AMD Takes On Nvidia at 1080p Ray Tracing
Ray tracing has long been Nvidia’s home turf. The RTX architecture was built around it, marketed around it, and for several generations, no AMD card could touch Nvidia’s hardware-accelerated ray tracing performance. That gap has been closing, and with the Radeon RX 9060 XT now in the picture alongside the RTX 5060 Ti, the 1080p ray tracing matchup is worth examining without assumptions baked in.
Both cards target the mainstream performance segment, with the RTX 5060 Ti carrying an MSRP in the $379-$429 range depending on VRAM configuration, and the RX 9060 XT launching at $299 for the 8GB model and $349 for 16GB. At those price points, ray tracing performance per dollar matters as much as raw benchmark numbers. The question is whether AMD’s RDNA 4 architecture has finally made the gap competitive enough to change how buyers think about ray tracing at 1080p.
Test Setup and Methodology
Testing was conducted on a platform running an Intel Core i9-14900K paired with 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory, with both cards running at reference specs to avoid board partner variance skewing results. The driver versions used were AMD’s Adrenalin 25.5.1 and Nvidia’s Game Ready 576.02. All ray tracing presets were set to the in-game “Ultra RT” or equivalent maximum setting, with DLSS and FSR upscaling disabled unless specifically noted in per-game commentary. Resolution locked to 1920×1080 throughout.
The game selection covers a realistic spread of how ray tracing actually gets used – not cherry-picked showcase titles, but games with genuine player bases running hardware-accelerated RT as a default or near-default setting. Cyberpunk 2077 with path tracing disabled but full RT Ultra active, Alan Wake 2, Control, Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, Dying Light 2 with RT on, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 with ray tracing enabled. Six titles, each stressing the ray tracing pipelines differently, from shadow-heavy implementations to full global illumination.
Benchmark Results: Game by Game
Cyberpunk 2077 at RT Ultra without path tracing tells a familiar story with a new twist. The RTX 5060 Ti averages around 68 fps at 1080p in this configuration, while the RX 9060 XT 16GB pulls in approximately 54 fps. That is a meaningful gap – roughly 26 percent in Nvidia’s favor – but compared to the generational gap AMD faced with RDNA 3 in the same title, it is a notable improvement. RDNA 4’s redesigned ray accelerators are doing real work here, even if they have not fully closed the distance.
Alan Wake 2 is more interesting. Remedy’s implementation of ray tracing is heavy, and the RTX 5060 Ti holds an average of around 61 fps with RT on high settings. The RX 9060 XT comes in at approximately 57 fps – a gap of under 7 percent. At 1080p with the minimum frame rate gap sitting similarly narrow, this is effectively a wash for most players. AMD’s performance here suggests that when the ray tracing workload leans on global illumination rather than reflections, RDNA 4 competes much more closely.
Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, which uses full path tracing, flips the result more sharply toward Nvidia. The RTX 5060 Ti averages around 72 fps while the RX 9060 XT trails at roughly 49 fps. Path tracing remains a workload that Nvidia’s hardware handles with a structural advantage that no driver update is going to close in the short term. Control tells a similar but less extreme story, with the RTX 5060 Ti averaging around 88 fps versus the RX 9060 XT at approximately 73 fps at 1080p with RT on.
Dying Light 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 both show the closest results of the set. In Dying Light 2 with RT Ultra, the gap is under 10 fps on average, with the RTX 5060 Ti around 76 fps and the RX 9060 XT around 68 fps. Black Ops 6 with ray tracing enabled shows an even smaller separation – roughly 5 fps on average in Nvidia’s favor. These are multiplayer-relevant titles where AMD’s narrower deficit is practically invisible during actual gameplay.
Upscaling Changes the Equation
Running these same benchmarks with upscaling enabled shifts the conversation significantly. Nvidia’s DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation available on the RTX 5060 Ti produces frame rates that AMD’s FSR 4 cannot currently match in raw output numbers. In Cyberpunk 2077 with DLSS 4 Quality mode and MFG active, the RTX 5060 Ti can hit frame rates well above 100 fps, making ray tracing at 1080p feel smooth in a way the native numbers do not reflect. FSR 4 Quality on the RX 9060 XT pushes the average up considerably but without MFG as a native option, the ceiling is lower.
That said, FSR 4’s image quality at 1080p has improved enough that the upscaled output from the RX 9060 XT is no longer the obvious visual downgrade it once was compared to DLSS. For players who are sensitive to frame generation artifacts or latency, running native or single-frame upscaling on both cards brings the gap back to what the native benchmarks show. For players who simply want high frame counts with RT enabled and are comfortable with frame generation’s tradeoffs, the RTX 5060 Ti’s DLSS 4 MFG advantage is real and worth factoring into the decision.
Where Each Card Makes Sense
The RX 9060 XT 16GB at $349 makes a straightforward case for itself in ray tracing scenarios where the title leans on global illumination and ambient occlusion rather than reflections and path tracing. Alan Wake 2, Dying Light 2, and similar implementations put it within striking distance of the RTX 5060 Ti at a price that is $30-$80 cheaper depending on the RTX 5060 Ti configuration you compare against. For buyers who want RT on without paying a premium for Nvidia’s ecosystem advantages, AMD’s offer is more competitive than it has been at any previous generation.
The RTX 5060 Ti holds a clear advantage in path tracing workloads and in any game where Nvidia’s RT implementation has been specifically optimized. Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition is the most dramatic example, but the pattern extends to other titles with heavy reflection ray tracing. If a buyer’s specific game library skews toward Nvidia-partnered titles with heavy RT implementations, the extra cost for the RTX 5060 Ti is harder to argue against. For a broader look at how these cards compare beyond ray tracing, the RX 9060 XT vs RTX 5060 Ti at 1440p ray tracing results show whether AMD’s performance holds up as resolution increases.
The Verdict at 1080p
Across six titles, the RTX 5060 Ti wins four on raw average frame rates with RT enabled and ties or comes close enough to call it even in two. The average performance gap across the full suite sits somewhere around 15-18 percent in Nvidia’s favor – significant, but not the blowout that previous AMD generations faced. RDNA 4 has made ray tracing a real part of AMD’s value proposition rather than a footnote in the spec sheet.
Where this gets complicated for buyers is the 8GB VRAM situation on the RTX 5060 Ti’s base configuration. At 1080p with ray tracing enabled, several of these titles push close to or above 8GB of VRAM usage, and the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB can stutter in scenarios where the RX 9060 XT 16GB – at a lower price point – simply does not. The performance gap between the two cards narrows considerably when you factor in VRAM pressure, and it narrows further in AMD’s favor when you compare the 16GB RX 9060 XT against the 8GB RTX 5060 Ti at their respective price points.
Whether Nvidia addresses that 8GB limitation with a driver-level workaround or a revised SKU will matter more for long-term value than any single benchmark result.
