ASRock Radeon RX 9060 XT Steel Legend OC 16 GB Graphics Card Review – Awesome Gaming Value With Stunning White Design

ASRock Radeon RX 9060 XT Steel Legend OC Unboxing & Closeup

After two months, the RDNA 4 lineup finally expands into the entry-level segment with the arrival of the Radeon RX 9060 XT series. The new lineup features the same architecture as the RX 9070 series graphics cards and also adopts the same gaming innovations, which are crucial for winning in the budget segment.

So for today's review, we will be trying out the ASRock Radeon RX 9060 XT Steel Legend OC, which has an MSRP of $389.99. This is a $40 US premium over the $349.99 MSRP for the 16 GB model, & that puts it very competitively against the RTX 5060 Ti, which has the 8 GB models retailing for 389 USD and the 16 GB model starting at $429 US. So let's see how this model compares against the 16 GB RTX 5060 Ti and also the most recent RTX 5060, which has some premium models retailing for a price of $349 US.

NVIDIA GeForce GPU Segment/Tier Prices

Graphics Segment	2025	2023-2024	2022-2023	2021-2022	2020-2021	2019-2020	2018-2019	2017-2018
Titan Tier	GeForce RTX 5090	GeForce RTX 4090	GeForce RTX 4090	GeForce RTX 3090 Ti GeForce RTX 3090	GeForce RTX 3090	Titan RTX (Turing)	Titan V (Volta)	Titan Xp (Pascal)
Price	$1999 US	$1599 US	$1599 US	$1999 US $1499 US	$1499 US	$2499 US	$2999 US	$1199 US
Ultra Enthusiast Tier	GeForce RTX 5080	GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER	GeForce RTX 4080	GeForce RTX 3080 Ti	GeForce RTX 3080 Ti	GeForce RTX 2080 Ti	GeForce RTX 2080 Ti	GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
Price	$999 US	$999 US	$1199 US	$1199 US	$1199 US	$999 US	$999 US	$699 US
Enthusiast Tier	GeForce RTX 5070 Ti	GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER	GeForce RTX 4070 Ti	GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB	GeForce RTX 3080 10 GB	GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER	GeForce RTX 2080	GeForce GTX 1080
Price	$749 US	$799 US	$799 US	$799 US	$699 US	$699 US	$699 US	$549 US
High-End Tier	GeForce RTX 5070	GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GeForce RTX 4070	GeForce RTX 4070 GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB	GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GeForce RTX 3070	GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GeForce RTX 3070	GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER	GeForce RTX 2070	GeForce GTX 1070
Price	$549 US	$599 $549	$599 US $499 US	$599 $499	$599 $499	$499 US	$499 US	$379 US
Mainstream Tier	GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB	GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GeForce RTX 4060	GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GeForce RTX 4060	GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB	GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB	GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER GeForce RTX 2060 GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER GeForce GTX 1660	GeForce GTX 1060	GeForce GTX 1060
Price	$429 US $379 US	$449 $299	$399 US $299 US	$399 US $329 US	$399 US $329 US	$399 US $349 US $279 US $229 US $219 US	$249 US	$249 US
Entry Tier	GeForce RTX 5060	RTX 3050 8 GB RTX 3050 6 GB	RTX 3050	RTX 3050	GTX 1650 SUPER GTX 1650	GTX 1650 SUPER GTX 1650	GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050	GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050
Price	$299	$229 $179	$249 US	$249 US	$159 US $149 US	$159 US $149 US	$139 US $109 US	$139 US $109 US

The AMD Radeon RX 9060 series was confirmed when the company first introduced its RDNA 4 architecture at CES 2025. The lineup was meant to be positioned below the RX 9070 GPUs, and was stated to tackle NVIDIA's 60-class products, such as the RTX 5060 Ti and RTX 5060.

Today, AMD is finally launching the first product within the RX 9060 series family, the Radeon RX 9060 XT. Unlike the RX 9070 series, the lineup only features one SKU for now, but it will come in two configurations, as we will show in the detailed specs run-down below.

Starting with the specifications, the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT will feature the RDNA 4-based Navi 44 GPU. This is a smaller chip versus the Navi 48 used on the 9070 series and is designed to be cost-effective, providing mainstream gamers with a product that offers great gaming value. The chip itself features 32 Compute Units or 2048 cores, 32 RT accelerators, and 64 AI accelerators.

With the Radeon RX 9060 XT, AMD is leveraging the TSMC 4nm process technology and dialing up the clock speeds to 11. The chip features a boost clock of up to 3.13 GHz, making it the first GPU to have such a high frequency out of the box. We can expect custom models to operate around 3.2-3.3 GHz. The GPU also features a TBP of 150 to 182W, which is respective to the VRAM featured on each SKU.

