AMD’s $299 Radeon RX 9060 XT brings 8GB or 16GB of RAM to fight the RTX 5060
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This has been my frustration. I run a SFF mini ITX system and needed a 12+GB short card with only 2 fans. Only the 5060ti could get me there for under $500. I would very much prefer to have gotten an AMD card if it were available near that price. 8 just will not cut it any longer and AMD shouldn't offer it to be honest.
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They didn't cheap out on the PCIE lanes on these unlike the previous '60' series cards.
That means these should be a great option for people who need to upgrade their GPU in PCIE 3.0 based systems. The RTX 5060 (and older RX 7600 XT/6600XT) cards only have 8 PCIE lanes which is a bottleneck on PCIE 3.0, but 16 lanes should ensure these have enough bandwidth even on older PCs.
That means these should be a great option for people who need to upgrade their GPU in PCIE 3.0 based systems. The RTX 5060 (and older RX 7600 XT/6600XT) cards only have 8 PCIE lanes which is a bottleneck on PCIE 3.0, but 16 lanes should ensure these have enough bandwidth even on older PCs.
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Well, that's a rather weird time for an embargo, but I suppose the announcement could have been set for another continent (or was mis-entered?). Probably going to be a decent chip, but all comes down to regional availability and actual street prices for the performance. Reviews are going to have a fun time reflecting on things like the US having essentially nothing in stock and Europe offering overpriced Nvidia as the last things in stock from the releases earlier in the year. At least the list price is approaching the point where I'd just get it if my current card died?
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[cough] https://www.techpowerup.com/337073/...upport-ryzen-ai-max-and-radeon-rx-9000-series
Full compatibility timelines vary with distributions and some other features, but they're expanding a bunch with the current Computex announcements. (which also explains the embargo time)
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An 8 GB card is no bueno. Also another weird scenario where the 9070 GRE 12GB has both more and less VRAM than the 9060XT. A baffling decision. We're already seeing the 5060 Ti 8GB suffering in current gen at 1440p. It's not going to be pretty for anyone who gets the 9060XT either. AMD should know better.
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Oh goodness, both companies are really trying to outdo themselves with looking mediocre in the mainstream gaming card lineup. Its like AMD saw they new Nvidia offerings and thought "What do I have to do to just barely beat them".
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insert joke about not even Apple uses 8gb anymore
Yes I’m aware that it’s different but I just HAD to. All ribbing aside, 8gb in this price range is just crap and they could have just as easily done 12gb at $299 and 16gb at $399 or similar to undercut nvidia and taken an easy win. 8gb at $299 is just not good and not enough of a price difference from the nvidia competitor to justify the difference.
Yes I’m aware that it’s different but I just HAD to. All ribbing aside, 8gb in this price range is just crap and they could have just as easily done 12gb at $299 and 16gb at $399 or similar to undercut nvidia and taken an easy win. 8gb at $299 is just not good and not enough of a price difference from the nvidia competitor to justify the difference.
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somewhat baffled that the 8 gig version is aimed at 5060 whilst 16 gig at 5060ti.. the only difference is the vram, right?
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With the 5060ti having both 8 and 16GB versions, that was my assumption too.
I would expect a 9060 to come at some point to tackle the 5060. But maybe they won’t, since it’s priced cheaper than the 5060 anyway.
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There's nothing wrong with an 8GB option, as long as there's a 12GB option.
Which, granted, there isn't...there's a 16GB option.
Now, whether either option is worthwhile is a whole 'nother thing. We'll have to wait and see some real-world tests.
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I'm not sure AMD had an option for 12gb here. They are still using gddr6 so the 3gb modules aren't an option unlike Nvidia. A 192 but bus would be a very different chip design and not the half a 9070 that they used for the 9060. The 16gb version should be using clamshell on the memory with chips on both sides of the card. I suppose they could possibly clamshell half the memory channels but I'm not sure that is possible and would mean the top 4gb of ram had half the bandwidth.
We'll have to see where the performance ends up. If it is pretty close to the 5060ti it should be really strong if it stays anywhere near MSRP. The 9060 16 gb would be cheaper than the 5060ti 8gb and I can't see why anyone would buy the 5060ti 8gb in that situation. The price difference is even bigger when comparing the 16gb models. The 8gb model matches the MSRP for the 5060 so if it's slightly faster that seems like the obvious buy.
Edit AMD seems to be claiming the 9060 16gb is ~5% faster than the 5060ti 8gb in their testing. That sounds promising but it's interesting they are comparing to the 8gb model as the performance should be the same as long as it's not running out of memory. If that's close to accurate and not due to memory issues they should have another hit on their hands.
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There absolutely IS a problem with an 8Gb option if it's $300 (and it'll be more almost certainly).
