I'm running a Ryzen 9 5950X with 32GB of RAM on an ASUS B550 Gaming F motherboard, paired with an 850W power supply. My current graphics card is an RTX 3060, and I'm looking for a worthwhile upgrade. Moving to AM5 isn't appealing right now because of the cost of new memory. The RX 9060 XT looks promising, but it uses PCIe 5.0 while my motherboard supports PCIe 4.0. How much performance, if any, would I lose by running the card in my PCIe 4.0 system?
3 Answers
PCIe 4.0 shouldn’t meaningfully limit an RX 9060 XT. It will run normally in your motherboard’s PCIe 4.0 slot, so you don’t need to move to AM5 just because the card supports PCIe 5.0.
Your 5950X and B550 platform are still perfectly capable for a modern GPU upgrade. A stronger card such as an RX 9070 could be worth considering if your budget allows, but the 9060 XT itself should perform fine over PCIe 4.0.
PCIe generations usually don’t cause a major performance drop with cards like these. Even higher-end GPUs can work well on PCIe 4.0, and an RX 9060 XT on your system should not experience a noticeable performance tank from the interface alone.
That makes sense. I mainly want to avoid spending money on an upgrade that gets held back by the motherboard.
Would the 9070 offer a much better price-to-performance upgrade, or is the 9060 XT the more sensible choice?