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RTX 5060 reviews are reportedly in jeopardy — Nvidia allegedly withholding pre-release drivers from reviewers

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No day-one verdict from many publications.

Gigabyte RTX 5060/Ti lineup
(Image credit: Gigabyte)

Reports from multiple independent reviewers and publications suggest that Nvidia is barring access to pre-release drivers for the upcoming budget-oriented RTX 5060. Apparently, Nvidia is dropping drivers for RTX 5060 GPUs with the retail embargo. Igor's Lab, HardwareLuxx, and Hardware Unboxed have all posted about the issue on their websites or on social media.

Without the drivers, proper day-one reviews from tech publications will be impossible, and the drivers will drop as many reviewers travel to Computex in Taipei.

Nvidia typically optimized pre-release drivers as part of the review kit. Nvidia typically releases the public-facing enablement drivers for a new GPU on the day of its retail launch. If proper drivers aren't installed, the system may either fail to detect the GPU or the results obtained from benchmarking the card will be unreliable at best.

Nvidia didn't send RTX 5060 Ti 8GB models to reviewers, leading them to acquire retail units at their own expense. As expected, that GPU struggles at 4K, at 1440p, and even at 1080p in a handful of titles compared to its 16GB sibling. The RTX 5060 and its 8GB may face similar woes, but that's at least somewhat counteracted by its cheaper price point. It's conceivable that internal software issues may be causing driver delays, if you want to give Nvidia the benefit of the doubt.

The RTX 5060 is set to hit shelves on May 19th, exactly one day before Computex kicks off. This leaves reviewers with virtually no time for independent testing, so day-one impressions will largely be based on Nvidia's first-party metrics and the few reviewers who aren't traveling.

Ironically, potential RTX 5060 supply constraints at launch might be a blessing in disguise this time around, giving buyers just enough time to see independent reviews before jumping the gun.

On paper, the RTX 5060 offers 25% more CUDA cores (3,840) than the RTX 4060, suggesting a noticeable performance uplift. At its suggested $299 MSRP, the RTX 5060 might be a decent pick as long as you're aware of its limitations. Further down the stack, Nvidia is reportedly preparing an RTX 5050, but based on early specifications, don't expect it to perform any miracles. At the same time, rumors allege AMD is also scheduling its budget RX 9060 XT series for Computex, reigniting the company's rivalry on the low end of the hardware stack.

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Hassam Nasir
Hassam Nasir
Contributing Writer

Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he’s not working, you’ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun.

16 Comments Comment from the forums
  • magbarn
    Ah, the old taking time to "polish the turd" routine. It's not like it's the first Blackwell release.
    Reply
  • Amdlova
    Can't wait to see how bad will be :)
    Reply
  • Notton
    It's not like we can't predict the results.
    5060 is going to be slightly faster than a 4060, or equal a 4060Ti/8GB at best.
    So all you have to do is look at the 4060Ti/8GB benchmarks... and oh man does that card ever suck in 2025.
    Reply
  • atomicWAR
    Let's be real Ngreedia is shorting its gaming consumers. Firsts off this card should have never been a 60 class card, ever. This should be a 50 class card. But this is true of most of the stack. The 60ti class should be the 60 class, the 70 should be the 60ti class the 70ti should be the 70...the 80 class should be the 70ti and we should have got a heavily cut down GB202 with 24 GB of vram for the 80 series that was on par with an rtx 4090.

    I may well be done with Nvidia when ever my 4090 become irrelevant in the future and jump ship to AMD or god forbid Intel should they get their proverbial crap together in the high end. This is just a sad statement to how far Nvidia's product stack as fallen for gamers.
    Reply
  • bigdragon
    This behavior by a company usually means they changed something in a negative way. Companies always want to delay bad news. I have to wonder what we don't already know about the new 5060.
    Reply
  • Jagar123
    This is a shame. It's also a shame that these cards will still top the Steam hardware survey.
    Reply
  • hwertz
    I wasn't sure if Nvidia was even going to try releasing any cards under like $600,. So at least there's that. But, when it's time to replace my GTX1650 (which is doing fine so far...) I suppose I'll suck it up with losing CUDA support (who knows if rocm willl work given AMDs strategy of supporting datacenter cards plus a few others almost at random...) and go AMD. I'm a full time Ubuntu Linux user so other than no CUDA the AMD kit needless to say has excellent driver support.
    Reply
  • Krieger-San
    Just a reminder to all the 'gamers' out there (me included): Nvidia is a corporation. They do not care (at all) about their gaming division anymore because their AI/Enterprise divisions are significantly, ungodly profitable in comparison.

    Do yourself a favour and ask yourself how much you really need Nvidia's product over AMD's or Intel's. Make sure you are looking at every use case for your GPU (gaming, video encoding, 3d rendering, AI, etc.), then select based upon this criteria. AMD's latest cards to make up a lot of the gap between the two competitors; video encoding/transcoding quality was a big one for me, and I know that I will be looking closely at AMD cards when it comes time to replace my aging RTX 2080 Ti.
    Reply
  • hannibal
    25% increase toward 4060 is not too shabby for bottom part gpus.
    Interesting to see the real price.. not the msrp…msrp $300…. Retail $380?
    Reply
  • mac_angel
    not surprising. NVidia probably knows that the reviews are going to be bad, so they'll cut them off for as long as possible and try to get as many as possible day 1 sales as they can.
    Reply