I'm planning to switch from an RTX 3060 Ti to an AMD card and can choose between a refurbished RX 9060 XT 16GB for $399 or a new RX 9070 GRE 12GB for $479. My gaming is fairly light—card games, Blizzard titles such as Diablo II: Resurrected, indie games, and similar releases—but I also run a Plex server and am learning Linux on a secondary dual-boot drive. I currently use a 4K 60Hz monitor, though I may upgrade it around Black Friday. I don't need the GPU for local AI because I already use an M4 Mac for that. If both options were available to you, which would you choose?
5 Answers
The 9070 GRE is the better value at these prices. It should deliver roughly a 30% gaming performance increase, and that matters more than having 16GB of VRAM for the types of games you listed. At 4K, you may still need upscaling or reduced settings in demanding titles, but the GRE should provide a smoother experience overall.
For your use case, both cards can work, but I’d still buy the new 9070 GRE. The refurbished status of the 9060 XT adds uncertainty, and the GRE’s stronger performance is more useful for 4K gaming than the additional memory is likely to be. Just confirm the return policy and warranty before buying either card.
The 9060 XT is cheaper and probably sufficient for your current games, so it isn’t a bad choice if keeping the cost down is the priority. However, the $80 savings may be false economy if you upgrade to a higher-resolution or faster monitor soon. The 9070 GRE gives you more performance headroom and should delay your next upgrade.
I’d choose the new RX 9070 GRE. It’s considerably faster in actual gaming at every resolution, including 4K, and the extra 4GB on the 9060 XT usually won’t matter because that card’s processing performance becomes the limiting factor first. You also get a new product and a better warranty instead of taking a chance on a refurbished card.
I’d only lean toward the 9060 XT if you specifically value the extra VRAM for future texture-heavy games. Otherwise, 12GB on the 9070 GRE is a reasonable compromise: you can lower texture quality by one step if a particular game runs into a memory limit, while enjoying much higher GPU performance everywhere else.

That makes sense. I’m not planning to use the card for local AI either, since I already have an M4 Mac handling that kind of experimenting.