The £400 GPU decision

In the RTX 5060 vs RX 9060 XT match-up, the GeForce RTX 5060 is the better value and the Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB is the better card. On Amazon UK at the time of writing (October 2026) the GeForce RTX 5060 costs £374.99, the Radeon RX 9060 XT 8GB£399.95 and the 16GB card £479.99. Tom's Hardware's June 2026 GPU hierarchy averages 88.5, 93.2 and 98.3 fps at 1080p and 59.8, 62.5 and 67.3 fps at 1440p.

The 8GB Radeon RX 9060 XT is 5% faster than the GeForce RTX 5060 in raster games for 6.7% more money, and 19% slower with ray tracing. The 16GB version is the one that changes the answer: twice the memory and a full 16-lane PCIe link make it the safer card for 1440p, for keeping four years or more, and for the Ryzen 5 5500 prebuilts that dominate the £800 market. This guide sits under Best graphics card UK 2026 and Best gaming PC under £800 UK.

Which is faster, the RTX 5060 or RX 9060 XT?

Both Radeon RX 9060 XT models are faster than the GeForce RTX 5060 in raster games, by 5% for the 8GB card and 11% to 13% for the 16GB card. Tom's Hardware's hierarchy, updated on 24 June 2026, averages 11 games at high and ultra settings on a Ryzen 7 9800X3D:

On paper the two chips are closely matched. NVIDIA gives the GeForce RTX 5060 3,840 CUDA cores and 8 GB of GDDR7 on a 128-bit bus at 448 GB/s. AMD gives the Radeon RX 9060 XT 32 compute units, 2,048 stream processors, a 3,130 MHz boost clock and 8 GB or 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus at 320 GB/s, backed by 32 MB of Infinity Cache.

How do they compare in Fortnite, CS2 and Cyberpunk?

The Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB wins most individual games, by up to 55% in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, while the GeForce RTX 5060 wins in ray-traced GTA V and is level in esports titles. Figures below come from Tom's Hardware (TH) and TechSpot with Hardware Unboxed data (TS):

The 8GB Radeon RX 9060 XT tracks its 16GB sibling closely at 1080p: 105.3 fps in Fortnite at 1080p High and 110 fps in Battlefield 6, against 91.4 and 110 fps for the GeForce RTX 5060. The GeForce RTX 5060 and RX 9060 XT 16GB both clear 190 fps in CS2 and Apex Legends. The broader picture by game and budget is in What games can a budget gaming PC run?

Is the RTX 5060 or RX 9060 XT better for ray tracing?

The GeForce RTX 5060 is better for ray tracing than the 8GB Radeon RX 9060 XT, and the 16GB Radeon RX 9060 XT is better than both. Tom's Hardware measured 40.9 fps for the GeForce RTX 5060, 33.0 fps for the RX 9060 XT 8GB and 45.3 fps for the RX 9060 XT 16GB at 1080p with ray tracing.

The 37% gap between the two Radeon cards, which share a chip and clocks, is a memory result: ray tracing adds data that pushes 8 GB over its limit. GTA V Enhanced shows NVIDIA's architecture at its best, at 93.3 fps against 77.1 fps for the 16GB Radeon. Neither card makes ray tracing at 1440p comfortable without upscaling.

Is 8GB or 16GB of VRAM better for the RX 9060 XT?

16GB is better, and the £80.04 between the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 9060 XT 8GB and the PowerColor Radeon RX 9060 XT Reaper 16GB is the most useful upgrade in this price band. 8 GB holds up at 1080p in most games; it fails at higher texture settings, with ray tracing and at 1440p:

• TechSpot, F1 25 at 1440p Ultra High: 72 fps on the RX 9060 XT 16GB, 42 fps on the 8GB card.
• Hardware Unboxed via Club386 (June 2025), Indiana Jones and the Great Circle at 1440p: the 8GB RX 9060 XT trailed the 16GB card by 32%.
• TechSpot and Hardware Unboxed (May 2026), Forza Horizon 6 at 1440p with ray tracing: 61 fps on the 16GB RTX 5060 Ti against 33 fps on the 8GB version.

The PowerColor Radeon RX 9060 XT Reaper 16GB is the cheapest 16GB RX 9060 XT on Amazon UK at the time of writing (October 2026), at £479.99. AMD rates the 16GB card at 160 W with a 450 W minimum power supply. The GeForce RTX 5060 has no 16GB version; the cheapest 16GB GeForce in this class is the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB at £649.99.

DLSS 4.5 or FSR 4: which matters more at this price?

DLSS 4.5 is the stronger upscaler and the main reason to choose the GeForce RTX 5060. Tom's Hardware's June 2026 hierarchy says FSR 4 upscaling is not yet on par with DLSS 4.5, and AMD's frame generation is limited to 2X while RTX 50 cards run Multi Frame Generation up to 6X.

Frame generation multiplies displayed frames, not rendered ones, so it works best from a healthy base frame rate and adds less to a card that is short of memory. FSR 4 runs only on Radeon RX 9000 cards, including both RX 9060 XT models. TechSpot measured the GeForce RTX 5060 at 73 fps at 1080p with DLSS 5 on in NBA 2K27, a feature no Radeon card supports.

Which uses less power, and what PSU do they need?

The GeForce RTX 5060 draws the least power, 145 W against 150 W for the Radeon RX 9060 XT 8GB and 160 W for the 16GB card, but AMD asks for the smaller power supply: a 450 W minimum against NVIDIA's 550 W recommendation. A 15 W gap over 1,000 hours of gaming is 15 kWh, or £3.95 at the Ofgem cap of 26.32p per kWh from 1 October 2026.

