Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
Asus GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB Prime OC
We received two different RTX 5060 Ti 16GB cards for today's launch. Asus sent its RTX 5060 Ti 16GB Prime OC, and Nvidia sent a PNY RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC. We'll start with the Asus card.
The Prime series of graphics cards (and motherboards) represents more of a base feature set from Asus. That's not to say there are no extras, but you don't get RGB lighting and the overall design aesthetic trends toward the minimalist side of the spectrum. That's totally fine if you prefer less bling and doesn't reflect on the overall card quality.
The Prime OC comes with a relatively minor factory overclock of 2617 MHz out of the box. If you install Asus' GPU Tweak III software and enable the OC mode, you get another 30 MHz increase to the boost clock — which you can enable on any graphics card as far as we can tell. We tested without GPU Tweak III installed or running, as the additional gains from 30 MHz would be very minor. (It's only an additional 1.1% overclock, which is practically margin of error for many of our tests.)
The Prime OC comes with triple fans, each 89mm in diameter with an integrated rim that helps improve static pressure and airflow. Each fan has eleven blades, which is supposed to reduce noise (relative to fans with fewer blades), improve airflow, and eliminate turbulence. The middle fan also spins in the opposite direction of the outer fans to reduce air turbulence.
As you'd expect with a triple-fan design, the Prime OC isn't particularly small, though it does qualify for Nvidia's "SFF Ready" requirements. It weighs 901g and measures 304x120x50 mm. That's a 2.5-slot thickness, for a 180W TGP graphics card. You could say it's overkill, but the benefit will be cooler temperatures and less noise from the fans.
As with most modern consumer graphics cards, you get three DisplayPort 2.1b ports and a single HDMI 2.1b port. Nvidia's Blackwell GPUs support the full 80 Gbps maximum that DisplayPort 2.1 allows for, also called UHBR20 (Ultra High Bit Rate 20). The HDMI port only offers 48 Gbps by comparison, though both are capable of driving a 4K 240Hz monitor with DSC (Display Stream Compression) enabled.
Nvidia doesn't require its card partners to use a 16-pin 12V-2x6 power connector for cards that only need a single 8-pin connector. As such, the Asus Prime OC comes with a single 8-pin connector. Combined with the 75W maximum of the PCIe x16 slot, that's enough for 225W of total power. Across our full test suite, the maximum power draw we recorded for the card in any game at any resolution was 205W, while the average power peaked at 181W. (You can see the average power data on page nine.)
Like most graphics cards, Asus uses a physical PCIe x16 connector, even though it's electrically wired for x8 lanes. That's for the best, as it helps support the card and locks into the motherboard graphics slot.
Asus uses a flow-through design for the back fan, which also applies to half of the middle fan. There's also a dual-VBIOS switch to toggle between 'quiet' and 'performance' modes, which mostly affects the fan speed curve. Asus also has an aluminum shroud on the card, which can be removed separate from the heatsink assembly — useful for cleaning out the fans and radiator fins.
- MORE: Best Graphics Cards
- MORE: GPU Benchmarks and Hierarchy
- MORE: All Graphics Content