The problem is that 8Gb GPUs don't work correctly in many new AAA games, even at 1080p. 16Gb is the absolute minimum a GPU should be sold with at $300 or more. Because any less than that and you're hitting the limit in modern games. Most games will still just about work ok, but many have stuttering where your fps dips to single-digits or, most frequently, the textures will just never load in and you'll be playing games that look just awful. 8Gb GPUs are broken more and more often and even when they aren't technically broken, they're still massively limited.
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Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time. Didn't AMD replace Catalyst with Radeon Software?
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lol AMD pretty much copied Nvidia's homework. 8/16GB 9060XT matches up against the 8/16GB 5060Ti. I bet next announcement will be a 8GB only 9060 to go up against the 8GB only 5060.
Like the 9070GRE sits in between the two 9060XTs, 5070 12GB has the same problem being sandwiched in between the 5060Tis.
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Out of curiosity, can you list a few?
I'm a bit behind the times since I think of Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield and BG3 as new-ish games, and all of them play just fine on my ancient RTX 3070 8 GB.
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The 16GB version is probably going to be my next GPU assuming it actually arrives at the promised price. Yeah, I wish ... NV's 5060Ti 16GB costs 450 eur here and if this one is about 80e cheaper it could be a fairly decent deal. For 400e, as I expect it to cost in the end, I will probably skip it.
Do I need 16 GB? Not at all. But 50e difference seems a cheap enough upgrade to be worth it given 4k screens.
Do I need 16 GB? Not at all. But 50e difference seems a cheap enough upgrade to be worth it given 4k screens.
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The 16 GB version of this might just be the card that pushes me to finally upgrade my ailing GTX 1070. I keep checking prices periodically and I don’t like what I see. It’s either way too expensive recent cards, or older models that have not seen a large enough price drop to justify the purchase.
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Indiana Jones, Space Marine 2, Hogwarts Legacy, The Last of Us 1/2, Final Fantasy XIV, Horizon Forbidden West, A Plague Tale: Requiem, Assassin's Creed Shadows, Cyberpunk with RT, Marvel Rivals, Jedi Survivor...really Starfield is actually one of the few AAA titles released in the past two years that doesn't have issues with 8Gb of VRAM. BG3 is fine also, but it's also a five-year-old game (albeit the final release was only two years ago). Five years ago almost all games were fine. Some of those games stutter (most of those stutter) only because of a lack of VRAM. Like you'll get 70-80fps on the 5060Ti 16Gb but have minimums of 9fps on the 8Gb model (averages tend to stay relatively close). Some of them just don't load textures though (Space Marine 2, Hogwarts Legacy and The Last of Us all have that issue so you're stuck with the LOD textures and the real ones never load in).
Essentially anything recent that involves RT is busted in some way on 8Gb VRAM cards except Doom: The Dark Ages and that's because id software are engineering wizards (but also their maximum texture quality is lower than other AAA titles).
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Perhaps the AAA peddlers have a secret plan to reduce their player base?
Or ... unthinkable i know ... there are 'medium' graphics settings somewhere?
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If AMD can't get a large win after the 5060 they truly deserve some sort of Darwin award.
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coconutboy
Ars Praefectus
There is a reason Nvidia went out of their way to give the middle-finger to all the legitimate hardware outlets, and it isn’t because the rtx 5060/5060ti cards are good lol.
There are plenty of Nvidia shareholders and die-hards here at Ars quick to defend the company. Similarly, I know people who work at Nvidia, and they don’t appreciate it when I say negative things about their workplace (I usually don’t because the truth hurts and I’m not trying to ruin summer bbq socials etc). Truth is, Jensen Huang has done a beyond-incredible job of boosting shareholder value. Under his leadership Nvidia has done absolutely incredible things to push graphics technology forward ever since they took the crown from Voodoo. Jensen has also spent much of the past two decades pushing extremely anti-consumer business practices, and destroying goodwill with many gamers. Case in point:
Paul’s take
Gamer’s Nexus explains the smoking gun being pointed at would-be Nvidia gamers.
Completely skippable tangent:
Gaming is something I’ve been doing since the 1970s. It is a dang fun passion. But I don’t need Nvidia to have a high quality experience, and certainly not on the financial terms Jen-Hsun Huang expects. Nvidia (and AMD) would like people to believe we all need 4k gaming, and beefy new gpus to do so. Reality is 61% of Steam gamers play at 1920x1080 or less, and 87% play at ~1440p or less. In that context, a 5 year old rtx 3070 is still an excellent card for solid 1080p/60fps gaming, even in the most demanding titles (unless, perhaps, you insist on RT or typically-over-the-top-for-minimal-gain ultra settings).
