NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 8GB review: It had a rough start, but it's not a bad GPU

Calling NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 5060 8GB a troubled launch might be putting things mildly –just a quick search of “GeForce RTX 5060” on YouTube or Google reveals an avalanche of negativity, with critics lambasting NVIDIA for allegedly limiting media access to pre-launch RTX 5060 drivers unless certain benchmarking conditions were met. Now, for the record, let me stress that HardwareZone has never once been subjected to such pressures from NVIDIA, despite what some outlets have claimed.

Like many tech media outlets, HardwareZone received an RTX 5060 card – the ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5060 – earlier this month. But without the necessary drivers, we couldn’t begin testing. By the time NVIDIA finally made them available on 19 May, our attention had already shifted to Computex 2025. I won’t speculate on NVIDIA’s reasons, but it’s worth noting this isn’t their usual playbook. Historically, NVIDIA has provided us with everything we need ahead of time for launch-day coverage. The way this rollout unfolded, however, suggests things didn’t go quite as planned.

But let’s go back to the topic at hand: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060. NVIDIA has not made a Founders Edition, so our impressions of the GPU are based on the ASUS TUF Gaming card but its worth noting that it’s a factory overclocked card and may not be a true representative of a base-level RTX 5060 card.

To start, the RTX 5060 is built on the same GB206 silicon as the higher-tier RTX 5060 Ti. The die packs 21.9 billion transistors – though not all are enabled here, as the core count has been trimmed by around 17%. That said, the RTX 5060 still features 25% more cores than the previous-generation RTX 4060. It also benefits from a move to faster 28Gbps GDDR7 memory, boosting memory bandwidth by 65% to 448 GB/s.

On paper, this is a US$299 GPU (SRP), but as we’ve seen with the entire GeForce RTX 50 series – and AMD’s new Radeon 9000 series for that matter – retail pricing often tells a very different story. This model is also limited to just 8GB of VRAM, which isn’t ideal. That said, there’s only one configuration available, which makes it less of a potential trap for buyers –unlike the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB, which could be mistaken for the more capable 16GB variant.

What complicates the VRAM limitation further is NVIDIA’s choice to pair the card with a PCIe 5.0 x8 interface. That might not pose a huge issue for PCIe 5.0 systems, but performance could take a hit on older platforms – particularly those still on PCIe 3.0, where bandwidth bottlenecks become far more noticeable. And considering that entry-level GPUs like this RTX 5060 are aimed at gamers on older rigs – who are less likely to upgrade frequently – choosing a PCIe 5.9 x8 interface feels like an odd move.

So how does the RTX 5060 perform? Let’s find out.

Our test rig

Our test machine remains unchanged from the one used in all of our GeForce RTX 50 series and Radeon RX 9000 series GPU reviews and comes with the following specifications:

• AMD Ryzen 9 9950X
• ROG Crossfire X870E Hero
• Samsung 990 Pro 1TB SSD
• Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5
• Windows 11 Home 64-bit
• ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG32UCDM 4K Gaming Monitor

For this review, my focus will be the RTX 5060’s performance against its direct predecessor, the RTX 4060. But numbers from previously benchmarked GPUs from the rest of the RTX 50 series as well as AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 series are also included, so as to give us an idea of where the RTX 5060's performance stands in the RTX 50 series’ stack.

Gaming performance (rasterisation)

My game list includes a mixture of old and recent games to test the RTX 5060’s performance, and while the list isn’t exhaustive by any measure there are enough different game engines and APIs variety to give us an idea of broader performance trends.

In our gaming benchmarks, the RTX 5060 8GB shows meaningful – thanks to the newer GB206 silicon, faster GDDR7 memory and architectural efficiencies based into the RTX 5060 – improvements over the previous-gen RTX 4060 in rasterisation performance. At 1080p, which remains the most realistic use case for a card in this price range, we’re looking at performance uplifts of roughly 20% depending on the title. That margin is consistent across demanding games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, as well as lighter but still visually rich titles like Horizon Zero Dawn.

For a card priced at US$299, that’s arguably what we’d want to see – an incremental step forward that stays within reach of the same budget-conscious segment. And while 8GB of VRAM continues to feel limiting in 2025, the RTX 5060’s single-configuration offering at least avoids the SKU confusion we’ve seen with the RTX 5060 Ti (which really should just be launched with a 16GB sku only). It’s still not a GPU for those chasing high refresh rates at 1440p or beyond, but for 1080p gamers who skipped the RTX 40 series entirely or are still holding onto older cards like the GTX 1660 or RTX 2060, the RTX 5060 feels like a reasonable and efficient upgrade that doesn’t break the bank.

Power and temperature

Thermally, the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 5060 8GB performs admirably, recording one of the lowest peak temperatures on the chart – thanks to its oversized cooling setup and the inherently modest power draw of the GB206 GPU. That said, until we get our hands on other, more compact RTX 5060 models (like Gigabyte’s rather cute RTX 5060 Low Profile card), it’s hard to say for certain whether this efficiency is down to ASUS’ overbuilt cooler or if the GPU itself simply runs cooler by design – though if I had to guess, I’d bet on the latter.

Either way, for anyone building or upgrading a power-conscious 1080p rig, this kind of thermal and power profile is exactly the kind of efficiency you’d want.

Final thoughts

So yes, the GeForce RTX 5060’s launch has been far from smooth. Between delayed pre-launch drivers and wider frustration over NVIDIA’s segmentation strategy – which has seen multiple SKUs with similar names but vastly different specs, like the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB and 16GB, or the RTX 4070 Super versus the standard vanilla non-Super RTX 4070 – it’s easy to see why the reaction to this card has been negative. But if you tune out the online drama and look at the RTX 5060 on its own – as a budget 1080p gaming GPU – it honestly isn’t a bad card. In fact, on pure hardware terms, it does exactly what it needs to.

You’re getting a modest but measurable jump over the RTX 4060, a faster memory with GDDR7, and lower power draw, and there are even low-profile card options now. No, it’s not equipped to handle 1440p reliably and certainly not 4K, and no, 8GB of VRAM really should not exist in these next-gen GPUs. But for gamers still on older GTX or early RTX 30 series cards looking for a sensible, wallet-friendly upgrade, the RTX 5060 gets the job done.

Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.