A big VRAM boost and a reasonable MSRP make the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB the current lower mid-range king, enabling you to run even demanding games at high settings at 1080p and sometimes higher resolutions. Supply problems mean actual prices are too high in some places right now, though, and we don’t recommend buying this GPU unless you can get it for close to the MSRP.
Pros
Loads of VRAM
Decent value at MSRP
Great gaming performance
Multi frame gen
Cons
Actual price is much higher in US
Limited benefits to multi frame gen
Only slightly more shader power than 4060 Ti
Nvidia doesn't often it when it has made mistakes, but it looks like there's a hidden acknowledgement in the launch of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti. Maybe, just maybe, Nvidia has realized that its GPUs should be kitted out with more VRAM as standard. There was a massive $100 difference between the 8GB and 16GB versions of the 4060 Ti, and Nvidia didn't send samples of the latter to reviewers when they came out several weeks later. This time, that difference has shrunk to just $50 and Nvidia has switched its review samples around, with the company only sending me a 16GB RTX 5060 Ti card to test.
As we'll see in this review, that extra memory has a profound impact on some games, particularly when you're piling on ray tracing effects, and this decision helps elevate the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB's pool of mediocrity. It's not all plain sailing, of course. The GPU itself is only slightly more powerful than the 4060 Ti, which was only a smidgen in front of the 3060 Ti in of basic rendering power. Meanwhile, stock problems have made it very difficult to buy this new GPU at its actual MSRP in the US.
Even so, given that there's currently no sign of the best graphics card you can buy right now in this price range. It's worth waiting for the stock and pricing situation to settle down before purchasing a card in the US, but in the UK the 5060 Ti is going for its MSRP, where it represents decent value for money.
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Specs
RTX 5060 Ti specs
CUDA cores
4,608
RT cores
36 (4th-gen)
Tensor cores
144 (5th-gen)
Base clock
2,407MHz
Boost clock
2,572MHz
L2 cache
32MB
ROPs
36
VRAM
16GB GDDR7 28Gbps
Memory interface
128-bit
Memory bandwidth
448GB/s
Interface
8x PCIe 5.0
Power connectors
1 x 8-pin / 1 x 16-pin
Total graphics power
180W
Under the hood, the RTX 5060 Ti is very similar to its predecessor, but with a small bump in specs. Based on Nvidia's new Blackwell architecture, the RTX 5060 Ti has 4,608 CUDA cores, which are the parts responsible for the GPU's raw game rendering power – the more the better, and that's 256 more than the 4060 Ti. That's a small jump, though, of just under 6%.
You also get four more RT cores for ray tracing than the 4060 Ti, and eight more Tensor cores for AI work, such as DLSS and neural rendering. These parts have also been revised to their 4th-gen and 5th-gen designs respectively, with the latter powering the flagship feature of Nvidia DLSS 4, multi frame gen.
This tech uses AI to cleverly insert up to three artificial frames between each pair of frames rendered by your GPU, to massively increase frame rates. You need to have a decent frame rate before you enable it (Nvidia recommends at least 45fps), and it can't fix a frame rate that's poor in the first place, but if your game already runs at 60fps or higher, multi frame gen can work really well at smoothing out your frame rate, which is ideal if you have a monitor with a fast refresh rate.
As I mentioned previously, though, it's the memory where you'll see the biggest difference between the 4060 Ti and 5060 Ti. With 16GB of VRAM, the $429 version of this GPU can actually run games at some settings that can't be achieved on the more expensive RTX 5070, as it only has 12GB of VRAM. Nvidia's use of 28Gbps GDDR7 VRAM has also massively increased the memory bandwidth from 288GB/s on the 4060 Ti to 448GB/s on the 5060 Ti, meaning the GPU can get data to and from the memory much faster, despite only having a relatively narrow 128-bit memory interface.
You don't always see the benefits of more VRAM in games, so there will be plenty of cases where the 8GB card is just as fast as the 16GB one. However, if you really push up the settings in some of the latest games, 8GB can become quickly saturated, and at that point frame rates fall off a cliff as the GPU has to get data from system memory instead. With 16GB of fast VRAM, the only real bottleneck on this card is the GPU itself.
There are a couple of other parts of the specs list worth noting too. One is that this card only uses eight PCIe 5.0 lanes, rather than the 16 used by other Nvidia Blackwell GPUs. Eight PCIe 5.0 lanes is absolutely fine for this level of GPU power, but be aware that this number of lanes will persist on older motherboards that only previous versions of PCIe, so you'll only get eight PCIe 3.0 lanes, rather than 16, for instance. Such a setup could limit performance.
