. But I tested the PNY RTX 4060 Verto enough to confirm that its performance was in line with the RTX 4060 performance data I already had on hand.

I’ve been a tech journalist for several years now and a PC gamer for even longer, so I know how gaming hardware should perform for the price you’re paying for it, and I continuously test gaming hardware to make sure that my numbers are validated and up to date with any driver updates and changes.

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.

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First reviewed July 2023