That's also why we have to talk about the memory solution used by the RX 9060 XT. The graphics card will come in both 8 GB and 16 GB variants. The card will feature a 128-bit bus interface and a 20 Gbps GDDR6 memory solution. The card feels very similar to the RTX 5060 Ti regarding its memory configuration, but the competition is leveraging faster GDDR7 memory.

Other specs include PCIe 5.0 x16 connection, DisplayPort 2.1a, and HDMI 2.1b display outputs, along with all the FSR 4 goodness that one can expect on RDNA 4.

For performance, the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB graphics card was compared to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB and is 6% faster. This is 15% higher performance per dollar vs the same competition, which retails at $379 US for the 8 GB and $429 US for the 16 GB variant.

Even the 8 GB model is said to offer very competitive gaming performance against the GeForce RTX 5060 8 GB, which is priced at the same MSRP of $299. The 8 GB model is poised to be 55% faster at 1080p against the RX 7600 across a list of 35+ games, and also ends up 9% faster than the 8 GB RTX 5060 across 40 games tested at 1080p.

Then we have FSR 4 support, which is being extended to over 60 game titles today. With FSR 4's frame-generation, leveraging machine learning, AI upscaling, and frame-gen, the new tech will boost FSP in games by up to 3.4x. A lot of good things are being said about FSR 4, which has now come close to NVIDIA's DLSS 4 in terms of image quality.

DLSS 4 still holds the upper hand with its MFG modes that enable up to 4x frame-gen, but the Red team has some cool tricks planned in the future FSR updates, such as the "Redstone" release which is expected in the second half of 2025 & will deliver various improvements including Neural Radiance Caching, ML Ray Regeneration for accurate and faster ray tracing, ML Super Resolution and ML Frame Generation.

As for pricing, the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB graphics cards will be available at an MSRP of $349, while the 8 GB variant will be launching at $299.

AMD Radeon RX 9000 "RDNA 4" GPU Specs:

GPU	Radeon RX 9070 XT	Radeon RX 9070	Radeon RX 9070 GRE 16 GB	Radeon RX 9070 GRE 12 GB	Radeon RX 9060 XT	Radeon RX 9060	Radeon RX 9050?
Architecture	RDNA 4	RDNA 4	RDNA 4	RDNA 4	RDNA 4	RDNA 4	RDNA 4
GPU SKU	Navi 48	Navi 48	Navi 48	Navi 48	Navi 44	Navi 44	Navi 44
Process Node	TSMC 4nm	TSMC 4nm	TSMC 4nm	TSMC 4nm	TSMC 4nm	TSMC 4nm	TSMC 4nm
Transistor Count	53.9 Billion	53.9 Billion	53.9 Billion	53.9 Billion	29.7 Billion	29.7 Billion	29.7 Billion
Die Size	357mm2	357mm2	357mm2	357mm2	199mm2	199mm2	TBD
Compute Units	64	56	TBD	48	32	28	TBD
Ray Accelerators	64	56	TBD	48	32	28	TBD
AI Accelerators	128	112	TBD	96	64	56	TBD
Stream Processors	4096	3584	TBD	3072	2048	1792	TBD
Game Clock	2400 MHz	2070 MHz	TBD	2220 MHz	2530 MHz	TBD	TBD
Boost Clock	2970 MHz	2540 MHz	TBD	2790 MHz	3130 MHz	2990 MHz	TBD
Peak FP32	48.7 TFLOPs	36.1 TFLOPs	TBD	34.3 TFLOPs	25.6 TFLOPs	21.4 TFLOPS	TBD
Peak FP16	97.3 TFLOPs	72.3 TFLOPs	TBD	68.6 TFLOPs	51.3 TFLOPs	42.9 TFLOPS	TBD
Peak INT8	779 TOPS (Sparsity)	578 TOPS (Sparsity)	TBD	549 TOPS (Sparsity)	410 TOPS (Sparsity)	343 TOPS	TBD
Peak INT4	1557 TOPS (Sparsity)	1156 TOPS (Sparsity)	TBD	1097 TOPS (Sparsity)	821 TOPS (Sparsity)	686 TOPS	TBD
ROPS	128	128	TBD	96	64	64	TBD
Infinity Cache	64 MB	64 MB	64 MB?	48 MB	32 MB	32 MB	TBD
Memory	16 GB GDDR6	16 GB GDDR6	16 GB GDDR6	12 GB GDDR6	8/16 GB GDDR6	8 GB GDDR6	TBD
Memory Speed	20 Gbps	20 Gbps	18 Gbps?	18 Gbps	20 Gbps	18 Gbps	TBD
Bus Interface	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit	192-bit	128-bit	128-bit	TBD
PCIe Interface	PCIe 5.0 x16	PCIe 5.0 x16	PCIe 5.0 x16	PCIe 5.0 x16	PCIe 5.0 x16	PCIe 5.0 x16	TBD
TBP	304W	220W	TBD	220W	150-182W	TBD	TBD
Price	$599 US	$549 US	TBD	4199 RMB	$299/$349 US	TBD	TBD
Launch	6th March, 2025	6th March, 2025	Sep-Oct 2025	8th May, 2025	2025	TBD	TBD

