Gameplay Performance
On this page, we will look at the standard gameplay performance without enabling any special extended ray tracing options. However, note that several games we are using have ‘always on’ ray-traced calculated lights, and thus are ray-traced ‘always on’ games; in the mix, we will point those games out below. Those games below are: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Doom: The Dark Ages, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Kingdom Come Deliverance II, and Star Wars Outlaws. Otherwise, all games are tested in native resolution as well as upscaled performance using the relative “quality” upscaling option.
We are also focusing primarily on the 1440p gameplay experience below for the Radeon RX 9060 XT, but some games we have also thrown tougher quality settings at 1080p, especially on the ray tracing only page. Since we are testing at 1440p, instead of starving the cards of performance and creating a bottleneck, we are lowering game settings as necessary to create a ‘playable experience’, something more reasonable, and looking at what real-world gamers would actually utilize in the games at 1440p, as well as some tougher settings.
Note that every video card being used for comparison is a factory overclocked video card: the Radeon RX 9060 XT, the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, and the Radeon RX 7600 XT. Only the Intel Arc B580 LE is a reference clocked card.
Alan Wake 2
In Alan Wake 2, we are running at 1440p and the highest game settings. The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT allows a playable experience in this game, providing nearly 58FPS average, which, for this game, is playable, so native resolution plays very well at high settings. When we enable upscaling, that improves even more up to 90FPS average. At this level of performance, the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is exactl on par with the performance of the Radeon RX 7700 XT, no difference really in gameplay. This makes the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT 7% faster than the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC video card, which is impressive. Compared to the Radeon RX 7600 XT, the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is 54% faster.
Black Myth: Wukong
In Black Myth: Wukong, this game is very demanding, and so we are going to show two different resolutions, and the game settings are turned down from the maximum to playable levels. Here we have the game at 1440p but set on the “Medium” quality setting, which is playable above 60FPS on the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT. You can achieve over 100FPS with Upscaling at 1440p, but native resolution was smooth at Medium settings. This puts the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT equal to the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC video card, again, very impressive. The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT comes about 4% under the Radeon RX 7700 XT. The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is 47% faster than the Radeon RX 7600 XT.
We wanted to run the game at a higher setting, so we lowered the resolution to 1080p to enable “High” quality setting in the game. When we did this, we can easily see that the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is capable of providing a playable experience at native resolution and High settings at 75FPS. This puts its performance once again on par with both the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC card and the Radeon RX 7700 XT OC card. The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is 47% faster than the Radeon RX 7600 XT.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a new game we are adding to the mix, and for this game, we are using a manual run-through. This game uses the UE5 engine, and Lumen, and enables ‘always on’ ray-tracing, so it is very demanding. We are first testing at 1440p above, but we have lowered the in-game quality settings to what is playable settings, which is “Medium” quality at 1440p on the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT. We can see that we are technically getting a 60FPS experience at Medium and native resolution, but if you want higher FPS, Upscaling is the way to go with up to 80FPS average. At this performance level, the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is exactly on par with the performance of the Radeon RX 7700 XT, giving the same experience. The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is 9% slower than the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC video card, however. The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is 40% faster than the Radeon RX 7600 XT.
We also wanted to push this game by enabling higher quality settings, so we lowered the resolution down to 1080p and enabled the “Epic” quality setting. At Epic, the game is not playable without Upscaling, but it does show that the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is still on par with the Radeon RX 7700 XT when the quality settings are turned up. It is, however, 6% below the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC card. It is 37% faster than the Radeon RX 7600 XT.
Cyberpunk 2077
In Cyberpunk 2077, the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT was consistently behind the Radeon RX 7700 XT and GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, for some reason, but this has been consistent with another Radeon RX 9060 XT we have also tested, so it isn’t the card, it’s a GPU/game thing. The game is still very playable, though at native resolution 1440p Ultra settings at 76FPS average, so it really isn’t a problem. This ends up being 5% slower than the Radeon RX 7700 XT and GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB cards. The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is 42% faster than the Radeon RX 7600 XT.
Doom: The Dark Ages
We are also adding Doom: The Dark Ages to the mix as well, another newly released game, and perfect to test these larger VRAM capacity video cards. This game uses the Vulkan API and idTech 8 engine, and is also yet another ‘always on’ ray tracing game, so very demanding at high resolutions. At 1440p, we dropped the quality settings down to “Ultra”, which felt playable on the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT. If you want higher FPS Upscaling allows up to 85FPS average on the highest quality.
