Will an RX 9060 16GB Be Heavily Bottlenecked by an 8th-Gen i7 at 1080p?

Don’t put too much faith in bottleneck calculators. Every system has a limiting component, and the result depends heavily on the specific game and settings. At 1080p, the older i7 may hold the GPU back more than it would at 1440p, especially in CPU-heavy games, but GPU-intensive games should still run well. If the performance is good enough for you now, the graphics card can be reused after a future platform upgrade.

Since you already expect to upgrade the rest of the system later, buying the stronger GPU now is reasonable. Just make sure your power supply, case, and CPU cooling are adequate. At 1080p, lowering demanding graphics settings may expose the CPU limit sooner, while higher settings can shift more of the workload to the GPU.

A small bottleneck usually isn’t something to worry about. You might see lower maximum frame rates or occasional dips in games that rely heavily on the CPU, but it shouldn’t automatically mean severe stuttering or bad performance. Use an FPS limiter if necessary, and check actual in-game GPU and CPU usage rather than relying on a single percentage.