Finally, the power draw of this GPU is notable simply because it's so low. We'll come to the actual figures later in the review, but Nvidia only suggests you need a 450W PSU for this GPU, and our sample Palit card only comes with a single 8-pin power connector on it. There are some 5060 Ti cards with 16-pin connectors instead, but either way, most people likely won't need a new PSU to power this card.
How we test
To gauge the gaming performance of the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, I'm running a number of benchmarks using real games, rather than synthetic benchmarks. Each test is run three times, recorded with Nvidia FrameView, and I report the mean average of the results, discarding any obvious anomalies. I report two figures for frame rates – firstly, the average, which gives you an idea of the general frame rate you will achieve. Secondly, I report the 1% low, which is an average of the lowest one percent of results recorded during the benchmark.
The latter is a more reliable indicator of performance than the outright minimum, as it removes outliers, such as moments where a Windows system event causes the game to stutter, which is unrelated to the performance of the GPU. The 1% low is what you can expect the actual typical minimum frame rate to be in these games.
GPU test system specs:
U: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
U cooler: Corsair H100X RGB Elite
Memory: 32GB 6,000MHz G.Skill TridentZ RGB, CL28
Motherboard: MSI MAG X870E Carbon WiFi
SSD: 2TB WD Black SN850X
PSU: Corsair RM1000X Shift
Benchmarks
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
I'm going to start the benchmark discussion with the best showcase of the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB's abilities, which is this brutally demanding Indy game. Here, you can really see the benefits of that extra VRAM compared with the 8GB RTX 4060 Ti. At 1,920 x 1,080 with the Ultra preset, and not even any help from DLSS upscaling or frame gen, the 5060 Ti averages a superb 91fps in this game, and it can handle the game at 2,560 x 1,440 at these settings, with an average of 73fps, and a still-solid 60fps 1% low.
Comparatively, the 8GB cards flounder at these settings, being unable to run the game at all at 1440p, and with choppy, unplayable frame rates at 1080p – the 15fps 1% low of the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB is 79% slower than the 5060 Ti 16GB. This makes the game unplayable, and the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB will almost certainly suffer from the same problems.
Remarkably, that extra memory also enables the 5060 TI 16GB to push past the RTX 5070 in this game if you crank up the eye candy. Max out the game with the Supreme preset and Full RT (path tracing) at its maximum setting and the RTX 5070 falls over with an average of 5fps, whether you have frame gen enabled or not – its 12GB of VRAM simply isn't enough. However, with multi frame gen enabled, the 5060 Ti 16GB averages 105fps in this test.
There is a big caveat here, though, which is that the game still isn't particularly fun to play at these settings on the 5060 Ti. The starting frame rate of 40fps is simply too low for multi frame gen to smooth out without encountering obvious input lag, making for a choppy and glitchy experience despite the ostensibly smooth frame rates.
I found you can get a decent compromise, though, running the game with the Ultra preset and medium Full RT, and DLSS 4 on the Performance setting – the game still looks really good here, thanks to Nvidia's new Transformer model, which is much less blurry than earlier versions of DLSS.
At these settings, the game runs at 54fps, giving you just enough headroom to enable multi frame gen and hit 138fps. The game is playable at these settings and looks great, while the RTX 5070 can't handle these settings at all. Likewise, while the Radeon RX 9070 can at least run the game with Full RT, the 47fps frame rate in the graph above was only achieved with FSR frame gen enabled, and I found it completely unplayable in testing, with the frame rate jumping all over the place.
Cyberpunk 2077
Another great showcase for the RTX 5060 Ti is Cyberpunk 2077. It's an old game now, but CD Projekt Red has kept adding new graphical features as they've become available, meaning it's still a decent benchmark for the latest GPUs. In particular, the game looks fantastic in the new Overdrive ray tracing mode with path tracing, and the RTX 5060 Ti can actually handle this mode.
Running at 1080p with the Overdrive ray tracing preset enabled, and DLSS 4 (transformer) set to the Quality setting, the RTX 5060 Ti averages 56fps, with a 1% low of 46fps, which is a solid starting point. You can then enable multi frame gen, and the frame rate rockets all the way up to 179fps. Comparably, the RTX 4060 Ti averages 87fps in this test with single frame gen, and there are noticeable frame rate drops in play too, as the starting frame rate is lower.