AMD's RDNA 4 architecture has been highly anticipated since the launch of the previous RDNA 3 and its upgraded RDNA 3.5 variation. While the RDNA 4 architecture isn't going to see any ultra-enthusiast SKUs, it does come with brand-new changes that should elevate gaming performance since it is designed primarily for gaming audiences.

As such, AMD has brought the following new changes to RDNA 4:

• Heavily optimized for high-end gaming workloads
• Improved Rasterization & Compute Efficiency
• A step change in ray tracing performance
• Comprehensive high-performance ML support
• Enhanced Bandwidth efficiency for all workloads
• Multimedia improvements for gamers and creators

Compared to RDNA 2, the RDNA 4 GPUs see almost a 2x uplift in rasterization, close to 2.5x uplift in raytracing, and a 3.5x uplift in ML (FP16 dense matrix) workloads per compute unit. So next, we dive into the building blocks of the RDNA 4 architectural block diagram to see how the entire chip comes together.

RDNA 4's New Core IPs

The core building block of the RDNA 4 GPU architecture is the Compute Engine.

The new Compute Units come with Dual SIMD32 Vector Units and Enhanced Matrix Operations, which include:

• 2x-16b & 4x-8b/4b dense matrix rates
• 4:2 Structured Sparsity for +2x rate
• New 8-bit Float Data Types
• Matrix load w/transpose

RDNA 4 also carries new shading improvements, with RDNA 4 shades allocating registers dynamically. They can request registers from the pool when needed. They can release registers back to the pool when they complete that work, and the software manages the conditions when there's a wait time for an allocation. This results in better handling of memory latency while the overall efficiency of the shared core can increase significantly.

On the scalar unit side, you get new Float32 operations, while scheduling updates include Split & Named barriers, Accelerated spill/fill operations, and improved instruction prefetch.

Then we have the 3rd Generation Ray tracing units offering doubled ray intersection rates, improved BVH compression, accelerated ray traversal and shading, and Oriented Bounding Boxes. These new ray tracing cores offer one of the biggest performance increases on the chip. Each Ray accelerator has also been improved with:

• 2x box & triangle intersection units
• Hardware instance transforms
• Improved RT stack management
• BVH8 and improved node compression
• Oriented Bounding Boxes

These new ray tracing upgrades also result in much lower memory requirements for BVH. On average, RDNA 4 reduces the memory requirements to less than 60% versus RDNA 3, thanks to the 8-wide design.

But that's not it. AMD has also implemented a new solution to reduce traversal costs by encoding a rotation with each box to more tightly bound the contained geometry, while aligning the box to the geometry can help remove much of the space, and the ray direction is transformed on entry to the box to match the encoded rotation. This results in fewer traversal steps, a reduction in peak cost by eliminating traversal hotspots, and an improvement in traversal performance by 10%.

The result of these changes is that RDNA 4 CUs offer 2x ray traversal performance compared to RDNA 3 at equal clock rates and bandwidth.

There's also an improved Command Processor, which features enhanced packet accelerators. The Cache is also seeing an upgrade, which is now more balanced with up to 64 MB of 3rd Gen Infinity Cache, 8 MB of L2 cache, and 2MB Aggregate CU cache. On the memory side, the RDNA 4 GPU architecture retains GDDR6 support but has been upgraded to faster speeds of up to 20.00 Gbps with up to 16 GB capacity alongside a 256-bit bus interface. RDNA 4 also employs enhanced memory compression techniques to lessen the stress on the available bandwidth.

For AI, AMD is leveraging its 3rd Generation Matrix Acceleration engine, which comes with improved Tensor Dense Rates, New 8b float data types, Structured Sparsity support, and ML-based upscaling or Super Resolution.

Compared to RDNA 3, the RDNA 4 CUs offer a 2x boost in image generation performance (SDXL 1.5) in a normalized scenario with FP16.

The Media Engine moves to a dual-width design with updated Encode/Decode engines, up to 25% quality improvement in AVC, H.264, H.265, double the AV1 throughput, and is optimized for low-latency streaming. Finally, there's the updated Radiance Display Engine, which now supports DisplayPort 2.1a, HDMI 2.1b outputs, and an updated scaling and sharpening engine.