Crypto and ML/AI have been a massive boon to Nvidia and TSMC, but that doesn’t mean the average gamer is willing to match enterprise pricing, no matter how hard Nvidia tries to convince people regarding the perceived value of high resolution and high refresh gaming. 4k ultra settings is useful for benchmarking gpu limits, and getting a glimpse at how hardware will do in future games. Otherwise, 4k is largely irrelevant to the heavy majority of gamers. Upscaling tech makes 4k doable, but even then I usually use dlss/fsr to play at 1600p (or 800p on Steam Deck OLED).
I have a Steam Deck OLED, a Switch OLED, a ps5, and yes even an rtx 4080 laptop. But that rtx part came via a middleman laptop OEM wielding more negotiating power with Nvidia, + an amazing 2024 sale to buy a loaded cpu/ram 4080 laptop for less than $1500 total including taxes and shipping. It might also be the last Nvidia gpu I buy seeing as my most recent prior Nvidia purchase came in 2018. There are plenty of other options for entertainment. As is all my gaming hardware sits unused most of the time, me only dabbling when I’m not riding on 2 wheels, playing with my dog, or out living life away from a screen.
Point of all that meandering old man backstory being, if this AI-boom keeps the gpu duopoly revenue-drunk for more than the next ~6 years (since that seems to be my gpu upgrade cycle haha), that 4080 laptop might be the last gpu I ever buy specifically from Nvidia or AMD. Between what Valve is doing and the improvement of more customized refresh rate experiences on the consoles, old ideas of pc gaming aren’t required anymore for mods, graphics, etc.
A decade from now, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a purpose-built ASIC crush Nvidia’s AI biz (see crypto), and meanwhile Valve, Sony, AMD, or someone else relegate Nvidia video cards to IBM irrelevance. I mean, once-mighty Intel is losing control of their key markets, and that would have been unthinkable the prior 2 decades.
There are plenty of Nvidia shareholders and die-hards here at Ars quick to defend the company. Similarly, I know people who work at Nvidia, and they don’t appreciate it when I say negative things about their workplace (I usually don’t because the truth hurts and I’m not trying to ruin summer bbq socials etc). Truth is, Jensen Huang has done a beyond-incredible job of boosting shareholder value. Under his leadership Nvidia has done absolutely incredible things to push graphics technology forward ever since they took the crown from Voodoo. Jensen has also spent much of the past two decades pushing extremely anti-consumer business practices, and destroying goodwill with many gamers. Case in point:
Paul’s take
Gamer’s Nexus explains the smoking gun being pointed at would-be Nvidia gamers.
Completely skippable tangent:
some Arsians bash these channels as tech influencers, but the people saying that kind of stuff are living in the past, like someone griping about the invention of television versus radio. Yes there is fluff and I ignore most of their “content”, but fact is, the best of these YT channels are the modern day Anandtech, Tech Report, HardOCP, etc. Remember the Intel recalls fought on by the tech press mentioned above (and Tom’s Hardware), or the numerous times Nvidia, ATI, AMD, were caught red-handed cheating, lying, and screwing customers over? Yeah, the YT channels do that stuff nowadays, too.
Gaming is something I’ve been doing since the 1970s. It is a dang fun passion. But I don’t need Nvidia to have a high quality experience, and certainly not on the financial terms Jen-Hsun Huang expects. Nvidia (and AMD) would like people to believe we all need 4k gaming, and beefy new gpus to do so. Reality is 61% of Steam gamers play at 1920x1080 or less, and 87% play at ~1440p or less. In that context, a 5 year old rtx 3070 is still an excellent card for solid 1080p/60fps gaming, even in the most demanding titles (unless, perhaps, you insist on RT or typically-over-the-top-for-minimal-gain ultra settings).
Crypto and ML/AI have been a massive boon to Nvidia and TSMC, but that doesn’t mean the average gamer is willing to match enterprise pricing, no matter how hard Nvidia tries to convince people regarding the perceived value of high resolution and high refresh gaming. 4k ultra settings is useful for benchmarking gpu limits, and getting a glimpse at how hardware will do in future games. Otherwise, 4k is largely irrelevant to the heavy majority of gamers. Upscaling tech makes 4k doable, but even then I usually use dlss/fsr to play at 1600p (or 800p on Steam Deck OLED).
I have a Steam Deck OLED, a Switch OLED, a ps5, and yes even an rtx 4080 laptop. But that rtx part came via a middleman laptop OEM wielding more negotiating power with Nvidia, + an amazing 2024 sale to buy a loaded cpu/ram 4080 laptop for less than $1500 total including taxes and shipping. It might also be the last Nvidia gpu I buy seeing as my most recent prior Nvidia purchase came in 2018. There are plenty of other options for entertainment. As is all my gaming hardware sits unused most of the time, me only dabbling when I’m not riding on 2 wheels, playing with my dog, or out living life away from a screen.