If you play around with the settings, you can also get this game running well at 2,560 x 1,440 on the RTX 5060 Ti. At the standard Ultra ray tracing preset, the game only averages 33fps at this resolution, but that's still a good 8fps faster than the 4060 Ti, and the 1% lows are much quicker too. Enable DLSS 4 upscaling with the Performance preset, which still looks solid with the new Nvidia transformer model, and the game averages 81fps, giving you enough headroom to enable multi frame gen and hit 207fps.
Even without DLSS enabled at all, the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB averages 54fps at 1080p with the Ultra ray tracing preset, again with much higher 1% lows than the 4060 Ti 8GB. Enable DLSS 4 on the quality setting, and the average climbs up to 86fps, and the game still looks great. Enable multi frame gen and it runs at a super-smooth 255fps. This is all remarkable for a GPU at this price, and really shows the benefits of Nvidia's latest tech in games that it.
Call of Duty Black Ops 6
But how does Nvidia's new GPU cope in games that don't ray tracing or multi frame gen? Call of Duty Black Ops 6 is a good test here, a AAA game that doesn't these features, and is still demanding at the top Extreme graphics preset.
At 1080p, there's basically no difference between the RTX 4060 Ti and 5060 Ti at these settings without DLSS enabled. Both GPUs average 100-101fps with identical 1% lows, and these results were consistent across multiple runs.
That's still playable, though, and enabling DLSS on the Quality setting, as well as single frame gen, enables the RTX 5060 Ti to pull ahead to 170fps, compared with 154fps on the 4060 Ti. This game is better optimized for AMD's GPUs, though, where the Radeon RX 9070 is 75fps quicker even without any FSR features enabled at 1080p, and even the budget Radeon RX 7600 is only slightly behind the 5060 Ti at this resolution.
Move up to 2,560 x 1,440, and this game is still playable on the RTX 5060 Ti, with an average of 76fps compared to 73fps on the 4060 Ti, and this increases to 120fps if you enable DLSS and frame gen. Again, though, the AMD GPUs are really strong in this game, and it's likely the new Radeon RX 9060 XT, if and when it's released, will be better than the RTX 5060 Ti in this test.
Doom Eternal
The results from this aging first-person shooter were a real eye-opener when I was testing the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, as the extra VRAM gives it a significant benefit if you enable ray tracing in the game. At 1080p with the Ultra Nightmare preset and ray tracing enabled, the 5060 Ti averages a superb 278fps, while the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB could only manage 181fps.
The 1% lows are also massively improved, from 85fps on the 4060 Ti to 187fps on the 5060 Ti. That's because the 8GB frame buffer is pushed right to its limit in this game with ray tracing, giving the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB a big advantage.
The same pattern is repeated at higher resolutions, where the game is smoothly playable with 1% lows of 135fps at 2,560 x 1,440, while the 4060 Ti 8GB drops right down to 70fps. You can even play the game at 4K on the 5060 TI 16GB, where it averages 105fps, which increases to 130fps with DLSS on the Quality setting, a remarkable result for a card with this level of MSRP. Comparably, none of the 8GB cards will even run the game at these settings, as they're stopped by a VRAM error in the game.
Again, the Radeon RX 9070 is significantly faster in these tests, but that GPU also costs a lot more money. There's nothing else that can touch the RTX 5060 Ti in its nominal $429 price bracket.
F1 24
Finally, running F1 24 at Ultra settings, which includes ray tracing, shows the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB pulling well in front of the 4060 Ti 8GB, especially when it comes to 1% lows.
In particular, the game is genuinely playable on the 5060 Ti 16GB at 1440p, with an average of 63fps and a 1% low of 50fps, compared to 53fps and 38fps respectively on the 4060 Ti 8GB. Enable DLSS on the Quality setting, as well as DLSS frame gen, and it averages 111fps at 1440p, and 158fps at 1080p.
These are all decent results in of playability, but again, this game runs really well on AMD's hardware. The exception here is the budget Radeon RX 7600, which can't even get a playable frame rate at 1080p, and crashes if you try to enable frame gen. However, the last-gen Radeon RX 7800 XT is firmly in front of the 5060 Ti, and the new Radeon RX 9070 is significantly quicker – it's likely that the rumored Radeon RX 9060 XT will outperform the 5060 Ti 16GB in this game.
