AMD Radeon RX 9060 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile Comparison

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded data presents a clear split between these two mobile and desktop-oriented GPUs. The AMD Radeon RX 9060 claims the majority of benchmark victories, winning 8 out of 10 tests, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile secures 2 wins. The margins, however, tell a more nuanced story than the win count alone.

The most decisive victory for the AMD Radeon RX 9060 comes in the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test, where it scores 3322 against the RTX 3060 Mobile's 1821. This represents a 45.2% advantage for the AMD part, a substantial lead in a modern DirectX 12 workload. The RX 9060 also dominates legacy DirectX 9 performance, scoring 280 versus 146, a 47.9% delta. In DirectX 11, the AMD card leads by 39.6% (182 versus 110), and in DirectX 10, it leads by 13.5% (104 versus 90).

Compute workloads also favor the AMD Radeon RX 9060. In Passmark GPU Compute, the RX 9060 scores 9919 against 5718, a 42.4% advantage. The Geekbench OpenCL results show a closer contest, with the RX 9060 scoring 88183 versus 79483, a 9.9% lead. The Passmark G3D test, a general 3D graphics measure, gives the RX 9060 a 25% edge (17631 versus 13230). The Passmark G2D test, which measures 2D graphics throughput, shows a 41.3% win for the AMD card (1002 versus 588).

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile's two wins are notable for their context. In Geekbench Vulkan, the NVIDIA card scores 80344 against the AMD card's 39476, a massive 103.5% advantage. This is the single largest percentage delta in either direction across all tests, indicating a strong Vulkan implementation on the NVIDIA side. The second NVIDIA win comes in Passmark DirectX 12, where the RTX 3060 Mobile scores 58 against the RX 9060's 44, a 31.8% lead. This is a surprising result given the AMD card's strong showing in the 3DMark DX12 test, suggesting that the two DX12 benchmarks measure different aspects of the graphics pipeline.

The Verdict

The benchmark data indicates that the AMD Radeon RX 9060 is the stronger performer in the majority of workloads. Its average benchmark score, however, is lower in this dataset: the RTX 3060 Mobile averages 18159 across all recorded tests, while the RX 9060 averages 16014. This discrepancy is driven by the RTX 3060 Mobile's exceptional Vulkan score and the RX 9060's relatively weak Vulkan showing. The percentiles reflect this: the RTX 3060 Mobile sits at the 62nd percentile among all GPUs, while the RX 9060 sits at the 59th.

Looking at the nearest rivals in the database, the RTX 3060 Mobile's average score of 18159 places it 0.2% behind the AMD Radeon Pro 5700 (18189) and 0.4% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER (18093). It is also 1.2% ahead of both the AMD Radeon RX 460 (18373) and the Intel Arc A770M (18383), though those deltas are negative in the raw data, meaning the RTX 3060 Mobile scores lower than those two cards. The RX 9060's average score of 16014 puts it 0.7% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (16129), 1% ahead of both the AMD Radeon R9 370X (15862) and the AMD Radeon RX 7700 (15852), and 2.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 (15679).

For a user prioritizing raw compute, legacy DirectX 9/10/11 performance, and modern 3DMark results, the AMD Radeon RX 9060 is the data-supported choice. For a user who relies heavily on Vulkan-based applications or specific DirectX 12 titles that mirror the Passmark DX12 workload, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile offers a significant edge. The data does not support a single universal winner; it supports a workload-dependent decision.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs are built on fundamentally different architectures and process nodes. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile uses the GA106 chip, based on the Ampere architecture, manufactured on an 8 nm process at Samsung. It contains 12,000 million transistors on a die size of 276 mm², giving a transistor density of 43.5M per mm². The AMD Radeon RX 9060 uses the Navi 44 chip, based on the RDNA 4.0 architecture, manufactured on a 4 nm process at TSMC. It contains 29,700 million transistors on a die size of 199 mm², giving a transistor density of 149.2M per mm². The AMD chip is significantly denser, packing more than twice the transistors into a smaller physical area.

The memory configurations also differ. The RTX 3060 Mobile has 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s. The RX 9060 has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s. The NVIDIA card has higher memory bandwidth, but the AMD card has more capacity. The RX 9060 runs its memory at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective), while the RTX 3060 Mobile runs at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective).

