Budget GPUs Clash in Games and Reveal an Unexpected Imbalance

The battle for mainstream Full HD has finally turned into an all-out brawl. German outlet ComputerBase tested mid-range graphics cards from all three camps, and the results turned out to be far more interesting than just “who’s fastest.” The lineup included the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT with 16GB of memory, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 with 8GB, and the Intel Arc B580 with 12GB on board. All tests were run at 1080p without any upscaling tricks — pure rasterization.

In standard rasterization across a pool of ten games, including Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield, and Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2, the Radeon RX 9060 XT delivered an average of 136 FPS, while the RTX 5060 landed at 125 FPS. That’s only about a 9% gap, but it’s there, while the Intel Arc B580 remains in third place with 100 FPS — a 36% deficit behind the leader. Generation-over-generation gains look like this: AMD sped up by 43% compared to the RX 7600 XT, NVIDIA gained 31% over the RTX 4060, but Intel made the biggest leap in relative terms — up 47% versus the Arc A580. With ray tracing, the picture is a mirror image: the RX 9060 XT again leads with 75 FPS on average across four RT titles. The RTX 5060 puts out 66 FPS, while the B580 is capped at 47 FPS; here, RDNA 4’s progress is especially striking — a massive 87% uplift over the RX 7600 XT.

The main fly in the ointment — and this one stings NVIDIA and, to some extent, Intel — is VRAM capacity. Tests clearly show that 8GB is becoming a bottleneck even at 1080p when you crank settings to the max. In Cyberpunk 2077 with ray tracing enabled, both the RTX 5060 and RTX 4060 started choking run after run, with frame rates tanking as VRAM filled up — requiring a game restart. In Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, stutter from texture streaming was no longer limited to NVIDIA’s 8GB cards — even the Intel Arc B580 with its 12GB showed issues. Against that backdrop, the 16GB version of the RX 9060 XT looks noticeably more confident, simply because it has headroom to spare. The RTX 5060 has enough raw horsepower to fight the leader on equal footing — if it weren’t hitting that memory wall.

At the time of testing in German retail, the cheapest RTX 5060 started at €270 (around 24,000 rubles). The Intel Arc B580 was priced at €260 (about 23,000 rubles). But for the RX 9060 XT with 16GB of RAM, retailers were asking €390 and up (roughly 35,000 rubles) — a 50% premium over the competition, and even the 8GB version starts at €320 (about 28,000 rubles). So in terms of frames per euro spent, the RTX 5060 pulls ahead.

The final choice for a buyer boils down to this: the RX 9060 XT 16GB is the undisputed performance king in this segment, with no compromises required. The RTX 5060 is the more sensible pick if you’re watching your wallet — but with the specter of VRAM shortages looming in heavy titles even today. The Intel Arc B580 is the dark horse for those willing to put up with some rough edges in exchange for an attractive price and 12GB on board.

Which option would you choose — save some cash by grabbing a faster card with only 8GB, or pay extra for more memory that definitely won’t be a bottleneck for the next couple of years? Let us know in the comments.