Does PCIe 3.0 or 4.0 slow the RTX 5060 and RX 9060 XT?

PCIe 3.0 and 4.0 slow the GeForce RTX 5060 more than the Radeon RX 9060 XT, because the GeForce RTX 5060 uses eight PCIe lanes and the Radeon RX 9060 XT uses all sixteen. Both cards are PCIe 5.0 designs. The difference only shows when a game overflows video memory and spills into system RAM over the PCIe link, which 8GB cards do regularly at high settings.

AMD lists the Ryzen 5 5500 as a PCIe 3.0 processor, and it powers most £800 prebuilts on Amazon UK, including the Computek RTX 5060 tower. In that system the GeForce RTX 5060 gets 16 GB/s, and the Radeon RX 9060 XT gets 32 GB/s, the same as the GeForce RTX 5060 on a PCIe 4.0 board. The measured cost of running out of memory:

• Hardware Unboxed via Club386 (June 2025): the RX 9060 XT 8GB ran Indiana Jones and the Great Circle at 1440p at 92 fps on PCIe 5.0, 65 fps on PCIe 4.0 and 46 fps on PCIe 3.0.
• TechSpot (June 2025), RTX 5060 Ti on PCIe 3.0: the 16GB card was 110% faster than the 8GB card in Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart and 114% faster in F1 25 at the High preset. TechSpot concluded that the 8GB card is nearly unusable once VRAM is exceeded, largely because of its 8-lane link, and that the RX 9060 XT copes better thanks to its full 16 lanes.

When memory does not overflow, the PCIe generation makes little difference: TechSpot's 16GB RTX 5060 Ti on PCIe 3.0 averaged 118 fps in Indiana Jones. Owners of an older PC should read How to upgrade an old gaming PC in 2026 before choosing a card.

Which card gives the most frames per pound?

The 8GB GeForce RTX 5060 Ti gives the most frames per pound at today's prices, and the GeForce RTX 5060 is second, ahead of both Radeon RX 9060 XT models. Compare Electronic divided the cheapest Amazon UK listing for each GPU on 3 October 2026 by Tom's Hardware's June 2026 averages: £374.99 ÷ 88.5 fps = £4.24 per 1080p frame. Lower is better.

• The Radeon RX 9060 XT 8GB costs 2% more per 1440p frame than the GeForce RTX 5060 (£6.40 against £6.27) and 32% more per ray-traced frame (£12.12 against £9.17).
• The Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB costs 14% more per 1440p frame than the GeForce RTX 5060. The premium buys memory, not speed today.
• The 16GB GeForce RTX 5060 Ti is the worst value of the five at £8.86 per 1440p frame; NVIDIA's UK launch price was £399.

RTX 5060 vs RTX 5060 Ti: is the Ti worth it?

The 8GB GeForce RTX 5060 Ti is worth the extra £42.77: it is 13% faster at 1080p, 15% faster at 1440p and 12% faster with ray tracing for 11% more money. The PNY GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8GB OC costs £417.76 on Amazon UK at the time of writing (October 2026), so each extra 1440p frame over the GeForce RTX 5060 costs £4.86.

It shares the GeForce RTX 5060's two limits: 8 GB of VRAM and an eight-lane PCIe link. NVIDIA rates it at 180 W with a 600 W power supply. The ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC fixes the memory at £649.99, £170 more than the Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB for 7% more speed at 1080p.

RTX 5060 vs RTX 4060: how much faster is it?

The GeForce RTX 5060 is 24% faster than the GeForce RTX 4060 at 1080p, 26% faster at 1440p and 22% faster with ray tracing, in Tom's Hardware's hierarchy: 88.5 against 71.5 fps, 59.8 against 47.6 fps and 40.9 against 33.6 fps. Both have 8 GB; the RTX 5060 moves to GDDR7 and adds Multi Frame Generation.

The clearest UK comparison is two Ryzen 5 5500 towers at the same price: the Computek RTX 5060 gaming PC at £797.99 and the ASC RTX 4060 gaming PC at £799. The newer card costs £1.01 less inside a prebuilt, so the RTX 4060 build has no remaining case.

Should a prebuilt gaming PC have an RTX 5060 or RX 9060 XT?

Under £800, buy the RTX 5060 prebuilt; above £1,000, the 16GB Radeon RX 9060 XT is worth the step. The Computek tower with a Ryzen 5 5500 and GeForce RTX 5060 at £797.99 remains the pick in Best gaming PC under £800 UK, and no RX 9060 XT prebuilt on Amazon UK comes close to that price.

The two Vibox bundles are the like-for-like test: the same Ryzen 5 5500, 16 GB of RAM and 23-inch monitor, and £75 more buys the 16GB Radeon RX 9060 XT. On a PCIe 3.0 processor that is the better system, with twice the video memory and twice the link bandwidth. The Veno Scorp's Ryzen 7 5700X runs PCIe 4.0, which doubles the GeForce RTX 5060's link to 32 GB/s. Sub-£1,000 alternatives are ranked in Best budget gaming PC UK 2026.

Verdict: RTX 5060 or RX 9060 XT?

The GeForce RTX 5060 at £374.99 is the better buy for 1080p on a modern PCIe 4.0 or 5.0 board: cheaper per frame than either Radeon RX 9060 XT, faster than the 8GB model with ray tracing, and backed by DLSS 4.5. The Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB at £479.99 is the better card for 1440p, for keeping four years or more, and for any Ryzen 5 5500 or other PCIe 3.0 system. Buyers willing to spend £417.76 should take the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8GB, the best value per frame here. Higher-tier cards are compared in RTX 5070 vs RX 9070 XT.