In this game, the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is actually faster than the Radeon RX 7700 XT by 9%, which is a pretty good margin, thanks to the improved RT performance in RDNA 4. It is, however, 6% behind the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB card. It is also 81% faster than the Radeon RX 7600 XT, which is a massive improvement, to say the least.
Horizon Forbidden West
Horizon Forbidden West is very sensitive to VRAM capacity, but all the cards here seemed to do well with their VRAM buffers, even the 12GB Radeon RX 7700 XT, at 1440p. The king of the hill here is SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT dominating performance at 7% faster than the Radeon RX 7700 XT and 15% faster than the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, so that’s amazing. It is also 56% faster than the Radeon RX 7600 XT.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Two things about Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: it is very sensitive to VRAM capacity above Medium, and second, it is another one of these new ray tracing ‘always on’ games. The Radeon RX 7700 XT experienced some sort of perhaps VRAM limitation at “Supreme” settings at 1440p, and crapped out on performance, we just couldn’t get it to work above 30FPS. We think the 12GB of VRAM on board is hard cutting that card on Supreme at 1440p. However, the larger 16GB VRAM buffer cards handle it just fine, and surprisingly, the Intel Arc B580, which is also 12GB. /shrug
The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT runs this game really well at Supreme quality settings. We can play at native 1440p resolution in Supreme and experience super smooth gameplay upwards of 80FPS, and this game, remember, is running ray tracing baked into the game. It is only 5% behind the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, but smashes the Radeon RX 7600 XT at 69% faster.
To give the Radeon RX 7700 XT a fighting chance, we lowered the game to “Medium” settings at 1440p as well. What’s amazing is that the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is on par with the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB here, both are providing the same level of gameplay experience with the same performance. The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is also 8% faster than the Radeon RX 7700 XT, and 76% faster than the Radeon RX 7600 XT.
Kingdom Come Deliverance II
Kingdom Come Deliverance II uses CryEngine, and is yet another game that has its lights calculated with ray tracing at all times, so RT is a big component of performance here. In this game, the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT barely provides a playable experience at native resolution “Ultra” settings at 1440p, but enabling upscaling does improve that. The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is once again exactly on par with the overclocked Radeon RX 7700 XT performance here. It is, though, 14% slower than the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC video card. The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XTis also 42% faster than the Radeon RX 7600 XT.
If we lowered the game to Medium quality, then the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is very playble at very high framerates, almost 90FPS average. However, it does drop in performance by comparison to the Radeon RX 7700 XT and GeForce RTX 5060 Ti. The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is 6% slower than the Radeon RX 7700 XT and 11% slower than the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB. It is, though, 38% faster than the Radeon RX 7600 XT.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl
In Stalker 2, we wanted to start by pushing the cards really hard at 1440p and “Epic” quality, to see what would happen. Well, the game isn’t playable without Upscaling, so below we’ll drop the game to Medium in the next graph. At Epic settings, though, the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is on par with the performance of the Radeon RX 7700 XT, but comes in under the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti by 8%. It is also 36% faster than the Radeon RX 7600 XT.
That’s more like it, when we drop to “Medium” at 1440p, the game is playable at 60FPS average on theSAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT. However, it does still come in under the Radeon RX 7700 XT by 4%, so very close, and 9% below the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC video card. It is also 36% faster than the Radeon RX 7600 XT.
Star Wars Outlaws
Star Wars Outlaws is another UE5 game that has ‘always on’ ray tracing. We wanted to push the cards hard, trying “Ultra” at 1440p, but as you can see, without Upscaling it isn’t playable, but with Upscaling it is at 70FPS, so that’s nice. The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is just a smidge faster than the Radeon RX 7700 XT, 2.6%, but comes in under the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti by 4%. It is, though, 60% faster than the Radeon RX 7600 XT, which is huge.
When we lower the game to “Medium,” now we notice that the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 9060 XT is very playable at native resolution 1440p with Medium quality settings at nearly 70FPS average, so that’s good news. We see it pull ahead of the Radeon RX 7700 XT by 3% but fall under the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti by 5%. It is 57% faster than the Radeon RX 7600 XT.