AMD Radeon RX 9060 8GB vs RX 9060 XT 8GB: Which is best for gaming in 2025?

The AMD Radeon RX 9060 and RX 9060 XT are both entry-level AMD cards in today's market. However, this time the company has taken an unique approach: the lower-end 9060 is only available in pre-built systems while customers can buy the 9060 XT in the DIY market for $270-350. AMD has also introduced two variants of the 9060 XT, one with 8 GB and the other with 16 GB of VRAM. This makes choosing between the two a tricky choice: in today's market as memory prices are sky-high, pre-built systems can save you a chunk of money. But is that worth the performance tradeoff?

In this article, we compared the 8 GB variants of the two cards to get a lower bound on the performance differences. Read on for a specs, in-game FPS, and performance-per-dollar comparison.

---

The Radeon RX 9060 8GB and RX 9060 XT 8 GB both target the entry-level gaming market

The Radeon RX 9060 XT is AMD's 1080p gaming offering for the DIY market (Image via AMD)

The RX 9060 and RX 9060 XT share a ton in common in terms of the underlying hardware. They are both based on the same RDNA 4 platform and are powered by the Navi 44 graphics chip. While 1080p remains the primary target for both, with upscaling and slightly tuned down settings, these cards can easily do 1440p and 4K. In terms of theoretical rendering performance, the cards match and even slightly exceeds the PlayStation 5's 20 TFLOPS graphics chip.

Under the hood, you get 4 extra CUs with the 9060 XT. The cheaper variant also comes with slightly lower operating clock speeds and 18 Gbps video memory (compared to the 20 Gbps on the 9060 XT). However, other details like cache and

Specification	RX 9060	RX 9060 XT
Architecture	RDNA 4	RDNA 4
Compute Units / Stream Processors	28 CUs (~1,792 SPs)	32 CUs / 2,048 SPs
Boost Clock (GPU)	~2,990 MHz reported (lower than XT)	Up to ~3,130 MHz (some vendor cards go up to ~3,320 MHz)
VRAM / Memory Type	8 GB GDDR6, 128-bit, ~18 Gbps	8 GB or 16 GB GDDR6, 128-bit, ~20 Gbps
Memory Bandwidth	~288 GB/s	~320 GB/s
Infinity Cache / L2 cache	32 MB	32 MB
Typical Board Power / TDP	~132 W	~150 W (8 GB) / ~160 W (16 GB)
Price	sub-$800 pre-builts	$269 (8 GB), $339 (16 GB)

The main difference betrween the two GPUs is that the 9060 isn't available in the DIY market. You can score deals on them in eBay (where they're mostly sold as pre-built pulled). However, the 9060 XT is generally available for $270-350, with Black Friday deals dropping the card below $300 on several websites.

---

Performance comparison

Unlike the 9060 XT, the 9060 is only found in pre-built systems (Image via AMD)

Here's how 1080p framerates in video games differ between the two GPUs. These numbers have been sourced from the YouTube channel Testing Games.

	AMD RX 9060	AMD RX 9060 XT
Cyberpunk 2077	79 FPS	93 FPS
Cyberpunk 2077 RT, FSR	61 FPS	70 FPS
Battlefield 6 RedSec	63 FPS	75 FPS
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2	46 FPS	56 FPS
Silent Hill f	37 FPS	42 FPS
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024	67 FPS	78 FPS
Red Dead Redemption 2	95 FPS	113 FPS
God of War: Ragnarök	97 FPS	113 FPS
Mafia The Old Country	53 FPS	59 FPS
Forza Horizon 5	129 FPS	153 FPS
Horizon Forbidden West	78 FPS	88 FPS

In terms of average 1080p gaming FPS, the 9060 scores 73.18 FPS at 1080p, with the 9060 XT 8 GB scoring 85.45 FPS. That's a 16.7% difference which could make the difference between playable and unplayable in the near-future.

However, in terms of FPS per dollar, you may see the 9060 win by a massive margin as memory sticks have ballooned in price. This difference hasn't affected pre-built prices yet as they're mostly made of pre-acquired SKUs or existing dealsb between vendors. However, this edge may not hold for long as the memory shortage has impacted the whole industry.

---

For now, the RX 9060 seems like the better purchase if you intend to upgrade in the near term. Its 16.7% slower, yes, but could be much more affordable than a DIY system with the 9060 XT. However, once the pricing differences stabilize, the extra $30-40 could be a worthwhile investment.