RX 9060 XT Roundup: ASRock, PowerColor and Sapphire Tested!

1. Introduction2. ASRock RX 9060 XT Steel Legend3. PowerColor RX 9060 XT Hellhound4. Sapphire RX 9060 XT Nitro+5. Testing Methodology6. Game Benchmarks7. Clock Speed8. GPU Temperatures9. Acoustics10. Noise-Normalised Temperatures11. Power Draw and Efficiency12. Overclocking13. Closing Thoughts14. View All Pages

Then we come to the Sapphire RX 9060 XT 16GB Nitro+, shipping in a fiery-looking box.

Inside, Sapphire includes some assorted documentation, along with an ARGB cable and a GPU support bracket.

As for the design of the card, it's almost identical to the RX 9070 XT model we reviewed a few months back. The shroud design is the same, with its gunmetal grey colourway and perforations, while the front side is home to a grille. It's very stylish overall and I still really rate the looks.

The fans are smaller this time around, though, measuring in at 90mm in diameter.

It's also slightly smaller overall, measuring 300 x 131 x 55mm, while it weighed in at 991g on my scales.

As mentioned, the front side is home to the grille section, with the LED strip visible beneath it.

The metal backplate is the main area of difference versus the 9070 XT – you may remember that model had an extra plate which was designed to hide the power cable. That's now gone, and instead we have this grey design – likely a cost-saving measure. It still looks great, but the ability to hide the cable was a neat trick for the 9070 XT Nitro+. We still find a large flow-through area, plus an ARGB header to control the lighting externally.

Speaking of the lighting, it's as good as we saw previously, being eye-catching without being gaudy, while the LEDs are well diffused. There's no physical switch, but you can disable it via Sapphire's software if you want.

Power is delivered by a single 8-pin connector, while there's one DisplayPort 2.1 and two HDMI 2.1 video outputs.

As for the PCB, Sapphire has gone with a very similar design to the other cards on test today – we find seven phases for the GPU and two for the memory, with both GPU and memory VRMs controlled by separate Monolithic Power Systems MP2868A controllers. Monolithic MP87993 MOSFETs are used throughout.

We can also note that the 16GB 9060 XTs are utilising a clamshell design, with four memory modules on either side of the PCB.

Sapphire's heatsink utilises a total of four heatpipes, with the GPU and memory contacting with a central baseplate, while the MOSFETs are cooled by secondary plates.

Thermal pads are positioned on the underside of the backplate, too, to provide some extra cooling capabilities.

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