Enhanced Gaming Experience with AMD's Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB: Delivering Impressive Performance with 16 Gigabytes of Graphics Memory
Gaming performance can be categorized into two main types: traditional rasterization games and ray-tracing games. In this analysis, we benchmark various games using four distinct test settings: 1080p medium, 1080p ultra, 1440p ultra, and 4K ultra. For the RX 9060 XT 16GB, the crucial results will be 1080p ultra and 1440p ultra, as they serve as proxies for 4K performance with performance mode and quality mode upscaling, respectively.
We start with a suite of 14 rasterization games, as they represent the most common and useful measurement of gaming performance. Although many modern titles offer ray-tracing support, the performance is often subpar, making it more of a feature checkbox than a significant boost. We'll provide minimal commentary on the individual game charts and primarily focus on the big picture, as demonstrated by the geomean charts.
The RX 9060 XT 16GB sits in the upper-middle portion of our charts, but this is compared to 17 GPUs, many of which have higher price tags. These additional cards offer a contextual understanding of what higher-priced GPUs can deliver if a user is willing to spend more.
Let's examine some specific matchups in more detail. The RTX 5060 Ti 8GB, with a similar price point, competes closely with the RX 9060 XT 16GB. At 1080p medium, Nvidia takes a slight 0.9% lead, while at ultra settings, the advantage grows to 1.7%. At 1440p ultra, however, AMD gains a 4.2% overall lead. The gap increases significantly at 4K, favoring AMD with a 50.9% lead. Nvidia encounters several failures, particularly with Stalker 2 running at 1.3 FPS compared to 25 FPS on AMD.
Overall, the RX 9060 XT 16GB delivers better performance than the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB, but the price difference should be taken into account. The RX 9060 XT 16GB surpasses the previous generation RX 7700 XT, offering slightly faster performance at 1080p and slightly slower speeds at 1440p and 4K, while also featuring lower power consumption, additional features, and a lower price.
One final point of comparison is the Intel Arc B580, which at its $249 cost would offer great value and merit consideration. However, current prices are hovering between $310 and $380, making it a less attractive option compared to the AMD RX 9060 XT 16GB, which outperforms the Arc B580 across all tested resolutions.
The 14 individual rasterization game performance charts and relevant enrichment insights are included below, providing more context for the overall comparative performance of these GPUs.
Assassin's Creed Mirage
Assassin's Creed Mirage utilizes the Ubisoft Anvil engine and DirectX 12. It's an AMD-promoted game with FSR2 support, and, although it also supports DLSS and XeSS upscaling, we ran a manual test sequence around the rooftops for a more accurate assessment. The RX 9060 XT 16GB illustrates the importance of VRAM in this benchmark, with a 16% and 21% lead over the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB at 1440p and 4K, respectively.
Baldur's Gate 3
Baldur's Gate 3 is our sole DirectX 11 holdout, using the Divinity Engine. This is a top-down perspective game that showcases the CPU's impact, especially at 1080p, where the faster GPUs hit CPU bottlenecks. In this less demanding game, the RX 9060 XT 16GB ends up just slightly behind the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB, but with better 1% lows at 1080p.
Black Myth: Wukong
Black Myth: Wukong is one of the newer games in our test suite, built on Unreal Engine 5. It features full ray tracing as a high-end option, but we opted for pure rasterization mode to ensure fair comparison. This game favors Nvidia's architecture in general, but the RX 9060 XT 16GB manages to pull ahead of the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB at 4K, despite neither card being capable of delivering 30 FPS at these settings.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Dragon Age: The Veilguard uses the Frostbite engine and runs via the DX12 API. With increased demand for VRAM at higher resolutions, the RX 9060 XT 16GB significantly outperforms the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB, especially at 1440p and 4K.
Final Fantasy XVI
Final Fantasy XVI came out for the PS5 in 2023, with the Windows release arriving in 2024. This GPU-limited game favors AMD's GPUs, with the RX 9060 XT 16GB leading the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB by 8-17 percent at our test resolutions.
Flight Simulator 2020
Flight Simulator 2020 has a new release now, but we've kept the original for reference purposes. The 'beta' DX12 path has been utilized for our testing, as it's required for DLSS frame generation. The RTX 5060 Ti 8GB edges out the RX 9060 XT 16GB at all four tested settings.
Flight Simulator 2024
This latest release of Flight Simulator is even more demanding than its predecessor. MSFS24 requires much more VRAM, allowing the RX 9060 XT 16GB to easily outpace the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB across all test resolutions, delivering 35 FPS on average at 4K.
God of War Ragnarök
God of War Ragnarök is an AMD-promoted game that supports DLSS and XeSS alongside FSR3. The RX 9060 XT 16GB manages to pull ahead of the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB at 4K ultra, thanks to higher VRAM capacity.
Horizon Forbidden West
Horizon Forbidden West is an AMD-promoted game that requires more VRAM at higher-quality settings. The 9060 XT 16GB leads the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB by 34% at 1440p and 85% at 4K.
The Last of Us Part 1
The Last of Us, Part 1 is another PlayStation port that hits the VRAM hard with higher-quality settings, but cards with 12GB or more memory generally perform well. The RX 9060 XT 16GB leads the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB by 7-12 percent at our test resolutions, but the gap widens significantly at 4K.
A Plague Tale: Requiem
A Plague Tale: Requiem uses the Zouna engine and runs on the DirectX 12 API. It's an Nvidia-promoted game that supports DLSS 3 but neither FSR nor XeSS. The RTX 5060 Ti 8GB doesn't run into VRAM limits in this test and holds a 4-8 percent lead over the RX 9060 XT 16GB across all test resolutions.
Stalker 2
Stalker 2 is another Unreal Engine 5 game, but without hardware ray tracing support. This makes it more CPU-limited and demands significant VRAM, posing challenges for 8GB cards like the RTX 5060 Ti at higher settings. The RX 9060 XT 16GB trails behind the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB at 4K epic settings but still delivers playable frame rates, while 8GB cards struggle or fail to render these settings.
Starfield
Starfield uses the Creation Engine 2, an updated engine from Bethesda. This fairly demanding game features performance oddities on several GPUs, making it difficult to predict performance. Despite being AMD-promoted, Nvidia's RTX 5060 Ti 8GB generally delivers stronger benchmarks across our test resolutions.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is another AMD-promoted game that runs on DirectX 12 without ray tracing support. This game has performance inconsistencies on various GPUs, with the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB outperforming the AMD RX 9060 XT 16GB in this benchmark.
- The 14 gadgets tested, mainly rasterization games, demonstrate the importance of VRAM, with the RX 9060 XT 16GB leading over the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB in games like Assassin's Creed Mirage and Dragon Age: The Veilguard due to its higher VRAM capacity.
- In the realm of technology, the RX 9060 XT 16GB outperforms the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB in several modern titles, such as Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnaroek, thanks to its superior VRAM capacity, which is crucial for high-quality settings and more demanding games.
