AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT: New Mainstream RDNA 4 Graphics Card Revealed
AMD officially pulled the curtain off its new mainstream graphics card, the Radeon RX 9060 XT. The card is all about bringing the RDNA 4 architecture to more consumers, and it's sporting some interesting specs, including a generous amount of VRAM.
What's the RX 9060 XT Stuffed with Under the Hood?
The RX 9060 XT is designed to go head-to-head against NVIDIA's popular 60-class cards, like the RTX 5060 Ti and RTX 5060. It performs its duties as the first of the RX 9060-series cards, and AMD is clearly attempting to offer great gaming value.
At the heart of the setup is the Navi 44 GPU, a lower-cost, smaller chip than the more premium RX 9070 series use. Don't let its size mislead you, however; this GPU utilizes TSMC's 4nm process and features:
- 32 Compute Units (which translates to 2048 cores)
- 32 Ray Tracing accelerators
- 64 AI accelerators
And one of the most obvious things is the clock speed. Here, AMD is going all out, and the RX 9060 XT has an out-of-the-box boost clock of up to 3.13 GHz! That is utterly insane, and we can probably anticipate custom releases from board partners to reach even higher, perhaps in the 3.2 to 3.3 GHz region. Power consumption (TBP) will be 150W to 182W depending on the VRAM configuration.
Memory: Choices for Differing Needs
Tongue in cheek, let's discuss VRAM. AMD is releasing the RX 9060 XT in two flavors: an 8 GB SKU and a 16 GB SKU. Both will have a 128-bit memory bus and 20 Gbps GDDR6 memory. Competition may be moving to quicker GDDR7, but AMD is not worried about this combination. Surprisingly, despite rumors that the 8GB SKU would be dropped due to the weak uptake of NVIDIA's 8GB SKUs, AMD is keeping it in the product stack.
Other modern features expected are present as well, including a PCIe 5.0 x16 interface, DisplayPort 2.1a, and HDMI 2.1b outputs, and all the benefit of FSR 4 technology.
Performance and Price: The Sweet Spot?
AMD indicates that 16 GB Radeon RX 9060 XT is about 6% faster than NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB. More importantly, however, for more budget-minded gamers, they're delivering 15% more performance per dollar than the competition (which costs $379 for 8GB and $429 for 16GB).
How much will RX 9060 XT set you back?
- The 16 GB version will have an MSRP of $349.
- The 8 GB SKU will retail at an aggressively priced $299.
It looks like AMD is going hard to crack the mainstream market with the Radeon RX 9060 XT. With its lofty clock speeds, VRAM configurations, and aggressive cost structure, it could be a highly desirable upgrade choice for some.
