Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 review: better than console performance – but not enough VRAM

The RTX 5060 is here, finally completing the 50-series lineup that debuted five months ago with the 5090. The new “mainstream” graphics card is far from cheap at $299/£270, but ought to offer reasonable performance and efficiency while adding the multi frame generation feature that’s exclusive to this generation of GPUs. However, the 5060 also ships with just 8GB of VRAM, which could be a big limitation for those looking to play the latest graphics showcases.

Before we get into our results, it’s worth mentioning why this review is a little later than normal, coming a few days after the cards officially went on sale on May 19th. Normally, Nvidia or their partners send a graphics card and the necessary drivers anywhere from a couple of days to a week before the embargo date, which is typically a day before the cards go on sale. That’s good for us, because it allows us to do the in-depth analysis that we prefer and still publish at the same time as other outlets, and it’s good for potential buyers, as they can get a sense of value and performance and therefore make an informed decision about whether to buy a card or not – from what is often a limited supply at launch.

For the RTX 5060 launch, Nvidia – via Asus – delivered a card in good time ahead of its release, but the drivers weren’t released to reviewers until the card went on sale on May 19th, coinciding with Nvidia’s Computex presentation. Without the drivers, the card is a paperweight, so any launch day coverage is necessarily limited – and in many cases, graphics cards went out of stock before the usual tranche of reviews went live from the tech press. It’s a frustrating situation all around, and I doubt that even Nvidia’s PR department will be thrilled that most reviews start with the same complaint.

Following the public release of the drivers, we’ve been benchmarking around the clock to figure out just how performant the new RTX 5060 is, where its strengths and weaknesses lie, and where it falls compared to the rest of the 50-series line-up, prior generation RTX cards and competing AMD models.

Looking at the specs, you can see that the RTX 5060 is based around a cut-down version of the same GB206 die that powered the RTX 5060 Ti. The 5060 has 83 percent of the core count and rated power of the full-fat 5060 Ti design, with an innocuous three percent drop to boost clocks and the same 448GB/s of memory bandwidth.

Unlike the 5060 Ti, however, which debuted in 8GB and 16GB models, the 5060 is only available with 8GB of frame buffer memory – a limitation we’ll discuss in some depth later. For your 16.6 percent reduction to core count and TGP versus the 5060 Ti, you pay around 20 percent less – so the 5060 ought to be slightly better value.

RTX 5070 Ti
RTX 5070
RTX 5060 Ti
RTX 5060

Processor
GB203
GB205
GB206
GB206

Cores
8,960
6,144
4,608
3,840

Boost Clock
2.45GHz
2.51GHz
2.57GHz
2.50GHz

Memory
16GB GDDR7
12GB GDDR7
16GB GDDR78GB GDDR7
8GB GDDR7

Memory Bus Width
256-bit
192-bit
128-bit
128-bit

Memory Bandwidth
896GB/s
672GB/s
448GB/s
448GB/s

Total Graphics Power
300W
250W
180W
150W

PSU Recommendation
750W
650W
450W
450W

Price
$749/£729
$549/£539
$429/£399$379/£349
$299

Release Date
February 20th
March 5th
April 16th
May 19th

There’s no RTX 5060 Founders Edition, as you’d perhaps expect for a mainstream model, with various third-party cards available in a range of sizes. The RTX 5060 model we received is the Asus Prime model, an over-engineered 2.5-slot, tri-fan design that is nonetheless described as “SFF-ready” due to its relatively modest 268mm length. On top of the robust industrial design, the card features a dual BIOS with “quiet” and “performance” options – always useful. In this case however, the cooler is so large that even the “performance” option is very, very quiet. The card ships with this preset and we recommend it stays there.

Hilariously, the manufacturer product page recommends a 750W or 850W Asus power supply, though the specs page for the same model makes a more sane 550W recommendation. Regardless, you’ll be good to go with a single eight-pin power connector. In terms of ports, we’re looking at the RTX 50-series standard assortment, including one HDMI 2.1b and three DisplayPort 2.1b.

Like the RTX 5060 Ti – but not AMD’s just-announced Radeon RX 9060 XT – the RTX 5060 uses a PCIe 8x connection. That’s perfectly fine on a modern PCIe 5.0 or 4.0 slot, but potentially problematic on earlier motherboards with PCIe 3.0 slots – something we’ll test out in more detail on page eight.

For our testing, we’ll be pairing the RTX 5060 with a bleeding-edge system based around the fastest gaming CPU – the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D. We also have 32GB of Corsair DDR5-6000 CL30 memory, a high-end Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Hero motherboard and a 1000W Corsair PSU.

With all that said, let’s get into the benchmarks.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Analysis

Introduction and test rig [This Page]
RT benchmarks: Alan Wake 2, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Cyberpunk 2077
RT benchmarks: Dying Light 2, F1 24, Hitman: World of Assassination
RT benchmarks: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, A Plague Tale: Requiem
Game benchmarks: Alan Wake 2, Black Myth: Wukong, Cyberpunk 2077
Game benchmarks: F1 24, Forza Horizon 5, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2
Game benchmarks: Hitman: World of Assassination, A Plague Tale: Requiem
PCIe 3.0 vs PCIe 5.0: Black Myth: Wukong, F1 24, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
PlayStation 5 comparisons and DLSS 4 multi frame generation
Conclusions, value and recommendations