The RDNA 4 Block Diagram

Next, we move to the RDNA 4 block diagram, which represents the full Navi 48 GPU SKU. RDNA 4 GPUs are fabricated on the TSMC 4nm process node and feature up to 53.9 Billion Transistors, and the SKU measures 356.5 mm2. The chip is also fully compliant with PCIe Gen5. The Navi 44 is the smallest chip in the lineup so far and packs a total of 29.7 Billion transistors in a die area of 199mm2.

Now it's time to break apart the RDNA 4 chip. The Navi 48 GPU (Radeon RX 9070 XT) is composed of four shader engines, and each of those houses several "Dual Compute Units", not WGPs. Each Dual Compute Unit features two Compute units, and there are a total of 8 DCUs or 16 CUs per Shader Engine. That's a total of 32 DCUs or 64 CUs on the chip itself for a total of 4096 stream processors or shader units.

Each DCU has two Ray Accelerator engines for a total of 16 RAs per Shader Engine or 64 RAs in total, while each DCU also packs 4 Matrix Acceleration Engines for a total of 32 MAs per Shader Engine and 128 MAs in total. Each Shader Engine also packs four RB+ blocks, a rasterizer engine & a Prim Unit block. There are four sections of 3rd Gen Infinity Caches and four 4x16-bit memory controllers on the outskirts of the chip.

The L2 caches are right in the middle of the GPU, which also includes two Geometry processors, two ACE units, and one each, HWS & DMA. The chip is connected using Infinity Fabric.

The Path Tracing Future Ahead For AMD

Raytracing is often seen as an outdated term in the PC gaming space. Sure, it's one form of tracing rays to make scenes look more realistic and has only started to gain traction in the console space, but the competition is often seen using a different type of ray tracer, called Path Tracing. While Ray Tracing uses a single primary ray to cast reflections, shadows, and refractions on a source, path tracing uses all possible paths of light and is a more expensive technique.

NVIDIA's Path Tracing expertise can be seen in games like Cyberpunk 2077 or Alan Wake II, which are regarded as some of the most graphics-demanding titles, and also look absolutely stunning. It was made possible to use Path Tracing through new techniques such as upscaling and frame-gen, but the Green team also invested in a brand-new technology called ray reconstruction, which helps achieve path tracing more efficiently by removing the in-engine denoisers and using AI/ML to help re-evaluate and reconstruct the image.

It looks like AMD is also following that approach with its own Neural Supersampling and Denoising technique for RDNA 4's Path Tracing capabilities.

Taking FSR To The Next Level

It's been a great year for FSR 4 with almost 60 titles added to the list since its first introduction and more on the way. While the FidelityFX game list expands thanks to continued and timely delivery of newer SDKs, it looks like AMD has silently been working on a major update for FSR, which is called FSR Redstone.

Today at Computex, AMD is finally taking the lid off FSR Redstone, which will introduce three new features: Neural Radiance Cache, Machine Learning Ray Regeneration, and Machine Learning Frame Generation. These new technologies are expected to be added to the FSR feature set in the Redstone update by 2H 2025 and will not just improve overall performance but also improve visual fidelity.

So the first part of FSR Radiance is straight up NRC or Neural Radiance Cache, which checks how light bounces in the scene to help predict and store indirect lighting. This is similar to NVIDIA's Neural Radiance Cache, which most recently saw an updated version implemented within Portal RTX.

Next is FSR Redstone "Ray Regeneration," which is the direct competition to NVIDIA's DLSS "Ray Reconstruction". With Ray Regeneration, a trained neural network is used to regenerate pixels that can not be accurately path-traced.

Ray Regeneration uses machine learning to predict and filter grainy noise in real time. NVIDIA's methodology is to use its own RR solution to replace denoisers built within game engines. We have seen Ray Reconstruction bring more performance, so that might also be the case with Ray Regeneration.

AMD is further enhancing the "Super Resolution" upscaling capabilities with FSR Redstone. This is achieved with an enhanced ML model, and finally, we have machine learning-assisted frame-gen & which takes the visual fidelity to the next level.

Just like AMD's FSR 4, FSR Redstone will only be compatible with RDNA 4 GPUs at launch, but future updates might bring some features down to older RDNA architectures. With that said, we can't wait till AMD shares more information on FSR Redstone in the coming months.

