Graphics cards are a humorous previous enterprise. The largest fanfare is all the time reserved for probably the most highly effective and spectacular playing cards, an excellent fusion of the most recent expertise that, at its finest, serves up face-melting efficiency and visuals. Nevertheless it additionally comes with a worth to match; your retinas might be delightfully seared, however so too will your checking account. Met with much less fanfare are what I’d name the “actual” playing cards – the {hardware} that’s really extra probably for use by regular individuals – by those that aren’t sicko sufficient to drop two grand on a graphics card.
Which all is sensible, after all. It’s thrilling to look at YouTube movies of somebody whipping a Ferrari or Porsche across the monitor, however the overwhelming majority of individuals aren’t shopping for these automobiles. They’re getting one thing extra smart as a substitute. On this analogy, now stretched to breaking level, the brand new Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti is one thing extra attainable and dependable. It’s a Toyota, or some kind of scorching hatch from Volkswagen. You get the thought.
The RTX 5060 Ti is available in two varieties, with the distinction being reminiscence. Let’s get one factor out of the best way proper up prime: you shouldn’t even take into consideration the lesser of the 2, the 8GB mannequin. I haven’t examined it, however broader media consensus makes clear that mannequin is one thing of a dud. As is usually the case, the lower-memory variant appears to primarily exist to make the promoting RRP decrease – however in actual phrases, you must all the time spend the additional $50 or £50 to get the higher one.
Placing the 8GB mannequin apart, then, we’re left with the 16GB variant. This one I have examined. It clocks in at $429/£399, which places it a clear $120 behind the subsequent mannequin up, the 5070. This worth level – sub $500 – is completely key for being a card that exists for the mainstream.
Pricing will range a bit up and down the vary as Nvidia isn’t doing a founders version model of this card, which extra firmly ‘anchors’ the value throughout the vary. I examined the Palit Infinity branded model – it’s a strong card, with a superb, quiet cooling answer, and an affordable dual-slot design. It’s usually obtainable for round RRP – although on the time of printing, most shops have an uplift of round £30 on the value of this particular card, presumably resulting from provide shortages.
Anyway. I anticipate you already know simply from studying the value level exactly how you’re feeling about it. The query is: can this card carry out? Let’s get into that, with VG247’s patented collection of expedited assessments.
Leaping straight in with Cyberpunk 2077, a favourite, we will see that at 1440p the sport comfortably manages a median body price in extra of 30fps with the real-time ray tracing cranked as much as the ‘Psycho’ setting – and with none upscaling help.
As I stated in my protection of the much more expensive 5080, the smarter play with the 50 collection is to check it to not the earlier era (the 40 collection), however to 2 generations again – the 30 collection. If you have already got a 40 series GPU, what are you even doing right here? There’s a great deal of life left within the GPU you may have. In case you have a 30 collection, nevertheless, you may see extra of an affordable uplift in efficiency that is likely to be price opening your pockets.
Again to Cyberpunk, then. On the 3060 Ti, the headline was that you can lastly play ray traced Cyberpunk natively at 1080p at an affordable body price within the excessive 30s or low 40s. Go to 1440p, nevertheless, and also you’d get a suboptimal, sub-30fps expertise. So on this battle, two generations buys you a efficiency bump that permits you to stretch to 1440p. In an apples-to-apples comparability, at 1440p Cyberpunk efficiency jumps by over 35% going from the 3060 Ti to the 5060 Ti. At 1080p it’s an identical story, differing by only some share factors.
Hopping to a sport with out all of the ray-traced lighting stuff inserting a dumbbell-heavy weight on the scales, you may see an identical degree of enchancment in uncooked rasterization – that’s to say, pumping out fairly graphics to your eyeballs. Forza Horizon 5 is ideal for this kind of take a look at. With maxed-out settings and at 1440p, the 3060 Ti might ship nicely in extra of 60fps – across the 80fps mark, in actual fact. The 4060 Ti 16 gb, one era again, will get one other ten or so on that. The 5060 Ti sadly doesn’t hit that magical 120fps level – however it will get shut, making a median simply shy of 110fps.
Would you care to guess how a lot that improve is, in uncooked phrases? Oh, it’s about 35% once more. Consistency! These outcomes are broadly repeated throughout a lot of the video games I examined. There’s all the time outliers, however a rule of a bit over a 3rd higher than two generations in the past and round 20% up on the equal card final era holds true.
All of this additionally will get augmented by the underlying tech which stays Nvidia’s secret weapon. It’s true that AMD has FSR, however DLSS particularly stays best-in-class for frame-boosting upscaling expertise. If we return to these Cyberpunk examples, you may get pleasure from body charges nicely in extra of 100fps at 1440p should you flick DLSS body era on. Actually, 120fps feels inside attain. With DLSS, there’s even upside right here for the 5060 Ti as a card for ‘native’ 4K (in case you are joyful to name a DLSS upscale native-ish), no less than for suitable video games.
Add to that the truth that this can be a 50 collection card and all of it provides up: 50 collection GPUs get entry to all the most recent options – so multi body gen, the most recent variant of DLSS, and so forth. This can be a cheaper card, sure, however on this it stays as leading edge because the $2000 5090. That has been Nvidia’s potent pitch for the final couple of generations, and it stays a strong proposition right here.
That expertise will probably be the distinction when somebody is deciding on if they need this card or AMD’s similarly-priced, similarly-performing RX 7800 XT. It additionally turns into a deciding issue in opposition to different Nvidia playing cards. If you’re on a 20 or 30 collection RTX GPU, entry to DLSS4, MFG, and different newer RTX card options as outlined in our review of the flagship 5090 are probably as a lot an element because the uncooked energy improve. The 5060 Ti has all that.
The ultimate issue is the value, after all, $429 could be troublesome to swallow, and I recognize that. In ‘uncooked’ bang for buck phrases, the 5070 and the 5080 each supply extra ‘frames per greenback’ should you actually wish to get into the weeds on that. However they’re additionally lots of of {dollars} extra – and the 5060 Ti 16GB feels to suit into an affordable and extra broadly attainable worth bracket.
Do I nonetheless suppose it’s a bit a lot? Effectively, sure. However that’s a broader GPU market downside as we face what appears like a correct loss of life of actually inexpensive mid to high-end computing. Throughout the context of the present market, the pricing of the 5060 Ti feels wonderful for the efficiency you’re getting.
Briefly, this undoubtedly feels just like the 50 collection’ popping out into the mainstream – which is an efficient factor to see. Generally that doesn’t occur till the inevitable mid-generation refresh. In case you have a 20 or 30 collection, are getting that improve itch, and plan to play at 1440p or under – that is most likely the cardboard for you. In any other case, you would possibly wish to wait a couple of extra years – or get to saving.
Nvidia supplied a GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB pattern to facilitate this protection.