If there's one thing PC gamers must be itching for this generation, it's cheaper graphics cards. We've had the main entry-level GPUs hit the market now in the form of the RTX 5060, RTX 5050, and RX 9060 XT, but with prices being what they are in 2025, the more the merrier, I say. Now, AMD has stealth-launched the RX 9600, and the first set of benchmarks show it performing better than expected.
The RX 9060 was announced last week, and its specs were revealed to be cut back from the RX 9060 XT to the tune of a handful fewer compute units (CUs) and slower memory. Given the extent of the cut-back, I expected more of an RTX 5050 than RTX 5060 level of performance, but the first and only benchmarks for the new AMD GPU, delivered by YouTuber Technosaurus and harukaze5719 (via VideoCardz), show the opposite.
The RX 9060 non-XT is smaller than the XT and is shown going toe to toe with the RTX 5060, getting higher frame rates in some games, and the same or lower in others. The RTX 5050 consistently trails behind the new AMD card, and not by a particularly close margin.
We still don't know exactly how much this card costs, though, and that's because for now, at least, it seems to be only for the pre-built market. And currently only for the Asia (specifically, right now, the Korean) market, though I'd expect that to change. According to the YouTuber, AMD doesn't have the volume for the card yet for it to be worth selling separately, outside of OEM builds.
It is also, of course, an 8 GB card, just like the RTX 5060, RTX 5050, and one of the RX 9060 XT versions. 8 GB cards get a lot of flack, but if any games have problems with that amount of VRAM for gaming at 1080p, it's not clear whether all the blame should be laid at the feet of the GPU rather than, say, poor game optimisation. At any rate, for cheap cards like the RTX 5050 and presumably the RX 9060 (should it ever be individually priced for purchase), you know what you're getting.
I know just from poking around various forums online and speaking to different PC gamers that, despite the allure of big cards like the RTX 5070 Ti or RX 9070 XT, many people just want something affordable. The RTX 5050 was meant to give us that, but it still feels a little too expensive for what is ultimately—excluding frame gen, which is hit and miss and at any rate isn't as great of a benefit for lower-end cards starting out with lower frame rates—a worse card than the bottom of the previous generation.
If the RX 9060 is delivering this kind of RTX 5050-beating performance, I think I speak for a great many of us when I say to AMD: Please get those stocks up high enough to sell this thing in the West, outside of pre-builts.