Upgraded Media & Display Capabilities

We can't end this deep dive without talking about the Media and Display Engines. So, to start it off, we first have the new Media Engines, which offer enhanced game streaming and recording through:

• 25% gain in H.264 low-latency encode quality
• 11% HEVC encode quality improvement
• AV1 encoding efficiency improved with B Frames
• Encoding performance boost of up to 30% at 720p
• Optimized for FFMPEG, OBS & Handbrake
• VCN low power video playback (50% performance uplift for AV1 & VP9)

The Display Experiences have also improved with enhanced FreeSync Power Optimization modes that deliver lower idle power in most 2-display configs, a hardware flip queue support for offloading video frame scheduling to the GPU and saving CPU power for video playback, while Radeon Image Sharpening 2 delivers high-quality images and scenes and works across all APIs through a single toggle.

The ASRock Radeon RX 9060 XT Steel Legend OC graphics card comes inside a cardboard box. The front of the package has a large "Steel Legend" brand logo along with the "OC Edition" logo in the bottom left corner.

The front of the packaging clearly lists that this is a 16 GB model, making it easy for customers to check the VRAM capacity.

The back of the box is very typical, highlighting the main features and specifications of the cards. The back also lists various AMD technologies and puts a major emphasis on "Ultra-Fast Gaming". The sides of the box greet us with the large Radeon branding. There's also the mention of 16 GB GDDR6 (RX 9060 XT) memory available on the card.

Outside of the box, the graphics card is held firmly by foam packaging. The card is nicely wrapped within an anti-static cover, which is useful to prevent any unwanted static discharges on various surfaces that might harm the graphics card. The only accessory bundled with the box is the guidebook.

After the package is taken care of, I can finally start talking about the card itself. The white color scheme looks great.

ASRock is making use of its latest Steel Legend design. The company has been fine-tuning its Steel Legend offerings for a while now, making White color designs that look sweet. The card measures 298 x 131 x 51 mm and weighs in at 967 grams. The card features a 2.55-slot height.

The cooling shroud extends to the back of the PCB, and you are getting a triple-fan cooling solution.

The back of the card features a solid metal backplate that looks stunning. The backplate offers a lot more functionality than just looks, which I will get back to in a bit.

We have tested a lot of Steel Legend graphics cards from ASRock in the past and this one continues to evolve the design and cooling capabilities for a new generation of GPUs.

The Steel Legend series is designed as the mid-tier offering, which sits below the Phantom Gaming and the most premium Taichi series. The Challenger series mostly goes with a dual-fan cooler and is the entry-level model within ASRock's lineup.

The card features multiple LED zones which light up the three fans and the "Steel Legend" logo on the side.

Coming to the fans, the card features the latest Stripped Ring fan designs. These fans feature 9 blades in 92mm frames. These fans come with a polished surface and a inner stripe structure & outer ring structure.

ASRock's new fan system has the 0dB technology, which ensures that the fans don't spin at lower temperatures, avoiding unwanted noise output.

I am back to talking about the full-coverage, full metal-based backplate that the card uses. The whole plate is made of solid metal with rounded edges that add to the durability of this card. The brushed black finish on the backplate gives a unique aesthetic. There's also a switch that let's you turn on or off the RGB LEDs.

The graphics card also comes with a compact PCB design, which means that the shroud, heatsink, and backplate are all extended beyond the PCB. The entire third fan blows air through the heatsink and blows it out from the cutouts that are situated at the very end of the backplate. There are cutouts in screw placements to easily reach the points on the graphics card. The large Steel Legend logo can also be seen on the back, which gives a unique touch.

With the outside of the card done, I will now start taking a glance at what's beneath the hood of the graphics card. The first thing to catch my eye is the large fin stack that's part of the heatsink.

The card features an air-deflecting fin design that guides the airflow to go through the fins quickly and regularly. These fins form a V-shaped pattern, which is used to vent out the air.

ASRock also uses an ultra-fit heatpipe design with a total of four heatpipes that make contact with the copper base. The main baseplate also makes contact with the VRAM modules. The company is also using a high-density metal welding process to improve heat dissipation.

I/O on the graphics card sticks with the reference scheme, which includes two DisplayPort 2.1a & a single HDMI 2.1 port.

The ASRock Radeon RX 9060 XT Steel Legend OC 16 GB comes with a single 8-pin connector to feed its 182W power rating. The card has a maximum frequency of 3320 MHz, a 190 MHz increase over the stock clocks.

In terms of PCB, the ASRock Radeon RX 9060 XT Steel Legend 16 GB graphics card features a 10-phase VRM design. It makes use of Super Alloy components, which include Dr.MOS MOSFETs, premium power chokes, and a high-density glass fabric PCB.

ASRock Radeon RX 9060 XT Steel Legend OC RGB Lighting Gallery:

ASRock uses its Polychrome Sync RGB Lighting technology to power up the Steel Legend series and comes with four LED zones, which include three fans, and the side accent plate.

