I've been using a 3060 Ti for nearly six years, so I'm overdue for an upgrade. I recently bought a second-hand 9060 XT 16GB for £350, but I've seen people say the performance jump from a 3060 Ti isn't large enough to justify switching. Would it make more sense to sell the 9060 XT and spend another £150–£200 on a 9070, or possibly a 5060 Ti? I mainly want to play at 1440p with high image quality and solid frame rates. I don't usually play the most graphically demanding games, but I'd still like a noticeable improvement.
5 Answers
The 9060 XT is definitely faster than the 3060 Ti, but the improvement is more of a moderate upgrade—roughly 20–25% in many 1440p situations. The 16GB model is the better choice, since the extra VRAM can help in newer or more demanding games. At £350, it’s also a good deal, so I’d be inclined to keep it unless you can comfortably move up to a 9070.
Try the 9060 XT yourself before deciding. If it handles your games well and you’re happy with the frame rates, there’s no urgent reason to replace it. The 9070 or 9070 XT would be a substantial step up, but make sure the price difference really is only around £200 after selling the 9060 XT.
Another option is to keep the 9060 XT and sell the 3060 Ti. That gives you the upgrade immediately and lets you put the money from the older card toward a future GPU. Unless you specifically want much higher settings, ray tracing, or a high-refresh 1440p experience in demanding games, the 9070 may not be necessary.
For a normal 1440p setup, the 9060 XT 16GB should be perfectly capable, especially since you don’t mainly play demanding AAA games. Some people are reporting strong results around high refresh rates with the right CPU and settings, although performance will vary a lot by game and whether ray tracing is enabled.
The 9070 is in a different performance class and would give you a much more noticeable 1440p upgrade. If the additional £150–£200 genuinely gets you one, it could be worth doing. I’d skip the 5060 Ti, though—it’s too close to the 9060 XT in performance to justify replacing the card you already bought.
It’s the 16GB version. I’d heard the 8GB model wasn’t really worth considering, which is why I went for this one.