AMD Radeon RX 9060 and RX 9060 XT Review: Performance, Value, and Market Confusion

AMD’s product naming strategy risks confusing consumers between RX9060 XT and lower-end RX9060 OEM options.

Hardware by Tanisha Aria on Nov 19, 2025

People who play PC games have had different opinions about the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT. One side of it is that it's confusing for customers because of its naming and setup. The RX 9060 XT comes in two versions, even though they share the same name.

One has 16GB of VRAM and the other only has 8GB. The 16GB model has many more features and will hold up better over time, while the 8GB model is cheaper but has much less space. Even with these problems, the RX 9060 XT is still the best GPU for makers on a budget among the latest models.

AMD Radeon RX9060, RX9060 XT Review, Performance, Value, Market Confusion, NoobFeed

The 16GB version has an MSRP of $350, which is a lot less than the 16GB RTX 5060 Ti, and you can often find it for close to that price. The MSRP for the 8GB model has also dropped below $300, but I still think you should avoid it if you want a long-term gaming option. It is still a choice for people who know what it can't do and want to spend as little as possible.

Since the RX 9060 XT came out, I've thought there should have been just one model with that name, ideally one with 16GB of VRAM. The 8GB model could have been called RX 9060 and might have had some cores turned off to make it stand out.

AMD, on the other hand, chose to sell these binned Na'vi 44 dies through OEM channels rather than directly to consumers to make more money. AMD quietly released the RX 9060 a few months ago as an OEM-only product available from certain system installers. In contrast to the RX 9060 XT, you can't buy it as a single card; you have to buy a whole pre-built machine to use this GPU.

First Impression

The main reason for getting a whole system was to see how well the RX 9060 works compared to the XT version. There are 1,792 cores instead of 2,048 (-13%), and the clock speeds are 4.5% lower. This model only has 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM, clocked at 18 Gbit18 Gbit/s.

This means the memory speed drops from 320 GBps to 288 GBps, a 10% decrease. It has 132W of total board power, which is 12% less than the 8GB RX 9060 XT, but it still has a full 16 PCI5.0 interface.

It's not clear how much it costs because it's only sold to OEMs, but the machine I bought was about 15% less expensive than one with a 9060 XT 8GB. From that, I think the MSRP will be around $260.

The test machine had a 9800X3D CPU, and the RX 9060 was put through several games at 1080p and 1440p with medium and ultra quality settings.

Rainbow Six Siege Performance

It took the RX 9060 15% longer to play Rainbow Six Siege at 1080p and 17% longer at 1440p with medium quality settings. Based on these scores, it was slightly behind the RTX 5060, but it should cost less.

The 9060 had about 35% better performance at 1080p and 30% better performance at 1440p than the RX 7600. The RX 9060 stayed 14–15% slower than the XT version when the Ultra Plus setting was used. It also performed 4–8% worse than the RTX 5060 but 28–38% faster than the RX 7600.

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered

The RX 9060 did a little better than the RTX5060 in Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered at 1080p on medium settings, but it was still 10% slower than the 9060 XT and 35% faster than the RX7600. At 1440p, it was 12% slower than the XT model but just faster than the RTX5060. The 8GB VRAM started to show its limits at the very highest setting. Still, the RX 9060 series didn't have the worst effects because it has 16 PCIe lanes, while other 8GB GPUs have only 8 lanes. The XT model was 8–9% faster than the RX 9060, but the RTX5060 was 110% faster.

AMD Radeon RX9060, RX9060 XT Review, Performance, Value, Market Confusion, NoobFeed

Kingdom Come Deliverance II

When set to medium, the RX 9060 was 15–16% slower than the XT version and a little behind the RTX 5060. The speed gap between it and the XT model stayed between 16 and 17 percent on the ultra preset, but it was still 20% better than the RX 7600. This game showed that the improvement over older GPUs wasn't very strong.

Cyberpunk 2077

In Cyberpunk 2077, low setting tests showed that the RX 9060 was 16–17% slower than the XT version. It performed about the same as the RTX 5060 but was 34–38% faster than the RX 7600. The 9060 was 17% slower than the XT in high-performance tests, and it was 13% slower than the RTX 5060 at 1080p and only 6% slower at 1440p.

Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine II

It took the RX 9060 12% longer to play Space Marine II on medium settings (1080p) and 13% longer at 1440p than the XT model. The speed was 15–18% better than that of the RX 7600.

Ultra settings gave results about the same as normal, which was 13–16% slower than the XT type and a little behind the RTX 5060. The average peak FPS at 1440p was 59, which isn't great, but it's still 26% faster than the RX7600.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the RX 9060 and XT variants were 11% slower at medium settings and across all levels. When compared to the RX7600, it performed up to 15% better. In ultra preset tests, it had a small 8% performance drop at 1440p compared to the XT model, but it was still behind the RTX5060.

Call of Duty Black Ops 6

It took the RX 9060 20% longer to play Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 at 1080p and 16% longer at 1440p on medium settings. Extreme preset values stayed the same: 18–20% slower than the XT, but 16–25% faster than the RTX 5060 at 1080p and 1440p. The only real difference between the RX7600 and the RX 9060 was minor.

Overall Performance Averages

The RX 9060 and RTX 5060 were very close in performance across the seven games tested at medium settings. The RX 9060 lagged behind the 9060 XT by 13–14% across resolutions, but it outperformed the RX7600 by 23–26%.

The ultra-quality tests showed similar patterns. The RX 9060 stayed 13–14% behind the XT version, but it was a little faster than the RTX5060 and 26–29% ahead of the RX 7600.

Temperatures and Noise

The XFX Swift Gaming Edition RX 9060 tested is a small model with two fans. The GPU hotspot reached 79° in an ATX case loaded for an hour in a 21° room at 1,000 RPM. The VRM reached 79°, and the memory reached 74°. Overall, the temperatures were great, and the GPU ran very quietly.

AMD Radeon RX9060, RX9060 XT Review, Performance, Value, Market Confusion, NoobFeed

Final Thoughts

There is a 13–14% speed difference between the RX 9060 and the RX 9060 XT 8GB model, which costs about 15% more. If you make sure the deal is used, this means the same cost-per-frame ratio. But AMD's name scheme keeps making things unclear. Many PC gamers might not know what the RX 9060 is or how it differs from the 9060 XT.

Many stores sell multiple 8GB versions, which makes it easy to buy the wrong card. Cheap gamers might think they are getting a full-fledged 9060 XT, but it won't work as well as they thought because it has less VRAM and fewer cores.

If AMD had put customer satisfaction first, it could have released a single RX 9060 XT with 16GB of VRAM and a cheaper 8GB version called RX 9060 or RX9050 with fewer cores.

Instead, the RX 9060 is mostly kept secret through OEM channels, while the XT model gets a lot of good press online. This method seems to be meant to trick cheap gamers into buying the cheaper version, thinking they are getting the more expensive one.

If you want to buy the RX 9060, it needs to be at least 15% cheaper than an RX 9060 XT 8GB. If not, the XT version is still the better long-term buy. To make an informed buying choice, you need to know these differences.

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