My girlfriend is upgrading from an RTX 3060 12GB. Her budget is around $570, and we're considering the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB, Radeon RX 9070 GRE, or RX 9060 XT 16GB. She mainly plays at 1080p and wants to run games at maximum settings with the highest FPS possible. Ray tracing and path tracing are not important to her, but she also streams, so the 9070 GRE's dual-encoder support is appealing. A regular RX 9070 costs about $710, while the RTX 5070 and RTX 5060 Ti 16GB are around $730. Is the RX 9070 GRE worth buying for $560, or would another card be a better choice?
5 Answers
The main thing is to avoid overpaying for the 5060 Ti 16GB or RTX 5070 at those prices. Since ray tracing is not a priority, AMD's stronger raster performance is more relevant here. The 9070 GRE is not a bad buy at $560, but checking several retailers for a sale could potentially make it an excellent one.
Before committing, compare the price with regular RX 9070 listings. If a 9070 is only slightly more expensive, its extra performance and VRAM could make it the better long-term purchase. However, at roughly $710 versus $560, the regular 9070 is a large enough jump that the GRE is likely the better value for a 1080p system.
The 9070 GRE seems like the best fit from the listed choices. The 5060 Ti cards give up a noticeable amount of performance, and the 16GB version may not be worth paying a similar price for. The GRE should provide excellent rasterized performance at 1080p and leave some room for 1440p later, while also offering the newer encoder features useful for streaming.
At $560, the 9070 GRE is a reasonable price, though it may be worth checking for sales because some models have appeared closer to $480–$500. It is substantially faster than the 5060 Ti options and should handle maxed-out 1080p gaming easily. The 12GB of VRAM is usually not a major concern at that resolution, especially when compared with the lower raw performance of the cheaper cards.
For 1080p, the 9070 GRE is arguably overkill unless she is targeting very high refresh rates, but that makes sense if maximum FPS is the goal. The RX 9060 XT 16GB would still be a strong 1080p or even 1440p card and could save money, while older cards such as the RX 7800 XT or 7900 GRE might also offer good value if buying used were acceptable.
Used cards are tempting, but she prefers buying new for the warranty. I'll keep looking for a better deal, although the GRE is probably the leading option now.