Summary
- AMD is rumored to release RX 9060 XT in 8GB & 16GB versions.
- Similar to RX 7600, the RX 9060 XT could offer similar performance across both versions.
- 8GB of memory may be insufficient for modern games, while 16GB might be excessive for a budget GPU.
Old habits die hard, and it looks like AMD is about to prove that sentiment. The company revealed that it's working on an RX 9060 XT during the livestream where it launched the RX 9070 XT, and details about the weaker card are starting to come out. The RX 9060 XT surfaced in a Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) filing, which tipped off that AMD will release two versions of the graphics card -- one with 8GB of memory and another with 16GB.
This is the same playbook that AMD ran in the previous generation with its RX 7600. The budget GPU is among the best graphics cards you can buy, but AMD followed up the release with a 16GB version that offered almost identical performance for a $60 price increase. That made the upgraded version tough to recommend, as you can read about in our RX 7600 XT review.
Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7600 OC review: Good 1080p performance in a pint-sized package
Great for 1080p gaming, as long as you don't mind skipping ray-tracing.
The RX 9060 XT looks like it'll come in two flavors
The EEC filing comes from Acer, which listed several RX 9060 XT models in its filing (spotted by @harukaze5719 on X). Unlike the previous generation, where AMD split the 8GB and 16GB versions with the XT distinction, it looks like both the 8GB and 16GB models will live as the RX 9060 XT. That strongly suggests the cards will come with identical specs outside of the memory configuration.
This is something we've seen several times from Nvidia in the past few generations, from the two versions of the RTX 4060 Ti to the quiet update of the RTX 3080 from 10GB of memory to 12GB. And just like those GPUs, there's a good chance the RX 9060 XT will be caught in an awkward spot in the GPU market given its memory configuration.
As games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle showcase, 8GB of memory is quickly becoming too little to play modern games, even at 1080p. On the other hand, 16GB of memory is overkill for a budget-focused graphics card. It depends on where AMD lands with pricing, but we might be headed for another situation like we saw with the RX 7600 XT.
This is a consequence of the architecture ultimately -- you can't just cut a memory die in half and hope for the best -- but it still leaves AMD's upcoming budget GPU in a strange spot. AMD says it'll have more to share on the GPU soon, so hopefully we'll have all of the details in a few month's time.