PowerColor Reaper AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB - Thermals, Noise Levels And Power

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Today we’re checking out something fresh from AMD. It’s the RX 9060 XT GPU, which is part of the newly announced Radeon 9000 series. And this one’s aiming to bring high-end performance to a slightly more reasonable power envelope. But is that really the case?

We have the PowerColor RX 9060 XT Reaper Edition on the test bench, and while AMD’s charts show impressive gains in modern titles, we’ll be doing our own testing to see how this card holds up in terms of thermals, noise, and real-world power draw. Let’s get into it! 

The RX 9060 XT is based on AMD’s RDNA 4 architecture, built using TSMC’s 4nm process node. It features 32 Compute Units, 32 Ray Tracing Accelerators, and 64 AI Accelerators. AMD rates it for up to 821 TOPS of peak AI performance using INT4 Sparse operations, alongside a 3.1 GHz boost clock. 

You can choose between 8GB or 16GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus. The 16GB model is priced at $349 USD, while the 8GB version comes in at $299. That makes it one of the more affordable GPUs with such a large memory pool. 

Power draw is modest, ranging from 150W to 180W depending on the configuration. Many board partners (including PowerColor) manage this with just a single 8-pin connector, making it an easy drop-in upgrade for older systems. PowerColor recommends at least a 500W power supply for the whole system. 

Connectivity includes PCIe 5.0 x16, though realistically, the performance class of this card doesn’t require that much bandwidth. An x8 interface might’ve actually made more sense, freeing up extra lanes for secondary GPUs or other expansion cards. 

Display outputs include two DisplayPort 2.1a and one HDMI 2.1b. While it’s nice to see modern display support, some might complain that AMD cut out the 4th output. Realistically though, for a card in this class, three is more than enough, most users will only ever use one or two displays anyway. 

There’s also a new media engine with full support for AV1, HEVC (H.265), and H.264 encoding and decoding. Plus, AMD has baked in a range of AI-powered features from upscaling to frame generation. How effective those are will depend on your workload, but it’s good to see them included. 

Now let’s talk about the card we’re using: this is the PowerColor RX 9060 XT Reaper. It features a stealthy all-black shroud with double-fan cooling, a full-length metal backplate, single 8-pin power connector, and zero-RPM fan mode for silent idle operation. The cooler is compact, fitting nicely in most cases, and should offer the thermal headroom needed for the 180W spec. So let's get into that but heads up – this video is not intended to cover every game. The focus is specifically on the performance of this card and how well its cooler handles the load. 

Right off the bat, in a long Time Spy Extreme loop, the RX 9060 XT pulls on average just over 160W, which is impressively close to the RX 7600 we tested previously. But where the 7600 averages 32 FPS, this card delivers 46 FPS, putting it slightly behind the RX 7700 XT which comes in around 49 FPS. 

Compared to AMD’s 9070 XT from earlier in the year (which nearly doubles the performance at 91 FPS) the 9060 XT clearly belongs in a different tier, but the power draw difference between them is far more dramatic. It’s less than half the wattage, making it interesting from an efficiency standpoint. 

When combining both FPS and power figures, we can look at performance-per-watt - and the RX 9060 XT ranks well here. It’s considerably more efficient than previous-gen cards like the RX 6700 XT or RTX 3080, but it still doesn’t match the surprising efficiency of the 9070, which remains an outlier in AMD’s stack. 

Now let’s talk thermals. With the stock fan curve, fan speed tops out at around 52–53%. The GPU itself stays stable at about 70°C, the hotspot hovers at 90°C, and memory sits in the 85–87°C range. These figures might seem high at first glance, but they’re absolutely within spec for modern GPUs. If you prefer cooler temps, manually setting fan speed to 80% drops all those values by roughly 10°C. Maxing out the fans reduces temps even further but it’s at the cost of unbearable noise. 

Which leads us to acoustics. This card isn’t massively powerful, but that actually works in its favour. Even with its small cooler and dual fans, it stays whisper quiet, it’s below our room noise floor of 37.9 dBA in stock configuration. I couldn’t detect any coil whine either, even with my ear right next to the testbench. Bumping fan speed to 80% raises noise to around 46 dBA, 90% gives 48.3 dBA, and 100% hits 52.2 dBA. Personally, I’d keep it at stock or tweak it slightly toward 80% for a good balance. 

Which brings us to the conclusion. The RX 9060 XT isn’t a powerhouse, but it nails efficiency, thermals, and acoustics. When I first picked it up, I honestly thought it was too small and too light to handle the heat, but I was wrong. This card could be a fantastic fit for a compact, small form factor build. What do you guys think - does this belong in your next ITX build, or would you skip it? Let us know in the comments.