The following is what the graphics card looks like when lit up.

We used the following test system for comparison between the different graphics cards. The latest drivers that were available at the time of testing were used by AMD, Intel & NVIDIA on an updated version of Windows 11. All tested games were patched to the latest version for better performance optimization for NVIDIA, Intel, and AMD GPUs.

WCCFTECH GPU "E" Test Bench (2025):

CPU	Intel Core i9-13900K @ Default
Motherboard	MSI MEG Z790 ACE
Video Cards	Maxsun Intel Arc B580 iCraft GALAX GeForce RTX 5060 EX Colorful GeForce RTX 5060 Battle NX ASRock Radeon RX 9060 XT Steel Legend OC MSI Radeon RX 6950 XT Gaming X Trio Intel Arc A770 16 GB Limited Edition MSI Radeon RX 6900 XT Gaming X Trio MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X MSI GeForce RTX 3070 Ti SUPRIM X MSI Radeon RX 6800 XT Gaming X Trio MSI GeForce RTX 3070 Gaming X Trio MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Lightning Z ASRock RX 7800 XT Phantom Gaming NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER FE NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 FE MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Gaming X MSI GeForce RTX 5060 Gaming OC MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Gaming X MSI Radeon RX 6650 XT Gaming X ASUS GeForce RTX 4070 Ti TUF Gaming Intel Arc B580 GALAX GeForce RTX 4070 OC 2X (GDDR6) ASRock Intel Arc B570 Challenger OC MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Gaming X Trio MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Gaming X
Memory	G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series 32GB (2 X 16GB) CL38 7200 Mbps
Storage	Teamgroup T-Force A440 Pro 2 TB Gen 4
Power Supply	MSI MEG Ai1300P 1300W PSU
OS	Windows 11 64-bit (24H2)
Drivers	AMD Radeon Adrenalin Edition 25.10.09 NVIDIA GeForce 576.52 WHQL Intel 6733 WHQL

WCCFTECH GPU "E" Test Bench (2025):

• All games were tested at 3840x2160 (4K) resolution.
• Image Quality and graphics configurations are provided with each game description.
• The "reference" cards are the stock configs except where mentioned otherwise.

Speed Way

Developed with input from AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, and other leading technology companies, Speed Way is an ideal benchmark for comparing the DirectX 12 Ultimate performance of the latest graphics cards. 3DMark Speed Way’s engine is assembled to demonstrate what the latest DirectX API brings to ray-traced gaming, using DirectX Raytracing tier 1.1 for real-time global illumination and real-time ray-traced reflections, coupled with new performance optimizations like Mesh Shaders.

Firestrike

Firestrike is running the DX11 API and is still a good measure of GPU scaling performance. In this test, we ran the Extreme and Ultra versions of Firestrike, which run at 1440p and 4K, and we recorded the Graphics Score only since the Physics and combined scores are not pertinent to this review.

Time Spy

Time Spy is running the DX12 API, and we used it in the same manner as Firestrike Extreme, where we only recorded the Graphics Score, as the Physics score records the CPU performance and isn't important to the testing we are doing here.

Port Royal

Port Royal is another great tool in the 3DMark suite, but this one is 100% targeting Ray Tracing performance. It loads up ray-traced shadows, reflections, and global illumination to tax the performance of the graphics cards that either have hardware-based or software-based ray-tracing support.

Doom Eternal

DOOM Eternal brings hell to Earth with the Vulkan-powered IDTech 7.  We test this game using the Ultra Nightmare Preset and follow our in-game benchmarking to stay consistent.

Red Dead Redemption 2

Developed by Rockstar San Diego, Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the most visually stunning open-world games I've played to date. It is backed up by a rich story set around the protagonist, Arthur Morgan. The game is based on the RAGE engine, which features an insane amount of graphics fidelity but also requires a lot of power to run maxed out. For this test, we set the graphics settings to Ultra with AA turned off.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood

Wolfenstein is back in The New Colossus and features the most fast-paced, gory, and brutal FPS action ever! The game once again puts us back in the Nazi-controlled world as BJ Blazkowicz. Set in an alternate future where the Nazis won the World War, the game shows that it can be fun and can be brutal to the player and to the enemy too. Powering the new title is, once again, Id Tech 6, which is much acclaimed after the success that DOOM has become. In a way, ID has regained its glorious FPS roots and is slaying with every new title.

Alan Wake 2

Alan Wake 2 sets you up in a horror thriller that takes place in two dimensions and lets you play two different protagonists, Alan himself and Saga, who once again have to find a way to fix the darkness that erupted in Bright Falls.

