RX 5700 vs RX 9060 XT 16GB: Is the Upgrade Worth It?

Moving from an RX 5700 to the RX 9060 XT 16GB is a strong upgrade for anyone gaming at 1080p high-refresh or 1440p: it is roughly 60-80% faster in GPU-bound games, doubles the VRAM to 16 GB, adds hardware ray tracing and FSR 4, and does it at a lower 160 W rating for the same $349 launch price. The only RX 5700 owners who can comfortably skip it are those who play older or esports titles at 1080p and are happy with current frame rates.

Six Years of RDNA Progress at the Same Price

The RX 5700 launched on 7 July 2019 at $349 as one of AMD’s first RDNA cards, with 2,304 stream processors, a 256-bit bus and 8 GB of GDDR6. The RX 9060 XT 16GB launched on 4 June 2025, also at $349, built on RDNA 4 with 2,048 stream processors on a 4 nm process. On paper the new card looks smaller, with fewer shaders and a narrower 128-bit bus carrying only 322.3 GB/s of bandwidth versus the RX 5700’s 448 GB/s.

MSI Gaming Radeon RX 5700 Boost Clock: 1750 MHz 256-bit 8GB GDDR6 DP/HDMI Dual Torx 3.0 Fans Crossfire Navi AMD Radeon FreeSync Graphics Card (RX 5700 MECH GP OC) (Renewed)

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ASUS Dual Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB GDDR6 Gaming Graphics Card | PCIe 5.0, HDMI 2.1b, DisplayPort 2.1a, 2.5-slot design, Axial-tech Fans, 0dB Technology

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ASUS Dual Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB GDDR6 White Edition Gaming Graphics Card | PCIe 5.0, HDMI 2.1b, DisplayPort 2.1a, 2.5-slot design, Axial-tech fan design, 0dB Technology

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The reason it is still far faster comes down to clock speed and cache. The 9060 XT boosts to 3,130 MHz against 1,725 MHz, and its 32 MB of Infinity Cache dramatically reduces how often the GPU needs to reach main memory. Architectural improvements in RDNA 4, including dedicated AI accelerators and much stronger ray tracing units, account for the rest.

Specification Comparison

How Much Faster Is the RX 9060 XT?

TechPowerUp’s RX 9060 XT 16GB reviews put the card roughly 37-43% ahead of the previous-generation RX 7600 XT and within about 3% of the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB. The RX 5700, in the same type of relative performance charts, sits roughly at RX 6600 level, a step below the RX 7600 XT. Combining those reference points, published review data suggests the RX 9060 XT 16GB is roughly 60-80% faster than the RX 5700 at 1080p and 1440p in GPU-bound games. The gap tends to be widest in newer, more demanding titles and at 1440p, and narrowest in CPU-limited esports games.

As an approximate guide that varies with settings, CPU and patches: in demanding current games at 1080p high settings, an RX 5700 often falls into the 45-65 fps range where an RX 9060 XT 16GB typically reaches around 80-110 fps. At 1440p the RX 5700 frequently needs medium settings and upscaling to stay above 60 fps, while the 9060 XT handles high settings in most titles.

Features the RX 5700 Cannot Match

Ray tracing

The RX 5700 has no hardware ray tracing. That now locks it out of games that require RT-capable hardware to launch, such as Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Doom: The Dark Ages. The RX 9060 XT’s third-generation RT accelerators are substantially stronger than AMD’s earlier attempts and make moderate ray tracing at 1080p, and lighter RT at 1440p, realistic.

FSR 4 upscaling

FSR 4 is AMD’s machine-learning upscaler and requires RDNA 4 hardware. It produces much cleaner results than FSR 3.1, particularly in Balanced and Performance modes, which is exactly where budget cards spend their time. The RX 5700 is limited to FSR 3.1 upscaling and frame generation plus AMD Fluid Motion Frames 2 at the driver level. The 9060 XT supports all of those as well as FSR 4.