Point of all that meandering old man backstory being, if this AI-boom keeps the gpu duopoly revenue-drunk for more than the next ~6 years (since that seems to be my gpu upgrade cycle haha), that 4080 laptop might be the last gpu I ever buy specifically from Nvidia or AMD. Between what Valve is doing and the improvement of more customized refresh rate experiences on the consoles, old ideas of pc gaming aren’t required anymore for mods, graphics, etc.
A decade from now, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a purpose-built ASIC crush Nvidia’s AI biz (see crypto), and meanwhile Valve, Sony, AMD, or someone else relegate Nvidia video cards to IBM irrelevance. I mean, once-mighty Intel is losing control of their key markets, and that would have been unthinkable the prior 2 decades.
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Hmm so in Europe that becomes what? 400€? Probably closer to 500-600€ the first few months... 9070 is about 720€, XT is 795€. I could care less about DLSS. And at least we can use regular 8-pins. And you overpay a bit less.
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No usually dollars translates directly to € with the exchange rate hidding the added VAT.
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Hmm for some reason I completely misread that chart and thought it said GDDR7, so yes they would not likely have that option. This is why I should have waited until morning to reread the article, rather than at midnight before bed, lol. I can definitely see why they would not have used 12 GB under those conditions that you described.
A 192bit bus chip would be a FASCINATING card, which would have possibly made the 16gb card a 5060ti killer but I’m guessing that’s a no go based on the 5% performance number by AMD. Weird that AMD isn’t comparing 8gb vs 8gb numbers for the 5060ti but it’s interesting that the 8 GB extra of RAM is enough of a difference to bridge the gap between the standard and ti nvidia model.
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I feel like reference designs need to be banned – they always look so good, ideal for putting in a system with a windowed side, then Sapphire or whoever just give us the same bare heatsink with some fans slapped on top that they usually do.
Still, the specs look good, very much more in the range I'm interested in – I've been very happy with "1080p" cards upscaling to 4k via FSR 2/3, and this could be a nice upgrade from my RX 6650 XT BBQ, although I'm stuck in the eternal quandary of whether I should wait until nearer the PC release of GTA 6 in early 2050…
Update: What the heck am I catching downvotes for? Isn't anyone else bothered by reference designs that we can never actually buy? I'd like to actually buy some of these designs because they'd suit my case much better than the options that I will actually be be able to buy.
Still, the specs look good, very much more in the range I'm interested in – I've been very happy with "1080p" cards upscaling to 4k via FSR 2/3, and this could be a nice upgrade from my RX 6650 XT BBQ, although I'm stuck in the eternal quandary of whether I should wait until nearer the PC release of GTA 6 in early 2050…
Update: What the heck am I catching downvotes for? Isn't anyone else bothered by reference designs that we can never actually buy? I'd like to actually buy some of these designs because they'd suit my case much better than the options that I will actually be be able to buy.
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Interesting. I've played most of those on my 8GB card without any slowdowns. It's a Festivus miracle!
Or maybe, just maybe, if you set everything to High (not Ultra) with DLSS Quality (no framegen!) an 8GB card can play them all fine. My only complaint was texture pop in the jungle in Indiana Jones, but then it turned out my mate with the 4070 had the same issue with 12GB.
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This will likely end up being an 600-800CAD card depending on how it gets imported into Canada.
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No mention of Intel and their superior lineup on the low end? I hate Intel, but they have great cheap GPUs now.
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Same here, although my 3080 does have a whole 10GB of RAM, must be that extra 2GB making all the difference I guess..
Of course, this is the internet, where 'slightly lower performance' might as well read 'literally unplayable'.
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I really hope Intel doesn’t give up on their GPUs under the new leadership. It seems like they’ve gotten a toehold this time, and another polish round could really cement them as the mainstream option (if only you could find one).
Not to slight what AMD is putting out, but even $300 list is a on the steep end for the entry point. Once consumers are at that price then another $100 is feasible, and that opens up options.
And why haven’t last gen entry -level cards dropped to real entry level prices?
Not to slight what AMD is putting out, but even $300 list is a on the steep end for the entry point. Once consumers are at that price then another $100 is feasible, and that opens up options.
And why haven’t last gen entry -level cards dropped to real entry level prices?
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RickRoyLeonPrisZhoraRacha
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Dear AMD, you have an opportunity to be #1 GPU brand again! Stop fucking it up with being cheap on vram! 16GB is the new 8GB! And nVidia has internal management/marketing issues coming from the top to coerce "influencers" and "product review sites" to comply or be blackballed by nVidia.
Come on AMD... don't fuck it up.
Come on AMD... don't fuck it up.
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