Atomic Heart

Atomic Heart is set in an alternate universe where the Soviet Union achieved incredible technological breakthroughs thanks to a scientist named Dr. Sechenov, who invented a liquid programmable module called Polymer that links robots in a so-called Kollektiv network.

Battlefield V

Battlefield V brings back the action of the World War 2 shooter genre. Using the latest Frostbite tech, the game does a good job of looking gorgeous in all ways possible. From the open-world environments to the intense and gun-blazing action, this multiplayer and single-player FPS title is one of the best-looking Battlefield titles to date.

Baldur's Gate III

2023's GOTY is well-deserved for its title. The creation from Larian Studios is a turn-based RPG that has gorgeous interiors and exteriors shown through a bird's eye top-to-bottom view. You can sink countless hours into the game, and if you're a fan of the D&D playstyle, then this epic is just for you.

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 is an action role-playing video game developed by CD Projekt Red and published by CD Projekt. The story takes place in Night City, an open world set in the Cyberpunk universe. Players assume the first-person perspective of a customizable mercenary known as V, who can acquire skills in hacking and machinery with options for melee and ranged combat. The game uses CD Projekt Red's in-house Red Engine, which is one of the most visually breathtaking and also one of the most graphics-intensive engines designed to date.

Dead Space (Remake)

Remaking Dead Space was a bold choice, but I would say that the team at EA Motive nailed every bit and piece of this horror classic. The remake makes the USG Ishimura twice as scarily beautiful. The gore, the endless corridors of terror, the void of space, all of it looks incredible while the game remains true to its core, to the original Dead Space formula. Modern cards can run the game well, but it can also be demanding if you crank the settings to the max with ray tracing enabled.

Death Stranding

Sam Porter Bridges has delivered one of PS4's most anticipated games to the PC community and opened a whole new world of possibilities. This was the first game to feature the Decima Engine on PC and unarguably did it the best. Death Stranding may not feature ray-tracing effects, but it does showcase that DLSS can be used effectively even when RT isn't around. We tested this one just like we did in our launch coverage with DLSS enabled.

Forza Horizon 5

Forza Horizon 5 carries on the open-world racing tradition of the Horizon series.  The latest DX12-powered entry is beautifully crafted, amazingly well executed, and a great showcase of DX12 games.  We use the benchmark run while having all the settings set to non-dynamic with an uncapped framerate to gather these results.

Halo Infinite (DX12 Highest)

Next up, we have the latest entry in the Halo franchise, Halo: Infinite, which uses the brand new Slipspace engine (although there are rumors it will be ditched in the future for Unreal Engine) based on the DX12 API. The game rocks some incredible environments for Master Chief to visit on the Halo ring.

Hitman III (DX12 Highest Settings)

Hitman III is the highly acclaimed sequel to the 2016 Hitman & 2018 Hitman II, which was a redesign and reimaging of the game from the ground up. With a focus on stealth gameplay through various missions, the game once again lets you play as Agent 47. The game runs on the IO Interactive Glacier 2 engine, which has been updated to deliver amazing visuals and environments on each level while making use of the DirectX 12 API.

Metro Exodus

Metro Exodus continues Artyom's journey through Russia's nuclear wasteland and its surroundings. This time, you are set over the Metro, going through various regions and different environments. The game is one of the premier titles to feature NVIDIA’s RTX technology and does well in showcasing the ray-tracing effects in all corners.

Resident Evil Village

Resident Evil Village is the latest in the horror franchise that was wonderfully rekindled with RE7 and onto the RE2 Remake. But now the RE Engine is back and better than ever with Ray Traced Reflections and Lighting that makes the world just come to life, unironically. The game was tested in the center of the village itself with all graphical settings maxed out and with raytracing enabled.

Resident Evil IV Remake

The remake of the beloved and highly acclaimed Resident Evil IV is here, boasting the latest RE engine, which adds stunning visuals and even better ray tracing effects. The game looks just as incredible as it plays.

Starfield

Bethesda's latest RPG epic is set in space and takes place across a vast universe, filled with lots of planets to explore. Based on the latest iteration of the Creation Engine, Starfield offers a great amount of visual fidelity, whether you are exploring an abandoned base or just roaming a planet on which you have just set foot.

No graphics card review is complete without evaluating its temperatures and thermal load.

The battle in the sub-$400 US market has been a brutal one for all major GPU vendors. Last-gen, AMD and NVIDIA offered some underwhelming solutions, such as the RX 7600 and RTX 4060 GPUs, and Alchemist from Intel struggled due to lackluster driver support. However, Intel was the first to enter the next-gen GPU space with its Battlemage B580 and B570, both offering great value & more than 8 GB VRAM, plus with the backing of much finer software. It was up to AMD and NVIDIA to up their game from there, but NVIDIA 5060 series stumbled with their disappointing gen-on-gen gains and the emphasis on DLSS 4 (MFG), which was the only feature that made these cards stand out. It is now AMD's turn with the 9060 series, and today, we finally get to talk about the 16 GB variant of the 9060 XT.