Modern display outputs

HDMI 2.1b and DisplayPort 2.1a on the 9060 XT support high refresh rates at 1440p and 4K that the RX 5700’s HDMI 2.0b cannot. Note that the 9060 XT reference layout lists three outputs rather than four.

VRAM: The Biggest Long-Term Change

Going from 8 GB to 16 GB matters more than the headline frame rate suggests:

• 1080p: 8 GB is now the bare minimum; some new releases already require reduced textures. 16 GB removes that concern entirely.
• 1440p: 12 GB or more is the comfortable target for high settings. The RX 5700 runs short here, while the 9060 XT 16GB has ample headroom.
• Frame generation: generated frames consume extra memory, so the 16 GB buffer makes FSR frame generation more practical.

Choose the 16GB model specifically. The 8 GB variant of the RX 9060 XT shares the same GPU but loses this advantage.

Power, PSU and Fitting It In

The upgrade lowers power draw. The RX 9060 XT 16GB is rated at 160 W versus 180 W for the RX 5700, and it needs just one 8-pin connector instead of a 6-pin plus 8-pin. A simple PSU sizing calculation with a typical 105 W gaming CPU and about 150 W of headroom gives 160 + 105 + 150 = 415 W, so any quality 500-550 W unit that ran an RX 5700 will handle the new card comfortably.

Case fit is essentially unchanged: 267 mm versus 268 mm, both two slots wide. Partner models vary in length, so check clearance in very compact builds. The card is PCIe 5.0 x16 but fully backward compatible, and because it uses all 16 lanes, older PCIe 3.0 boards lose very little performance.

Upgrade Value Calculation

Both cards launched at $349, so cost per performance at launch tracks the performance difference directly. Taking the RX 5700 as 100 points and the 9060 XT 16GB as about 170 points:

• RX 5700: $349 / 100 = about $3.50 per point.
• RX 9060 XT 16GB: $349 / 170 = about $2.05 per point.

The net cost of upgrading is lower again once the old card is sold. A used RX 5700 usually fetches around $90-$130, depending on cooler design and condition.

Who Should Upgrade?

Checking Your CPU Before Upgrading

Because the RX 9060 XT 16GB is so much faster than the RX 5700, some systems from 2019 will become CPU-limited after the swap. Processors such as the Ryzen 5 3600 or Core i5-9600K can still drive the new card well at 1440p, but at 1080p in CPU-heavy games the GPU may sit partly idle. A quick way to check: run a demanding game at 1080p with the RX 5700 and lower the resolution scale. If frame rates barely rise, the CPU is already the limit and the upgrade will show smaller gains at that resolution.

Enabling Resizable BAR (Smart Access Memory) in the BIOS, where supported, gives RDNA 4 a little extra performance. Updating the motherboard BIOS before installing the new card is also sensible, as some older boards need a newer firmware for full compatibility with recent GPUs.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much faster is the RX 9060 XT 16GB than the RX 5700?

Published review data suggests roughly 60-80% faster in GPU-bound games at 1080p and 1440p. The exact gain depends on the game, settings and processor, and CPU-limited titles will show smaller improvements.

Why does the RX 9060 XT have less memory bandwidth but more performance?

The new card relies on a 32 MB Infinity Cache that keeps frequently used data on the GPU, reducing trips to memory. Combined with much higher clock speeds and RDNA 4’s architectural improvements, it outperforms the RX 5700 despite the narrower 128-bit bus.

Do I need a new power supply?

Almost certainly not. The RX 9060 XT 16GB is rated at 160 W and needs only one 8-pin connector, so a quality 500-550 W power supply that ran the RX 5700 is sufficient.

Can the RX 5700 use FSR 4?

No. FSR 4 requires the AI accelerators in RDNA 4 GPUs like the RX 9060 XT. The RX 5700 can use FSR 3.1 and AMD Fluid Motion Frames.

Should I buy the 8GB or 16GB RX 9060 XT?

For an upgrade from an 8 GB card, the 16GB model is the sensible choice. The 8GB version leaves you with the same memory ceiling that already limits the RX 5700 in new games.