It is nearly right here: Nvidia’s RTX 5060 has been a hotly-discussed upcoming GPU, with arguments on each side about pricing, efficiency, and naturally, the much-maligned 8GB of video reminiscence.
Effectively, I’ve obtained my grubby little mitts on one among these new GPUs forward of its official launch on Might 19, and Nvidia was sort sufficient to let me take it residence and slap it right into a construct. Granted, loads of particulars are nonetheless embargoed (look out for our full evaluate right here at TechRadar within the close to future), however Workforce Inexperienced did give me restricted permission to speak about some early check outcomes with a pre-agreed pool of video games, so this is the news.
Setting issues up
Earlier than I focus on the sport efficiency, I will begin by laying out the testing parameters. At $299 (different regional costs TBC), the RTX 5060 would not characterize a generational worth improve from the venerable RTX 4060 – which was itself cheaper than the earlier RTX 3060. As such, I wished to place it in an acceptable system; the rig I used for testing options an AMD Ryzen 3600, 16GB of Essential Ballistix DDR4 RAM, and a midrange X570 motherboard from ASRock.
Nothing fancy right here, in different phrases. The xx60 GPUs from Nvidia have all the time sat on the budget-to-midrange part of the GPU scale; maybe by no means fairly being true price range playing cards, however nonetheless aiming to supply sturdy worth for cash with a smart price ticket for players who cannot afford to splash hundreds on a high-end card. It is value noting that there isn’t any Founder’s Version mannequin of the RTX 5060, so the precise card I am utilizing right here is the Asus Twin OC RTX 5060 8GB.
Subsequent up, the precise sport settings. I wished to actually put this card via its paces with a broad number of assessments, however Nvidia was fairly insistent about the usage of its shiny new AI options. As such, DLSS 4’s decision upscaling is ready to the ‘High quality’ preset at 1080p output, and Multi Body Era (MFG) is used for all the assessments – sure, I’ve ideas on this, and you may learn them additional down. All the following video games had been examined at their respective most in-game graphical presets at 1080p.
Delivering some Doom
The primary sport on the testing rig was Doom: The Darkish Ages. Whereas its predecessor Doom Everlasting held a reasonably constructive status for operating effectively on lower-end {hardware}, this techno-medieval new romp is a bit more demanding. Nonetheless, on the ‘Extremely Nightmare’ graphics preset with DLSS 4 and MFG enabled, I used to be getting crisp framerates of greater than 220fps, with lows by no means dropping under 200. The Darkish Ages completely slaps, by the way in which.
It appears incredible in movement, too. DLSS has come a lengthy approach since its public launch greater than six years in the past, and outdated complaints of visible tearing and glitching are fully non-applicable right here. The frame-generation works nice too; even in fast-paced enviornment battles towards the hordes of Hell, I wasn’t in a position to register any visible points, and with the graphics cranked as much as most all the things appeared very fairly (when it wasn’t lined in blood and viscera, anyway).
The perils of producing your individual frames
All trying excellent to this point, then? In spite of everything, nearly all of PC players with new Nvidia GPUs are utilizing DLSS or frame-gen in some capability. It is free framerate; why would not you? However there are some necessary caveats surrounding upscaling and body era, and people caveats did rear their heads in my testing.
Upon operating the built-in benchmark for Cyberpunk 2077 – in its ridiculously demanding RT Overdrive preset, no much less – I obtained a superbly good framerate common of 121fps, however upon really leaping into the sport, I used to be getting occasional points with stuttering throughout high-action sequences like automotive chases and intense gunfights.
It was by no means unplayable, to be clear. Visible constancy and readability remained excellent with the DLSS High quality preset, with no apparent tearing or artifacting. We’re speaking about very temporary, very occasional drops into the 30-40fps vary, fairly seemingly attributable to a mix of the heavy VRAM calls for of Cyberpunk‘s RT Overdrive mode (on an 8GB card) and the important thing disadvantage of body era: it is solely ever as efficient as the bottom rendering price.
See, if MFG is ready to run at most capability (completely on RTX 5000 GPUs) it affords as much as 4x frame-gen. In different phrases, for each particular person body rendered immediately on the GPU, you get three AI-generated frames (‘pretend frames’, as some detractors on-line have dubbed them) that are then inserted between the rendered frames to hurry up your finish framerate.
The issue with that is that it is immediately tied to the unique rendered framerate. So in the event you’ve already obtained a wholesome fps above 60, then nice, you are getting an additional 180 frames per second without spending a dime. But when your framerate dips are bottoming out within the single digits, no quantity of MFG will produce sufficient additional frames to salvage the sport’s playability. Fortunately, Cyberpunk by no means fairly obtained that dangerous in my 1080p testing, however it makes me surprise how efficient the RTX 5060 will actually be in relation to 1440p gaming.
Override it out
There’s one different main caveat to think about right here, and that is developer assist for DLSS and MFG. Recreation devs have to construct assist for Nvidia’s nifty performance-boosting options into their video games, and whereas Doom: TDA, Marvel Rivals, and Cyberpunk all embody that assist, the final two video games I examined did not function built-in MFG performance.
Happily, Nvidia has a workaround for this: DLSS Override, which lets customers force-activate each decision upscaling and body era on a driver degree, successfully bypassing the necessity for dev implementation. Much less happily, the outcomes of this device are… combined, to say the least.
Hogwarts Legacy, with MFG enabled by way of the Override setting within the Nvidia App, was getting a fairly constant 170-180fps. Visible constancy was stable, with solely a really small quantity of tearing right here and there, largely round vibrant particle results. It was definitely playable; I would say these extraordinarily minor graphical points had been definitely worth the massively boosted framerate. With DLSS High quality and the Extremely graphics preset, it nonetheless appeared nice at 1080p.
Avowed, however, didn’t appear to get pleasure from being overridden practically as a lot. Whereas MFG and DLSS 4 granted it a wonderful 189 common fps, the intense and colourful surroundings of the Residing Lands was rife with small however noticeable points with blurring and artifacting, particularly in busy environments just like the port metropolis of Paradis.
Closing ideas
This was a case the place I felt DLSS Override wasn’t actually value it; it will differ lots from sport to sport, after all, and the truth that Override exists and features in any respect remains to be massively spectacular to me. However Avowed had a little bit an excessive amount of visible jank for my liking with Override’s frame-gen operating, to the purpose the place I believe I would slightly simply drop the graphical settings down a notch or two and play with a decrease framerate however extra constant visuals.
Nonetheless, on the asking worth, the RTX 5060 is a particular enchancment over the RTX 4060, thanks in no small half to the introduction of MFG – and whereas that may solely reliably assist your efficiency in supported video games, increasingly more devs are actually working to incorporate MFG performance of their titles.
As for that 8GB query… truthfully, I nonetheless do not suppose it is sufficient, particularly contemplating that 1440p is changing into a extra well-liked decision for PC players. If we do not get a desktop RTX 5050, this card will be thought of the underside rung of Nvidia’s Blackwell desktop GPU stack, so it isn’t completely unreasonable for it to stay a 1080p-focused card, however that is 2025: it is time we step up our VRAM sport a bit, people.
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