9060 XT 16GB or 6800 XT/6900XT?

[RaceT3ch]

I've been looking at lots of reviews recently, and I must say I'm glad AMD is making some progress with their RDNA 4 architecture. However, their old RDNA 2 flagships perform as well or better. I think it would be a good idea to get the old cards, but I want some more opinions on this.

 

[dartuil]

how much u got each card

 

[wolf]

At around the same price, for use in a current system I'd pick the 9060XT from your options.

• Brand new with warranty
• more efficient / uses significantly less power / generates less heat
• will get driver updates for longer
• FSR4

6900XT would be a great pickup for a collector, and the traditional performance is a modest chunk better, but I think the new cards pro's outweigh that for general use. Much the same for 6800XT but less performance than 6900XT and less desirable to collect. The 9060XT all seem to OC and add ~10% too.

 

[zenlaserman]

The 9060XT is a better pairing for you, IMO. A have one paired with my 5600G and it performs awesome. It's also considerably more efficient than the 6800/6900

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Power consumption and upscaling is terrible on RDNA2 especially transients unless I was getting a way too good to pass up deal I'd take the 9060XT 16 over them easily.

 

[sLowEnd]

The 6800 XT and 6900 XT are faster in raster. (The 6900 XT quite a bit so at >20% faster)

They lack some new features the 9060 XT has and they consume a lot more power. You should take a look at the games you play or want to play and see if the 9060 XT can meet your performance targets. If it can, then it's probably better to get the newer card even if it is technically slower in raster, unless the old cards are substantially cheaper.

 

[Dr. Dro]

9060 XT will definitely be the most refined experience here. It might not win the brawn competition, but it's got many new and improved features, the power consumption is much lower. It's a matter of work smarter, not harder.

 

[RootinTootinPootin]

if you can get the old gen at a cheaper price, I don't mind, 16gb VRAM and still an average 1440p gamer GPU, sure the new features won't work, if you're not so so on the image quality FSR3 isn't half ass bad for the extra performance it can juice out. I mean for the price point if its cheap, I won't complain.

9060XT 16GB makes sense if you want warranty and probably play on 1080p.

 

[Frick]

It all depends on cost, from RDNA2 I'd say the 6950XT is plenty viable still.

 

[RaceT3ch]

how much u got each card

700 for the 9060 XT

6800-6900's go between 500-700 (AUD)

The 9060XT is a better pairing for you, IMO. A have one paired with my 5600G and it performs awesome. It's also considerably more efficient than the 6800/6900

Pretty sure 9060XTs perform pretty badly in PCIE 3.0

 

[mb194dc]

This is for 1080p 240hz ? What's the use case? I would buy a higher res screen before I changed graphics card or save and do both. Personally find it hard to use 1080p these days.

 

[NSR]

RDNA 2 isn't worth it without a chunky discount. If you can afford the new generation, buy the new generation.

I really liked my 6800 but I wouldn't buy it again in 2025.

 

[RaceT3ch]

This is for 1080p 240hz ? What's the use case? I would buy a higher res screen before I changed graphics card or save and do both. Personally find it hard to use 1080p these days.

I'm planning a new PC
240hz 1440p
Probably has a 7500f-7600x

Gonna start Video editing

I'm planning a new PC
240hz 1440p
Probably has a 7500f-7600x

Gonna start Video editing

I'll also add, it'll be GPU 1st, while I get the rest of it.
Gonna reuse the 850 watt PSU though.

 

[claylomax]

Power consumption and upscaling is terrible on RDNA2 especially transients unless I was getting a way too good to pass up deal I'd take the 9060XT 16 over them easily.

Power consumption is not terrible.

 

[Fishymachine]

As someone running a 6800XT, I say 9060XT. It's worse in raster, but not by much, and reverses that in RT, sometimes putting a small gap, all while having better power, thermals, driver support ans upscalling

 

[Alyux]

I have a 6800 XT myself, and it's an amazing card, but for 1080p high refresh rate the 9060 XT 16GB is the clear winner. That said, a 6800/6900XT might be preferable if you don't care about upscaling or power efficiency and just want raw rasterization grunt, especially at 1440p.

 

[dgianstefani]

At around the same price, for use in a current system I'd pick the 9060XT from your options.

• Brand new with warranty
• more efficient / uses significantly less power / generates less heat
• will get driver updates for longer
• FSR4

6900XT would be a great pickup for a collector, and the traditional performance is a modest chunk better, but I think the new cards pro's outweigh that for general use. Much the same for 6800XT but less performance than 6900XT and less desirable to collect. The 9060XT all seem to OC and add ~10% too.

Literally just for "new" + "FSR 4" the 9060XT is no brainer, regardless of relative performance, the amount of baked in non-disableable RT effects these days hammer GTX or RDNA3 and older cards hard. RDNA 4 and onwards is a significant hardware separation from previous cards, similar to the jump from RX 580 to later gens, or GTX 1080 Ti to RTX 2080 Ti.

Unless you're essentially getting the 6900XT for free, or maybe $100, I wouldn't touch them.

I have a 6800 XT myself, and it's an amazing card, but for 1080p high refresh rate the 9060 XT 16GB is the clear winner. That said, a 6800/6900XT might be preferable if you don't care about upscaling or power efficiency and just want raw rasterization grunt, especially at 1440p.

It's a six year old card on the other side of the FSR 4/AI hardware moat. It's essentially useless at RT, can power spike above 600 W, and any models you can find used were likely mined on.
I wouldn't touch these cards with a 10 ft pole unless they were free, or ridiculously cheap, like I said.