Nevertheless, this game was a bit of a struggle for the 4060 Ti 8GB, and the 5060 Ti 16GB handles it fine. Also, as this game doesn't DLSS 4 or FSR 4, it looks much better on Nvidia GPUs if you enable upscaling. DLSS looks decent on the Quality setting, whereas FSR looks horrible, with noticeable noise and distortion around the spinning wheels, particularly in wet weather.
Power draw
With just a single 8-pin connector on our Palit RTX 5060 Ti 16GB sample, we were hoping to see a low power draw from this graphics card, and we weren't disappointed. Our Ryzen 7 7800X3D test rig drew less than 300W from the mains with the 5060 TI 16GB installed and running at peak load. That's 20W more than with the 4060 Ti installed, which is a worthwhile compromise for the improvement in performance, and nearly 100W less than the power draw of the Radeon RX 9070.
Nvidia recommends at least a 450W PSU for this GPU, and I'd be inclined to go for a 500W unit to be safe, especially if you're using a power-hungry U, but the good news is that many gamers won't need to upgrade their PSU to install this GPU. Plus, with many cards available with an 8-pin connector, instead of a 16-pin one, you won't need to worry about installing cable adapters or extension leads either – it should just work with your old PSU.
Price
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB price is $429 / £399 at MSRP, while the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB price is $379 / £349. This represents a drop in price compared to its predecessor, the RTX 4060 Ti, which cost $399 for the 8GB version and a huge $499 for the 16GB card. The price of the 8GB RTX 5060 Ti is still too high for a card with just 8GB of VRAM in 2025, even if it is super-fast GDDR7 memory, but the $429 price for the 16GB card represents decent value for money at MSRP.
Not only is that $70 cheaper than the 4060 Ti 16GB, but the memory is also substantially quicker. It's worth waiting to see how the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT performs if and when it's released, especially if it's cheaper, but at the moment, $429 for the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB is a fair price for the performance on offer.
Alternatives
AMD Radeon RX 9070
If you have a bit more money to spend, AMD's new RDNA 4 GPUs currently offer fantastic performance, although it can be hard to track them down at MSRP, particularly in the US right now.
The cheapest model is the Radeon RX 9070, which nominally costs $549 but actually costs much more, particularly in the US, due to stock shortages. If the prices drop, though, the Radeon RX 9070 is significantly quicker than the 5060 Ti in of rendering power, and it also comes with 16GB of VRAM.
As with all GPUs right now, it can be hard to find the RTX 5070 in stock at MSRP in the US, but it's readily available for MSRP in other countries, including the UK. Irritatingly, it only has 12GB of VRAM, which limits its scope in really demanding games at high settings, but it has a decent amount of GPU power at its disposal, as well as for Nvidia's multi frame gen tech.
With loads of fast VRAM available and a fair price at MSRP, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB is a solid gaming GPU for the money. In fact, in many ways it's a better buy than the RTX 5070, with its extra memory giving it future-proofing room for next-gen games, and a significantly cheaper price. I'd definitely opt for the 16GB version rather than the 8GB card, given the way the other 8GB cards struggle with some of our tests.
While the GPU's raw rendering power doesn't always set the world alight, and it's sometimes only slightly quicker than the RTX 4060 Ti, the extra VRAM for the price makes it a much better buy than the 4060 Ti 8GB before it, and it's refreshing to see Nvidia finally acknowledging that some of its GPUs could do with more memory. Arguably, the RTX 5070 should have had a wider bus and more VRAM, while the 5060 Ti could get away with having just 12GB, but I'm not going to complain when you can get a 16GB card for this price.
However, the price is another problem here. While the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB is readily available at MSRP in the UK, where it's absolutely worth buying for £399, current market conditions sometimes make it hard to find at MSRP in the US. To be fair to Nvidia, while supply was woefully inadequate for the first few Blackwell gaming GPUs worldwide, it couldn't have foreseen the current US trade war.
At MSRP, the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB is a good buy, and at the time of writing, it's actually available for $429.99 at Walmart, but it isn't worth the silly asking prices I've seen for it in some places. I advise waiting for this GPU to be available at the right price rather than paying over the odds for it.
That's all a shame, as it otherwise feels refreshing to be writing a generally positive review about a new Nvidia GPU. The pricing at MSRP is much better than the 4060 Ti, particularly for the 5060 Ti 16GB, and you get for multi frame gen and decent ray tracing performance to boot. It's worth keeping an eye on the competition, as AMD will undoubtedly be launching a competitor in the near future, but at the moment, this is the sub-$450 GPU to buy if you can find it at MSRP.