The Red Team Brings Back Sensible Price/Perf Positioning In the Sub $400 US Segment

AMD has, without a doubt, managed to tick one box that they were highlighting ever since the introduction of RDNA 4, to bring back the price/perf war against its rivals. The RX 9060 XT with its $349 US price and 16 GB VRAM cements that claim and offers great performance, which is either on par with the 5060 Ti 16 GB, a graphics card that retails for $80 US more and also manages to beat it in a couple of titles that we had tested.

The Radeon RX 9070 series already delivers strong value against the RTX 5070 series, but the $300-$400 US segment is crucial for both NVIDIA and AMD, and it is AMD that is leading this segment now, with the performance we managed to see in our benchmarks throughout our testing. In the titles where the 5060 Ti wins, it is only by a marginal 5-10 FPS, and with the abundant 16 GB VRAM that the 9060 XT has to its disposal, you can get a very playable experience at 1440p and an even better experience at 1080p if you are running high-refresh rate monitors.

Another area which surprised us is ray tracing performance, where the 9060 XT and 5060 Ti were neck-on-neck. There were a few titles with Path Tracing where the RTX 50 series excelled over the RDNA 4 offerings but in standard ray traced titles, the Red Team has seen major improvements & that works in their favor as future games are relying heavily on the technology.

FSR 4 May Not Have MFG, But It Looks Just As Good As DLSS 4 Now

FSR 4 is entering its refinement stage now. While DLSS 4 has better support in number of titles, and also has games out there that support various next-gen technologies such as Neural Radiance Cache, MFG, and Ray Reconstruction, AMD is getting there and with FSR 4 Redstone landing later this year, the company is going to offer even better image quality and frame-generation support to gamers that are part of its ecosystem.

The only major drawback is that AMD still feels like it's catching up to DLSS 4, as the innovations coming in FSR 4 redstone are already being implemented by NVIDIA partnered developers who leverage DLSS 4. So, while AMD has 60+ FSR 4 titles this month, NVIDIA has many more, and the numbers are in favor of NVIDIA. The company is also looking to further enhance DLSS 4 in the coming months so it won't be that simple to tackle NVIDIA in the AI realm unless AMD really starts thinking out of the box and becomes the first to introduce a major game-changing technology for its FiedlityFX suite that makes gamers switch from the Green Team.

Things we liked about the ASRock Radeon RX 9060 XT Steel Legend OC 16 GB:

• Faster than the RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB in many titles
• Great Perf/$ if available at MSRP
• FSR 4 + Redstone support is great
• Ray Tracing performance is now competitive
• 16 GB VRAM is sufficient for 1440p gaming
• Low noise output with 0 dB operation
• Factory overclocked out of the box
• DP2.1a & HDMI 2.1 support
• PCIe Express 5.0 technology

AMD's partners are also putting out some great designs, such as the Steel Legend OC from ASRock, which offers a massive, almost +200 MHz, overclock out of the box, along with a triple-fan cooling solution that looks and works brilliantly. The card also features a standard 8-pin connector, making sure that mainstream gamers don't have to worry about all the ATX/PCIe standards that are a pain to get to know when running 16-pin connectors.

Things that can improve:

• 16 GB model at $299 US instead of 8 GB would have been awesome
• Lower power rating
• GDDR6 memory runs hot
• Premium vs MSRP (+$ 40 US)
• FSR 4 doesn't offer MFG support
• FSR 4 Redstone support is still months away

The AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB graphics card around $350-$380 US, is an excellent choice for mainstream PC gamers. You get great performance for 1080p/1440p gaming, FSR 4 support that lands you good image quality in frame-generation and upscaling modes, faster ray tracing that is on par with NVIDIA's Blackwell offering, and supports all the latest features in terms of media and video playback. While we haven't tested the 8 GB model and while AMD believes some gamers might want to go with a lower-priced and lower-VRAM solution, we think it's time that higher VRAM solutions become the standard. Intel has already paved the way with its 10 GB B570 & 12 GB B580, which retail for under $300 US. In fact, if Intel ever comes out with a 16 GB Battlemage with a GPU bigger than its current die, then that has the potential to further shake things up in this segment. But in the meantime, the RX 9060 XT is an easy recommendation to those who don't see that big of a benefit from NVIDIA's DLSS 4 features, which are definitely enticing, but in terms of value, the Red Team wins this one with its 16 GB 9060 XT.

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