These spikes can and will trip many pre ATX 3.0/3.1 PSUs, and even some of the new models that have that certification.

 

[Alyux]

It's essentially useless at RT, can power spike above 600 W, and any models you can find used were likely mined on.

All true. Those models being mined on isn't a be-all end-all dealbreaker, but I agree, not a good buy unless it's aggressively marked down.

 

[RootinTootinPootin]

240hz 1440p

with the 9060XT you won't even max the 240hz on 1440p, you need a larger monster for that, for 1080p, depends on what settings you play at but you're getting there, like we said, only get the RDNA2 if its "very cheap", else with your posted prices, its a no brainer the 9060XT 16GB is a better choice.

 

[AlienIsGOD]

9060 XT gets my vote, FSR 4 and comparable raw perf to a 7700 XT and a better card when RT is enabled. Also as a 5600 user, my 7700 XT pairs very nicely with it and gives me close to max or max settings at 1440P 165hz in the games I play.

 

[RaceT3ch]

I haven't seen FSR except for 1 or 2. Whenever I used it, everything just became too soft.

Are there any videos comparing FSR 4 to native?
Because I'm very picky when it comes to image sharpness.

Also doesn't FSR 4 need to be implemented into games?

 

[sLowEnd]

Power consumption is not terrible.

The 6800XT and 6900XT chugs about 300W under load and has transient spikes in excess of 550/600W

Sapphire Radeon RX 9060 XT Pulse OC 16 GB Review - An Excellent Choice

The Sapphire Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB sells close to MSRP, yet it features a factory overclock and higher power limit. In our testing, its cooler remained whisper-quiet even at full load. Interestingly, this model uses Samsung memory, whereas all other cards we've tested so far use Hynix.

www.techpowerup.com

For the level of performance they offer, that is objectively bad power consumption by today's standards. It's RTX 5080 levels of power draw (or RTX 5090 levels of power spikes) for RTX 4070 levels of (raster) performance.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

The 6800XT and 6900XT chugs about 300W under load and has transient spikes in excess of 550/600W

Sapphire Radeon RX 9060 XT Pulse OC 16 GB Review - An Excellent Choice

The Sapphire Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB sells close to MSRP, yet it features a factory overclock and higher power limit. In our testing, its cooler remained whisper-quiet even at full load. Interestingly, this model uses Samsung memory, whereas all other cards we've tested so far use Hynix.

www.techpowerup.com

For the level of performance they offer, that is objectively bad power consumption by today's standards. It's RTX 5080 levels of power draw (or RTX 5090 levels of power spikes) for RTX 4070 levels of (raster) performance.

For sure, at release they were fine because Ampere had similar power requirements but in 2025 given their performance it's bad especially the transients.

20% more raster performance for 64% more power with the 6900XT and that is just raster... In RT it's actually slightly slower in TPU suite of games. Transients are a laughably bad 180% worse.

6800XT isn't better 12% more performance for 62% more power and transients are 150% worse.

How anyone would view that as a good option over the 9060XT unless it was cheaper is beyond me.

 

[RaphaelOne]

Power consumption and upscaling is terrible on RDNA2 especially transients unless I was getting a way too good to pass up deal I'd take the 9060XT 16 over them easily.

The RX6800 (non-XT, 250W TDP, 7nm) at the time of its premiere brought the highest energy efficiency among all large graphics cards for gamers on the market. The bar was raised slightly by the RX7000 and RTX4000.
The RX6800 after manual underclocking (-5%) and undervolting (-9%) gives absolutely phenomenal energy efficiency placing this 7nm card at the level of some RDNA3 made in 5nm.
The RX9060XT has a 128-bit memory bus and a much lower TDP, but the performance is also slightly lower than the RX6800 (and RX6800XT).

 

[dgianstefani]

The RX6800 (non-XT, 250W TDP, 7nm) at the time of its premiere brought the highest energy efficiency among all large graphics cards for gamers on the market. The bar was raised slightly by the RX7000 and RTX4000.
The RX6800 after manual underclocking (-5%) and undervolting (-9%) gives absolutely phenomenal energy efficiency placing this 7nm card at the level of some RDNA3 made in 5nm.
The RX9060XT has a 128-bit memory bus and a much lower TDP, but the performance is also slightly lower than the RX6800 (and RX6800XT).

7nm TSMC GDDR6 vs 10nm 8 nm Samsung competition with GDDR6X, to be expected.

Even before undervolting, which is similarly effective for NVIDIA and even Intel GPUs as AMD, a simple power limit adjustment will net 95% or in this case 100% of performance for significant energy savings.

It's same scenario as "AMD more efficient CPUs" when people compare powerlimited Zen parts vs K unlocked parts. Ofc the power limited card does better in P/W, almost all cards are massively pushed past their efficiency sweet spot out of box, as using more power is better for OEM than using more silicon.

You can take a 5090 on the same 5 nm process as last gen two years ago, to 350 W with a cap and an undervolt, lose 10% perf, still be indisuputed perf champion, and almost halve energy usage. This is for a "600 W" card that people lambast for being "inefficient".

Personally I find the VSync tests to be most informative of the actual architectural/process efficiency, as it's not taking the cards into positions where they're using their entire power budget, thus every card acts much closer to their efficiency sweet spot.

There's no 9060 cards on here because those tests don't include the much higher tier cards, which are interesting.