GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9060 XT GAMING OC 16GB Review – Not Too Fancy, Not Too Shabby

Unboxing

AMD’s RDNA 4 architecture has officially joined the mid-range club with the new Radeon RX 9060 XT, and today we got GIGABYTE’s GAMING OC 16GB variant for testing. (Note that 8GB version of the GPU also exists.) The outer box opens to reveal an inner box, which includes just two items – the quick guide, and the GPU itself.

Walkaround

Despite its triple-fan layout, the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9060 XT GAMING OC 16GB is a fairly small card measuring just 281 x 118 x 40 mm, so it should comfortably fit virtually all cases short for a few ultra-compact SFF PC designs. We also see similar fan blade profiles as other GIGABYTE-branded Radeon card we reviewed earlier, though in this case the 9060 XT adopts a skinner 9-blade configuration as opposed to the wider 7-blade design found in the 9070.

The top and bottom side profile shows the card’s 2-slot thickness, along with the PCB that extends to roughly two-thirds of the shroud’s length – the last one-third is reserved for the third fan utilizing flow-through cooling through the heatsinks exposed on the backplate. Power delivery is done through a single PCIe 8-pin connector that delivers 150 watts on its own, with the remainder managed by the PCIe bus connector (which delivers 75W maximum). The connector also has a small LED embedded nearby to detect loose connections or other anomalies.

Here’s something unusual compared to most modern GPUs – the Radeon RX 9060 XT natively only supports up to three external displays via a pair of DisplayPort 2.1a outputs (one less than virtually all modern-day consumer GPUs), along with the lone HDMI 2.1b port, all capable of outputting 8K resolution.

The card features a small RGB lighting zone illuminating the GIGABYTE wordmark, though this can be slid away from its default position, though I can’t imagine there’s any other use for the exposed LEDs (maybe the 3D printing community have some ideas), which gets quite bright when uncovered.

Specifications

GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9060 XT GAMING OC 16GB

Full specifications available on product page.

GPU Core & VRAM: AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB
GPU Core Variant	Navi 44 XT
Microarchitecture	RDNA 4
Process Node	TSMC N4P (enhanced 5nm-class)
Transistors	29.7 billion
Die size	199mm²
Compute Units (CUs)	32
ROPs / TMUs	64 / 128
Stream Processors (SPs)	2048
AI Accelerators	64
Ray Accelerators	32
Cache	32MB Infinity Cache (L3)
VRAM Configuration	16GB GDDR6 128-bit
Memory Bandwidth	20 Gbps, 320 GB/s peak
Add-in board: GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9060 XT GAMING OC 16GB
Fan Layout	Triple axial fans (single-fan flow-through)
Game/Boost Clocks	? / ? MHz
TBP (TDP)	182W
Recommended PSU	450W
Dual BIOS Mode	No
Display Outputs	2x DisplayPort 2.1a UHBR13.5 1x HDMI 2.1b *Max output resolution: 7680×4320 (8K)
Power Connector	1x PCIe 8-pin connector
Bus Interface	PCIe 5.0 x16
Dimensions	2-slot, 281 x 118 x 40 mm

Test System

CPU	Intel Core i9-13900K
Cooling	Cooler Master MasterLiquid PL360 Flux 30th Anniversary Edition Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut
Motherboard	ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Dark Hero
GPU	> GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9060 XT GAMING OC 16GB
Memory	ADATA XPG CASTER DDR5-6000 CL30 (2x16GB) *configured to DDR5-6400 CL32
Storage	ADATA LEGEND 960 MAX 1TB
Power Supply	Cooler Master MWE Gold 1250 V2 Full Modular (ATX12V 2.52) 1250W
Case	VECTOR Bench Case (Open-air chassis)
Operating System	Windows 11 Home 24H2

Performance

All benchmarks are done in out-of-the-box settings under Performance Mode – for gaming benchmarks, upscaling and frame generation features such as NVIDIA DLSS, AMD FSR, or Intel XeSS are turned off unless otherwise specified in the chart.

Synthetic Benchmarks

Looking at synthetic benchmark figures, the RX 9060 XT (overclocked with increased 182W TBP in this case) achieve different degrees of lead against the RTX 4060 Ti, with the Radeon achieving big leads in Time Spy and Port Royal benchmarks. It’s performance level is also similar to the RX 7700 XT from the previous RDNA 3 generation.

Gaming Benchmarks

For gaming benchmarks, the framerate vary quite a lot depending on which game you run – Forza Horizon 5 is among the easiest games to handle for most GPUs, of which RX 9060 XT easily achieves 100+ FPS at 1440p even at maximum settings with RT enabled. On the contrary, Black Myth: Wukong without any upscaling assistance is basically modern-day Crysis, and it still struggles to reach 60 FPS with FSR and Frame Generation enabled.

Generally though, you should be fine achieving 60 FPS in most modern-day games with maximum settings at 1440p or 1080p in some cases, which is still pretty solid considering this is still a relatively cheap mid-range GPU. In pure rasterization, the GPU can deliver 90 FPS in several titles we tested in 1440p just fine.

Thermals

In terms of thermals, the GPU sensor reports very low GPU temperatures that hovers in the mid to low-50s throughout both stress tests, though VRAM modules does end up a bit higher in relation to the GPU core temperature. In all cases, they’re far from thermal throttling limits, so there’s nothing to worry as far as thermals are concerned. In terms of power draw, this card does pull extra power compared to the “stock” variants per AMD’s spec sheet (160W), though it’s still perfectly reasonable as far as mid-range cards go.

Verdict

At the time of publishing we have yet to receive pricing information for the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9060 XT GAMING OC 16GB, although we can confirm AMD’s base MSRP pricing for 16GB cards start from $349 (~RM1,482). Given that this is a factory-overclocked model, expect slightly higher price tag than AMD’s figures.

In any case, this GIGABYTE GPU is solid if you’re targeting 1440p resolutions (be it native or upscaled), and we have no complaints concerning its thermals and acoustics. This overclocked model still keeps the TBP at a reasonable 182 watts – couple that with RDNA 4’s gen-on-gen improvements and you get a solidly efficient card, all things considered. Most importantly, you get 16GB of VRAM so the silicon doesn’t get held back by the lack of memory, which is a legitimate concern these days.

The only downside of this card (if we’re nitpicking) is the lack of dual-BIOS – if you don’t mind the absence of this feature, we think this is a decent option to go for if you can truly get the card at MSRP, though this has been a big ask given today’s market climate.

Special thanks to AMD Malaysia for providing the GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9060 XT GAMING OC 16GB graphics card for this review.