AMD RX 9060 XT might not be the Nvidia-beating GPU we first thought
AMD's RX 9060 XT is on the way, as evidenced by a recent EEC filing. However, the filing also implies that AMD may miss out on an opportunity to beat Nvidia.
JimMin
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
A new leak tells me that AMD’s RX 9060 XT may repeat the same mistake as the RX 7600 XT, all the while missing out on a chance to win against rival Nvidia. While AMD’s RX 9060 XT may not compete against some of the best graphics cards, it’s going to be a mainstream card, which is great news for gamers. The downside, as is often the case, might lie in VRAM.
As shown in this listing filed with the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), Acer has just registered several new trademarks for its upcoming GPUs. This includes the Acer Predator Bifrost RX 9060 XT OC in two variants: One with 8GB VRAM and one with 16GB.
Variety is good, but as we’ve seen in the last-gen RX 7600 XT, AMD walked in Nvidia’s footsteps and equipped both cards with a narrow 128-bit memory bus. This stifled their bandwidth, making the 16GB version pricier, but very similar in terms of performance. The reason I mention Nvidia here is simple: Nvidia did it first with the RTX 4060 Ti, achieving a similar end result. In fact, the RTX 4060 Ti barely managed to beat the RTX 3060 Ti in some benchmarks. The extra cost and extra VRAM didn’t amount to much, what with the limited bandwidth.
Jacob Roach / Digital TrendsRepeating the same memory configuration as in the previous gen may not do AMD any favors. Seeing as the RX 7600 XT ended up underwhelming in benchmarks, the RX 9060 XT might end up in the same position. Nvidia’s RTX 5060 will also have the upper hand due to having inherently more bandwidth, regardless of the bus width, and that’s because it’ll use GDDR7 memory clocked at 28Gbps instead of GDDR6. Meanwhile, AMD is sticking to GDDR6 in this generation, capped at 20Gbps.
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There have been rumors of an RX 9060 XT with 12GB VRAM. Even that would be an improvement, with two versions at 12GB and 16GB, respectively, and with a 192-bit bus. A lot of it will come down to total bandwidth, and it’s too early to say where that’ll end up. Leakers claim that the RX 9060 XT will rival Nvidia’s RTX 4060 Ti, which would place it behind the curve — stacking more VRAM would certainly help here.
Keep in mind that EEC listings don’t mean that these GPUs are certainly coming out. We’ve seen some wild listings in the past, such as an RTX 5090 Titan, and many never made it to market. However, it wouldn’t be crazy to assume that we will get the RX 9060 XT in two configurations, and if AMD indeed keeps them at 16GB and 8GB with a 128-bit memory interface, we might see history repeat itself when the benchmarks come out. Meanwhile, the RX 9070 XT is almost here.
Monica is a computing writer at Digital Trends, focusing on PC hardware. Since joining the team in 2021, Monica has written…
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