The compute resources are structured differently. The RTX 3060 Mobile has 3840 shading units, 120 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. It also has 30 RT cores and 120 tensor cores, reflecting the Ampere architecture's dedicated ray tracing and AI acceleration hardware. The RX 9060 has 1792 shading units, 112 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, along with 28 RT cores. The AMD card has no tensor cores listed in the database. Despite having fewer shading units, the RX 9060 achieves higher raw throughput: its FP32 performance is 21.43 TFLOPS, while the RTX 3060 Mobile achieves 10.94 TFLOPS. The same ratio applies to FP16, with both cards offering 1:1 rates. The RX 9060 also has higher pixel and texture rates: 191.4 GPixel/s and 334.9 GTexel/s, versus 68.40 GPixel/s and 171.0 GTexel/s for the NVIDIA card.

Clock speeds differ substantially. The RTX 3060 Mobile has a base clock of 900 MHz and a boost clock of 1425 MHz. The RX 9060 has a base clock of 1700 MHz, a game clock of 2400 MHz, and a boost clock of 2990 MHz. The power draw is also higher for the AMD card, with a TDP of 132 W versus 80 W for the NVIDIA card. The RX 9060 requires a single 8-pin power connector and a 300 W suggested PSU, while the RTX 3060 Mobile uses no external power connectors and is listed as portable device dependent. The bus interfaces differ as well: the RTX 3060 Mobile uses PCIe 4.0 x16, while the RX 9060 uses PCIe 5.0 x16. Display outputs are portable device dependent for the NVIDIA card, while the RX 9060 offers 1x HDMI 2.1b and 2x DisplayPort 2.1a.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher FP32 compute performance?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 9060 achieves 21.43 TFLOPS, which is nearly double the 10.94 TFLOPS of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile.

Q: How do the two GPUs compare in Vulkan performance?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile scores 80344 in Geekbench Vulkan, which is 103.5% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 9060's score of 39476. This is the largest performance gap in either direction across all recorded benchmarks.

Q: What is the memory capacity and bandwidth difference?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 9060 has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile has 6 GB. The NVIDIA card has higher bandwidth at 336.0 GB/s, versus 288.0 GB/s for the AMD card.

Q: Which GPU has a higher transistor density?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 9060 has a transistor density of 149.2M per mm², compared to 43.5M per mm² for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile. The AMD chip uses a 4 nm process at TSMC, while the NVIDIA chip uses an 8 nm process at Samsung.

Q: How do the average benchmark scores compare?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile has an average benchmark score of 18159, while the AMD Radeon RX 9060 has an average score of 16014. The RTX 3060 Mobile sits at the 62nd percentile, while the RX 9060 sits at the 59th.

Q: What are the power requirements for each card?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 9060 has a TDP of 132 W and requires a single 8-pin power connector with a 300 W suggested PSU. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile has a TDP of 80 W and uses no external power connectors, being dependent on the portable device.

Where Each One Wins

The AMD Radeon RX 9060 is the clear winner in compute-heavy and legacy API workloads. Its 42.4% lead in Passmark GPU Compute, combined with a 9.9% edge in OpenCL, makes it the better choice for general-purpose GPGPU tasks. In DirectX 9, 10, and 11, the RX 9060 leads by 47.9%, 13.5%, and 39.6% respectively, making it the superior option for older game libraries and applications that rely on legacy rendering paths. The 45.2% advantage in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 also points to strong modern DX12 performance, though the Passmark DX12 result contradicts this. The RX 9060 also wins the G2D and G3D tests by 41.3% and 25%, respectively, indicating better overall 2D and 3D throughput in Passmark's suite.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile is the winner in Vulkan-based workloads, with a 103.5% lead in Geekbench Vulkan. This makes it the preferred choice for Vulkan-native applications, which include many modern cross-platform games and emulators. Its 31.8% win in Passmark DirectX 12 suggests that certain DX12 workloads may favor the NVIDIA architecture, even though the 3DMark DX12 test shows the opposite. Users targeting Vulkan-heavy environments should prioritize the RTX 3060 Mobile.

For capacity-sensitive workloads, the RX 9060's 8 GB memory is an advantage over the RTX 3060 Mobile's 6 GB, particularly for larger textures or datasets. However, the NVIDIA card's higher memory bandwidth (336.0 GB/s versus 288.0 GB/s) may benefit bandwidth-bound scenarios. The RX 9060's higher pixel rate (191.4 GPixel/s) and texture rate (334.9 GTexel/s) suggest it is better suited for fill-rate-intensive rendering, while the RTX 3060 Mobile's lower power draw of 80 W versus 132 W makes it more appropriate for power-constrained portable devices. The data supports the RX 9060 for raw performance across most APIs, and the RTX 3060 Mobile for Vulkan-specific and power-sensitive use cases.