Should You Upgrade Your Nvidia RTX 3060 To Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB?

The Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB is one of the most powerful budget GPUs, so it can even play games at 1440p. Should RTX 3060 owners upgrade to it?

PIcture of Nvidia RTX 3060 vs AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT — Nvidia RTX 3060 vs AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT (Image via ASUS | XFX)

AMD shocked the budget mid-range gaming GPU sector by releasing the Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB. This graphics card comes close to the performance of Nvidia’s latest RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, while costing $90 to $100 less. Budget gamers finally have a great GPU that users can buy.

The Nvidia RTX 3060 owners have been waiting for a graphics card like this, which can not only provide higher performance but also more memory to future-proof their system. The question is: Is the Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB worth upgrading to from your RTX 3060 12GB model? That’s exactly what we plan to find in this article, with a detailed comparison of the two GPUs.

Note: This article is subjective and reflects the writer’s opinions.

Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB vs Nvidia RTX 3060: Detailed Comparison

Picture of ASUS Dual NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 V2 GPU — ASUS Dual NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 V2 GPU (Image via ASUS)

The Nvidia RTX 3060 was launched back in early 2021 with budget 1440p gaming performance and 12GB of memory. On the other hand, the Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB was released in June 2025. It has 16GB of memory and a decent 1440p gaming performance.

The Radeon 9060 XT GPU essentially launched four years later, so it will be interesting to see what kind of performance improvements it brings. However, before we begin comparing the two graphics cards, let’s look at their specs first to understand what they bring to the table.

Here are the specs of the Nvidia RTX 3060 and the Radeon RX 9060 XT:

Specs Comparison

Specifications	AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB	Nvidia RTX 3060
Architecture	RDNA 4	Ampere
Shader cores	2048	3584
RT cores	32	28
TMUs	128	112
ROPs	64	48
Base core clock speeds	1700 MHz	1320 MHz
Boost core clock speeds	3130 MHz	1777 MHz
Memory capacity	16 GB GDDR6	12 GB GDDR6
Memory bus width	128-bit	192-bit
Memory bandwidth	322.3 GB/s	360.0 GB/s
Manufacturing node	4nm	8nm
Thermal design power (TDPs)	160W	170W

Performance Comparison

Picture of Ghost of Tsushima running on RTX 3060 and Radeon 9060 XT — Ghost of Tsushima running on RTX 3060 and Radeon 9060 XT (Image via After Bench channel on YouTube)

Let’s put the specs aside and check out the actual performance differences between the two GPUs in real-world games. Here’s how Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB and Nvidia RTX 3060 perform:

Games	AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB	Nvidia RTX 3060
God of War Ragnarok	73 FPS	44 FPS
Cyberpunk 2077	73 FPS	41 FPS
Black Myth Wukong (RT)	28 FPS	17 FPS
Star Wars Outlaws (RT)	40 FPS	24 FPS
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2	73 FPS	42 FPS
Ghost of Tsushima	74 FPS	45 FPS

Note: The two GPUs here were tested at 1440p resolution with High/Ultra Settings unless mentioned otherwise. All the FPS numbers were sourced from the After Bench channel on YouTube. For the tests, the two graphics cards were tested with a Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU.

The Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB is a whopping 69.4% faster than the RTX 3060 12GB. Now, that’s a tremendous improvement, which is exactly what RTX 3060 owners have been waiting for. Nvidia used to be the winner in ray tracing, but AMD has beaten it in this sector.

Out of the six tested games, two were with RT enabled. Even in RT games, the AMD Radeon 9060 XT managed to beat the RTX 3060 by 65.8%, which is also very impressive.

Price Comparison

The Nvidia RTX 3060 12GB is currently selling for $329 to $359, while the Radeon 9060 XT costs around $359 to $379. This makes the Radeon GPU around 5 – 9% more expensive.

Should You Upgrade From Nvidia RTX 3060 to Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB

Picture of XFX Swift AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT OC GPU — XFX Swift AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT OC GPU (Image via XFX)

The verdict is clear. If you are an RTX 3060 owner looking for an upgrade, you can buy the Radeon 9060 XT without any worries. The latter is 69.4% faster in rasterized games and around 65.8% faster in ray tracing. On top of that, the Radeon GPU has 4GB of extra memory, which will future-proof your system. You can finally upgrade your GPU to something solid and get higher framerates at 1440p resolution.

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Should You Upgrade Your Nvidia RTX 3060 To Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB?