Gaming Benchmarks (DirectX 12)
It's been two years since NVIDIA introduced its Ada Lovelace GPUs, kicking things off with the RTX 4090 and finishing up the initial lineup with the SUPER family At CES, the company unveiled its new RTX 50 "Blackwell" family which features a brand new architecture and several changes such as new cores, AI accelerators, new memory standards, and the latest video/display capabilities.
Today, NVIDIA releases its 5th entry within its "RTX 50" portfolio, the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti. The GeForce RTX 5060 Ti is positioned in the mainstream segment, with the green team promising great value for gamers at a starting MSRP of $429 for the 16 GB models. Today, we will be trying out PNY GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Stealth OC which is an MSRP model.
NVIDIA GeForce GPU Segment/Tier Prices
| Graphics Segment | 2025 | 2023-2024 | 2022-2023 | 2021-2022 | 2020-2021 | 2019-2020 | 2018-2019 | 2017-2018 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Titan Tier | GeForce RTX 5090 | GeForce RTX 4090 | GeForce RTX 4090 | GeForce RTX 3090 Ti GeForce RTX 3090 | GeForce RTX 3090 | Titan RTX (Turing) | Titan V (Volta) | Titan Xp (Pascal) |
| Price | $1999 US | $1599 US | $1599 US | $1999 US $1499 US | $1499 US | $2499 US | $2999 US | $1199 US |
| Ultra Enthusiast Tier | GeForce RTX 5080 | GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER | GeForce RTX 4080 | GeForce RTX 3080 Ti | GeForce RTX 3080 Ti | GeForce RTX 2080 Ti | GeForce RTX 2080 Ti | GeForce GTX 1080 Ti |
| Price | $999 US | $999 US | $1199 US | $1199 US | $1199 US | $999 US | $999 US | $699 US |
| Enthusiast Tier | GeForce RTX 5070 Ti | GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER | GeForce RTX 4070 Ti | GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB | GeForce RTX 3080 10 GB | GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER | GeForce RTX 2080 | GeForce GTX 1080 |
| Price | $749 US | $799 US | $799 US | $799 US | $699 US | $699 US | $699 US | $549 US |
| High-End Tier | GeForce RTX 5070 | GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GeForce RTX 4070 | GeForce RTX 4070 GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB | GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GeForce RTX 3070 | GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GeForce RTX 3070 | GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER | GeForce RTX 2070 | GeForce GTX 1070 |
| Price | $549 US | $599 $549 | $599 US $499 US | $599 $499 | $599 $499 | $499 US | $499 US | $379 US |
| Mainstream Tier | GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB | GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GeForce RTX 4060 | GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GeForce RTX 4060 | GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB | GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB | GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER GeForce RTX 2060 GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER GeForce GTX 1660 | GeForce GTX 1060 | GeForce GTX 1060 |
| Price | $429 US $379 US | $449 $299 | $399 US $299 US | $399 US $329 US | $399 US $329 US | $399 US $349 US $279 US $229 US $219 US | $249 US | $249 US |
| Entry Tier | GeForce RTX 5060 | RTX 3050 8 GB RTX 3050 6 GB | RTX 3050 | RTX 3050 | GTX 1650 SUPER GTX 1650 | GTX 1650 SUPER GTX 1650 | GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050 | GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050 |
| Price | $299 | $229 $179 | $249 US | $249 US | $159 US $149 US | $159 US $149 US | $139 US $109 US | $139 US $109 US |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 Gaming Graphics Cards
With Blackwell, NVIDIA is going full-on into the AI segment with loads of optimizations & AI-specific accelerators.
The Blackwell GPU does many traditional things that we would expect from a GPU, but simultaneously breaks the barrier when it comes to untraditional GPU operations. To sum up some features:
- New Streaming Multiprocessor (SM)
- New 5th Gen Tensor Cores
- New 4th Gen RT (Ray Tracing) Cores
- AI Management Processor
- Max-Q Mode for Desktops & Laptops
- New GDDR7 High-Performance Memory Subsystem
- New DP2.1b Display Engine & Next-Gen NVENC/NVDEC
The technologies mentioned above are some of the main building blocks of the Blackwell GPU, but there's more within the graphics core itself which we will talk about in detail so let's get started.
NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 series graphics cards have so far been available for over $500 US and that changes today with the RTX 5060 series, which promises to bring Neural Rendering prowess, & the DLSS 4 capabilities to mainstream audiences. These graphics cards are designed to offer over 100+ FPS in the most popular games at their targeted resolutions with DLSS 4 MFG (Multi-Frame-Gen) delivering a 2x gain in frame rate over the previous generation.
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 series graphics cards are going to be a huge upgrade for the vast majority of gamers out there, since 50+ million gamers are still running older x60 and x50-class graphics cards based on the older Pascal (10 Series), Turing (20 Series) and Ampere (30 Series) architectures. With DLSS 4, gamers running an RTX 5060 or 5060 Ti can reach up to 50x graphics performance versus a GTX 1060 or GTX 1660 GPU.
Furthermore, with the improvements made with DLSS 4's Transformer model, gamers can expect better image quality than native, along with higher performance and lower latency. The 5060 Ti sits at 2x the frame rate at similar or lower latency versus the 4060 Ti, which uses DLSS 3.x models. This has been verified across multiple AAA games, such as Hogwarts Legacy, Cyberpunk 2077, and Black Myth: Wukong.
Following are some performance figures, but NVIDIA did state that the average GPU improvement on the raster will be around 20% over the 4060 Ti.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti GPU Specifications
Alright, so let's talk about specifications. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti will feature the GB206 die with a total of 21.9 billion transistors packaged within an 181 mm2 chip. The GPU features a total of 4608 CUDA cores across 36 SMs, which is the full configuration of this chip. There are also 48 ROPs and 144 TMUs. The chip offers 24 TFLOPs of shading performance, 759 AI TOPS, and 72 TFLOPs of RT performance. The clock speeds are rated at 2.4 GHz base and 2.57 GHz boost. The 5060 Ti's TDP is rated at 180W.
As for the memory, the graphics card is configured with a 128-bit bus interface which utilizes the latest GDDR7 memory standard with pin speeds of 28 Gbps. Both 16 GB and 8 GB models of the card offer 448 GB/s of bandwidth, marking a 55.5% uplift over the RTX 4060 Ti. The card utilizes the PCIe Gen5 x8 protocol and comes with 4K (480Hz) or 8K (165Hz) display support.
- 5.8% More CUDA Cores
- Up To 20% Higher Raster Perf vs RTX 4060 Ti
- Same Memory Capacity (16 GB / 8 GB)
- Faster GDDR7 Memory (28 Gbps)
- More Bandwidth (+55%)
- 12.5% Higher power rating
- 8 GB Model $20 US Lower & 16 GB Model $70 US Lower Than 4060 Ti 8GB/16 GB MSRPs
You will see a lot of models of the cards in AIC flavors since the card isn't receiving Founders Edition treatment. The 16 GB models will start at $429 US, while the 8 GB models will start at $379 US. For comparison, the RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB models shipped at $399 US, while the 16 GB models shipped for $499 US. That's a $20 US lower price on the 8 GB and a $70 US lower price than the 16 GB models of its predecessor.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 GPU Specs (Official):
| Graphics Card Name | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU Name | Blackwell GB202-300 | Blackwell GB203-400 | Blackwell GB203-300 | Blackwell GB205-300 | Blackwell GB206-300 | Blackwell GB206-250 | Blackwell GB207-300 |
| GPU SMs | 170 | 84 | 70 | 48 | 36 | 30 | 20 |
| GPU Cores | 21760 | 10752 | 8960 | 6144 | 4608 | 3840 | 2560 |
| Clock Speeds | 2017 MHz (Base) 2407 MHz (Boost) | 2295 MHz (Base) 2617 MHz (Boost) | 2295 MHz (Base) 2452 MHz (Boost) | 2325 MHz (Base) 2512 MHz (Boost) | 2407 MHz (Base) 2572 MHz (Boost) | 2280 MHz (Base) 2497 MHz (Boost) | 2317 MHz (Base) 2572 MHz (Boost) |
| Memory Capacity | 32 GB GDDR7 | 16 GB GDDR7 | 16 GB GDDR7 | 12 GB GDDR7 | 8-16 GB GDDR7 | 8 GB GDDR7 | 8 GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Bus | 512-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 192-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit |
| Memory Speed | 28 Gbps | 30 Gbps | 28 Gbps | 28 Gbps | 28 Gbps | 28 Gbps | 20 Gbps |
| Bandwidth | 1792 GB/s | 960 GB/s | 896 GB/s | 672 GB/s | 448 GB/s | 448 GB/s | 320 GB/s |
| Power Interface | 1 12V-2x6 (16-Pin) | 1 12V-2x6 (16-Pin) | 1 12V-2x6 (16-Pin) | 1 12V-2x6 (16-Pin) | 16-Pin or 8-Pin | 8-Pin | 8-Pin |
| Launch | 30th Jan, 2025 | 30th Jan, 2025 | 20th Feb, 2025 | 4th March, 2025 | 16th April, 2025 | 19th April, 2025 | 1st July, 2025 |
| TBP | 575W | 360W | 300W | 250W | 180W | 145W | 130W |
| Price (MSRP) | $1999 | $999 | $749 | $549 | $379-$429 | $299 | $249 |
The NVIDIA Blackwell or RTX Blackwell architecture is designed for gamers and content creators. This architecture will be offered on the RTX 50 graphics cards first, launching later this month.
NVIDIA RTX Blackwell Architecture Deep-Dive
What we have known so far about the NVIDIA RTX Blackwell Gaming GPUs is that they are based on TSMC's 4nm process node, feature up to 92 Billion transistors with 4000 AI TOPS, 380 RT TFLOPs, a 125 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, the fastest GDDR7 memory interface with up to 1.8 TB/s bandwidth and come with a brand new Founders Edition design.
With Blackwell, NVIDIA had a few design goals in mind to accelerate the graphical capabilities for the next generation of gaming. The architecture was to be designed and optimized around new neural capabilities and workloads. It aims to reduce the overall memory footprint, it also focuses vastly on energy efficiency, and all the while adding new quality of service capabilities.
So Blackwell had to introduce a lot of changes. The main ones include the addition of 5th Gen Tensor Cores, offering high-speed FP4, compute and up to 4000 AI TOPS of performance, 4th Gen RT (Ray Tracing) cores with up to 360 RT TFLOPs and designed for Mega Geometry, a next-gen AI Management Processor which enables Simultaneous AI models and graphics workloads to be executed, a brand new Blackwell SM with 125 TFLOPS of peak FP32 compute and the addition of GDDR7 memory which offers the world's fastest memory speeds of up to 30 Gbps (on the RTX 5080).
Other notable RTX Blackwell GPU architecture additions include DisplayPort 2.1 (UHBR20), PCIe Gen5 support, and 4K NVDEC/NVENC with 4:2:2 colors.
Diving into the Blackwell SM, we first compare it with the Ada SM, which was mostly optimized for traditional shaders, & most of its Tensor cores were used either for DLSS or content creation apps. Ada also partitioned the FP32 cores into two blocks, one that could purely execute FP32 and one that could manage both FP32 & INT32 formats. With Blackwell, NVIDIA has doubled its INT32 GPU throughput which can help accelerate workloads such as Work Graphs and Shader Execution, and 5th Gen Tensor Cores also offer the aforementioned doubled throughput.
Other microarchitectural changes allow multiple workloads to be executed efficiently. Blackwell also improves SER (Shader Execution Reordering) by 2x by reordering the neural models and the standard shading models and putting the same work together in an organized fashion. These models are then passed through tensor cores (if ML models) or shared cores (if shading models) for final execution.
GDDR7 also brings a much-needed upgrade over GDDR6/X memory, offering twice the bandwidth and data rate of G6 memory with higher frequency and lower wattage. GDDR7 also supports PAM4 signaling and the PCB materials used on RTX 50 GPUs are top-of-the-line from an engineering point of view. This is the first full-fledged architecture for desktop PCs to utilize GDDR7 and PCIe 5.0 materials in full conjunction. The new memory interface also offers twice the efficiency of GDDR6 in terms of PJ/bit. This will be very useful in mobility "Max-Q" designs where efficiency matters the most.
Moving over to the Ray Tracing enhancements, the 4th Gen RT Cores introduce various new capabilities, such as a Triangle Cluster Intersection Engine which replaces the previous Triangle Intersection Engine which is optimized for Mega Geometry and can handle clusters of Mega Geometry and standard geometry much more efficiently.
The Mega Geometry engine also has a new Triangle Cluster Compression format which can be decompressed using Blackwell's on-chip engine. Lastly, the new Linerar Swept Spheres block accelerates RTX Hair and Fur rendering. To sum up, the new RT cores bring an 8x ray triangle intersection rate while reducing the memory footprint to 0.75x.
The FP4 format introduced on Blackwell's 5th Gen Tensor Cores will offer up to 32x throughput versus the Pascal generation and 2x versus the Ada generation of GPUs. These new cores will be taking full advantage of Neural Shading and Rendering techniques featured in next-gen AAA titles.
This also leads us to the next topic, which is about Blackwell's scheduling and how it processes various workloads. In Blackwell, NVIDIA is introducing a new programmable Coprocessor known as Amp which sits at the front of the GPU, and interacts differently with the different cores on the GPU while understanding what's running on them, what's being done on them, and scheduling precisely the specific workload for the right core.
NVIDIA also talked about Blackwell's new Power Gating modes. In Blackwell, the entire clock tree can be disabled even while the GPU is active. So, if the memory system or portions of the memory system are idle, power savings can be achieved this way.
Another way to save power is to disable logic and SRAM when entire engines are idle. Blackwell also introduces a secondary rail that separates the core and the memory system, which runs them at different voltages and, for different workloads, captures more performance within a power budget. It also allows a 15x reduction in the time it takes from the rail gate to the core. The new rail gate system is particularly useful in laptops as it reduces leakage by a major margin.
A new aspect of Blackwell is also its accelerated frequency switching capability, which improves clock responsiveness by 1000x. For example, a workload such as physics, which doesn't utilize the full width of the GPU, can switch to a higher frequency, while a tensor core workload, which can use the full width of the GPU, can move to a lower frequency. But when the CPU hasn't fed the GPU with any work, Blackwell can drop its frequency fast, and this is done because Blackwell can switch back to a faster frequency faster.
In terms of clock frequency uplift, Blackwell achieves a 300 MHz higher frequency in the active state versus Ada GPUs.
Lastly, we have Blackwell's Display & Video capabilities. New support on Blackwell includes support for DisplayPort 2.1b (UHBR20) with High-Speed hardware flip metering, which improves the pace of frames using DLSS 4. There's also the 9th Gen Encoder and 6th Gen Decoder, offering AV1 UHQ & 2x H.264 Decode capabilities, while MV-HEVC and 4.2.2 Encode/Decode are also included in the RTX Blackwell Video engine block.
NVIDIA DLSS 4 - Continuing The Deep Learning Innovations
Since the advent of DLSS back in 2018, the technology has been improving continuously. The DLSS model is being trained on a supercomputer housed within the NVIDIA H,Q which is running 24/7 & uses the latest and greatest of their GPUs for the past 6 years. The last major iteration of DLSS was DLSS 3.5, which introduced ray reconstruction. This new feature was part of the failure process in which the model detects various issues such as blurriness, ghosting, and flickering.
NVIDIA's in-house team of engineers then tried to figure out what went wrong in the model and why the image wasn't created as intended. New approaches are defined to augment the model set, which is retrained and tested across 100s of games to achieve the desired image quality, and these result in upgraded versions of DLSS, with the latest one now being DLSS 4, which improves upon all aspects of the Super Sampling technology.
With DLSS 4, NVIDIA is transitioning to a completely new neural architecture model from the 2020s DLSS 2. The main change is the new transformer engine, which can be trained across multiple data sets while being computationally efficient, offering 2x the parameter size and 4x the compute horsepower.
DLSS 4 also adds the new MFG mode, or Multi-Frame Generation, which, instead of running two models per frame, runs five models per frame with super-resolution and ray reconstruction. This leads to 15 out of 16 pixels or frames being generated by AI, all the while improving the image quality.
NVIDIA also dives a bit into why they only thought of doing multi-frame frame-gen with Blackwell and there were two reasons, one was that DLSS's image quality was not that great to begin with and needed more training time, while the second was the time it takes to generate these new frames could result in frame pacing and artifacting issues.
So, as the DLSS model was trained, the image quality became much better, which is fairly noticeable in recent DLSS 3 and DLSS 3.5 titles, while for frame pacing, NVIDIA's flip metering system is the solution that displays frame, and this has been upgraded, and it can now reduce the frame variability by 5-10x, leading to similar or better latency versus last-gen DLSS solutions even when MFG is enabled.
Best of all, while MFG will be limited to RTX 50 and Frame Generation will be limited to the RTX 40 and RTX 50 series, the image quality enhancements and Reflex 2 highlights will apply to all RTX GPUs as we reported here, so all RTX GPU owners are in for a small treat even if they don't own the latest and greatest hardware.
Unlike previous generations of DLSS, DLSS 4 will come with Day-0 support for a total of 75 games and apps, the largest library of DLSS-enabled titles on the first day, and more are on the way. To be clear, NVIDIA confirmed that developers will be able to leverage DLSS 4 quite easily if they have already integrated DLSS 3 or DLSS 3.5 within the engines.
NVIDIA will also integrate the option to enable DLSS 4 for non-DLSS-4 titles, such as those with DLSS 3 support, within its NVIDIA App. You can select between the older CNN mode, which will be a little bit faster but with lower image quality, and choose between various frame generation modes such as 2x, 3x, and up to 4x. Users can also select between resolution override modes, such as DLAA, if they prefer higher image fidelity or go with DLSS Ultra-Perf, which enables faster performance on RTX GPUs.
Another feature that goes hand in hand with the new DLSS 4 technology is Reflex 2, which is designed to decrease latency and improve responsiveness in games, especially eSports titles. Reflex 2 introduces a new technology called Frame Warp, which improves system responsiveness by 75%.
How NVIDIA achieves this is by sampling the mouse position right before the frame is rendered, and the camera is updated based on the user input, and then warping the scene to a new position right before the frame is displayed. Reflex 2 will be natively coming to The Finals and Valorant. All RTX GPUs will support Reflex 2.
NVIDIA RTX AI For Gamers: Moving From Programmable Shaders To Neural Shaders
As we stated at the start of this deep dive, the RTX Blackwell architecture is designed with AI in mind, and one of the major shifts that NVIDIA is making is to access next-gen Neural Shading technologies.
The company has already announced how it's cooperating with Microsoft to leverage DirectX's Neural Rendering capabilities that will fully unleash the tensor core prowess of RTX 50 GPUs.
With Blackwell's Neural Shaders, NVIDIA will harness various means of doing graphics, such as Neural Textures, Neural Materials, Neural Volumes, Neural Radiance Fields, Neural Radiance Cache, and Neural Compression techniques to help with efficiency and optimization while adding in more performance by leveraging tensor cores.
The aim is to replace some or all parts of the traditional graphics pipeline, which has mostly relied on programmable shaders for a while now.
With traditional materials in a real-time scene, it's usually a few dozen lines of code to several thousand for film rendering, so to faithfully represent the same data, neural materials take the same code and take assembly collective of layers that are associated with a material and lay it out in a neural space (neural recompressed texture 7:1) & then a very small neural network with a few layers that are executed for each pixel on the screen that is using that material. In a demo shown by NVIDIA, Standard Materials take up 47 megabytes of memory while Neural materials take up just 16 megabytes of memory, so that's a factor of 3x.
Next is RTX Neural Radiance Cache for path tracing, indirect lighting, and faster performance. NRC is training in real time using the GPU to create a model on the fly. It collects the transport of light through the scene and caches it geo-spatially, so that you can have virtually unlimited bounces of light throughout the scene of light being transported around and be able to have that in the cache so that you can have one lookup in the cache and represent an unlimited number of bounces on the scene.
One area where Neural Shaders shine is in materials such as skin, and for that, NVIDIA is adding a new feature called RTX Skin. For this purpose, NVIDIA has collaborated with Unreal Technology & Disney, the subsurface scattering algorithm into the real-time realm for path tracing. The demo to showcase RTX Skin was Half-Life 2 Remix, where the bricks are missing indirect lighting by default but enabling NRC brings a lot more detail to the scene. The same can be seen in a Zombie, which looks much more vibrant and shadows are displayed more realistically.
Another feature is RTX Neural Faces, which combines Generative AI Faces with photorealistic characteristics that are trained at different angles, and different lighting conditions and display different emotions too. These can be used to enhance NPCs within games.
Even Ray Tracing hair and fur is discussed, with the traditional methods being very expensive, since a character with individual strands may have 6 million strands, which requires a lot of horsepower. In Blackwell's RTX architecture, this new approach requires fewer polygons and fewer ray-traced spheres, leading to 3x less data to compute and less VRAM while offering higher FPS.
Blackwell also introduces a new groundbreaking technology called RTX Mega Geometry which allows you to have an uncompromised solution where you can have a full-fat Nanite mesh, fully path-traced, with no rasterization involved. This is done with a new API that quickly, effectively, and efficiently compresses these clusters over time.
In the Zorah Demo, which uses RTX Mega Geometry with half a billion triangles per scene, a lot more details are present when the tech is enabled, and it looks very fluid when running on an RTX 50 GPU. RTX Mega Geometry will run on all RTX GPUs, but Blackwell has specific technologies that will accelerate the tech further.
The PNY GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Stealth OC graphics card comes inside a small cardboard box.
The packaging has put a large emphasis on the RTX side of things as the first feature enlisted by AIBs will be NVIDIA Blackwell architecture, Ray Tracing & DLSS support.
The back of the box is very typical, highlighting the main features and specifications of the cards. There's also a focus towards GeForce.com on each AIB card through which users can download the latest drivers and the GeForce Experience application, which is a must for gamers to access all feature sets of the new cards.
The sides of the box greet us with the large GeForce RTX branding. There's also the mention of 16 GB GDDR7 (RTX 5060 Ti) memory available on the card. Outside of the box, the graphics card and the accessory package are held firmly by foam packaging.
After the package is taken care of, I can finally start talking about the card itself. This card looks nice for SFF builders. It features a stealthy black look.
PNY makes use of its brand-new Dual Fan design. The card measures 245 x 120 x 40 mm and features a clock speed of 2407 MHz (base) / 2692 MHz (boost). The card features a 2-slot height, which is good.
Being an SFF (Small Form Factor) design, the card can be accommodated within the majority of PCs with ease without worrying about cooling or compatibility issues.
The back of the card features a solid metal backplate. The backplate offers a lot more functionality than just looks, which I will get back to in a bit.
In terms of design, PNY has updated its Dual Fan Cooling system, which makes use of a denser heat sink block.
The card comes with a dual-fan design.
The card being a Stealth model features no RGB LEDs.
These fans feature 9 blades in 92mm frames.
PNY also uses its Silent 0dB technology, which ensures that the fans don't spin at lower temperatures, avoiding unwanted noise output.
I am back to talking about the full-coverage, full metal-based backplate that the card uses. The whole plate is made of solid metal with rounded edges that add to the durability of this card. The matte black finish on the backplate looks great, too.
The graphics card also comes with a compact PCB design, which means that the shroud, heatsink, and backplate are all extended beyond the PCB. The third fan blows air through the heatsink and blows it out from the cutouts that are situated at the very end of the backplate. There are cutouts in screw placements to easily reach the points on the graphics card.
With the outside of the card done, I will now start taking a glance at what's beneath the hood of this graphics card. The first thing to catch my eye is the large fin stack that's part of the heatsink that the card utilizes.
The heatsink has been designed to be denser by increasing the footprint. This includes the use of denser aluminum fins and bigger heat pipes.
There are a total of four heatpipes that connect to the central baseplate, which has dedicated portions for the GPU and memory contact.
I/O on the graphics card sticks with the reference scheme, which includes three Display Port 2.1b & a single HDMI 2.1 port.
The PNY GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Stealth OC comes with a single 8-pin connector to feed its 180W power rating.
The PCB on this card is also very interesting, and PNY makes use of 60% of the area with the rest being blank. The PCB could've been even shorter, leading to interesting designs which we might see in the future. As for the VRMs, there are a total of 7 phases and four GDDR7 memory modules along with the Blackwell GB206 GPU die in the middle.
We used the following test system for comparison between the different graphics cards. The latest drivers that were available at the time of testing were used by AMD, Intel & NVIDIA on an updated version of Windows 11. All tested games were patched to the latest version for better performance optimization for NVIDIA, Intel, and AMD GPUs.
WCCFTECH GPU Test Bench (2025):
| CPU | Intel Core i9-13900K @ Default |
|---|---|
| Motherboard | MSI MEG Z790 ACE |
| Video Cards | GALAX RTX 5080 HOF Gaming White MSI GeForce RTX 5080 EXPERT OC ASRock Radeon RX 9070 XT Taichi OC PNY GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Stealth OC GALAX GeForce RTX 5070 1-Click OC MSI GeForce RTX 5070 Gaming Trio OC Colorful GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Battle NX MSI GeForce RTX 5080 Vanguard SOC MSI GeForce RTX 5080 SUPRIM SOC GALAX GeForce RTX 5080 1-Click OC White MSI GeForce RTX 5090 SUPRIM SOC NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 FE Palit GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER GamingPro OC NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 FE Colorful GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER BattleAx NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER FE ASRock Radeon RX 7800 XT Phantom Gaming ASUS GeForce RTX 4070 Ti TUF Gaming NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 FE NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti FE MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Gaming X ASUS RX 7900 XTX TUF Gaming OC ASRock Radeon RX 7900 XT Phantom Gaming |
| Memory | G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series 32GB (2 X 16GB) CL38 7200 Mbps |
| Storage | Teamgroup T-Force A440 Pro 2 TB Gen 4 |
| Power Supply | MSI MEG Ai1300P 1300W PSU |
| OS | Windows 11 64-bit (24H2) |
| Drivers | AMD Radeon Adrenalin Edition 25.6.3 NVIDIA GeForce 576.52 WHQL Intel 6913 WHQL |
- All games were tested at 3840x2160 (4K) resolution.
- Image Quality and graphics configurations are provided with each game description.
- The "reference" cards are the stock configs except where mentioned otherwise.
Speed Way
Developed with input from AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, and other leading technology companies, Speed Way is an ideal benchmark for comparing the DirectX 12 Ultimate performance of the latest graphics cards. 3DMark Speed Way’s engine is assembled to demonstrate what the latest DirectX API brings to ray-traced gaming, using DirectX Raytracing tier 1.1 for real-time global illumination and raytraced reflections, coupled with new performance optimizations like Mesh Shaders.
3DMark Speed Way Graphics
Firestrike
Firestrike is running the DX11 API and is still a good measure of GPU scaling performance. In this test, we ran the Extreme and Ultra versions of Firestrike, which runs at 1440p and 4K, and recorded the Graphics Score only since the Physics and combined are not pertinent to this review.
3DMark Firestrike Extreme Graphics
3DMark Firestrike Ultra Graphics
Time Spy
Time Spy is running the DX12 API, and we used it in the same manner as Firestrike Extreme, where we only recorded the Graphics Score, as the Physics score records the CPU performance and isn't important to the testing we are doing here.
3DMark Time Spy Graphics
3DMark Time Spy Extreme Graphics
Port Royal
Port Royal is another great tool in the 3DMark suite, but this one is 100% targeting Ray Tracing performance. It loads up ray-traced shadows, reflections, and global illumination to tax the performance of the graphics cards that either have hardware-based or software-based ray-tracing support.
3DMark Port Royal Score
3DMark Pure Ray Tracing Feature Test
Doom Eternal
DOOM Eternal brings hell to earth with the Vulkan-powered IDTech 7. We test this game using the Ultra Nightmare Preset and follow our in-game benchmarking to stay consistent.
DOOM Eternal (Nightmare)
Red Dead Redemption 2
Developed by Rockstar San Diego, Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the most visually stunning open-world games I've played to date. It is backed up by a rich story set about the protagonist, Arthur Morgan. The game is based on the RAGE engine which features an insane amount of graphics fidelity but also requires much power to run maxed out. For this test, we set the graphics settings to Ultra with AA turned disabled.
Red Dead Redemption 2 (4K Maxed)
Wolfenstein: Youngblood
Wolfenstein is back in The New Colossus and features the most fast-paced, gory, and brutal FPS action ever! The game again puts us back in the Nazi-controlled world as BJ Blazkowicz. Set during an alternate future where Nazis won the World War, the game shows that it can be fun and can be brutal to the player and to the enemy too. Powering the new title is, once again, id Tech 6 which is much acclaimed after the success that DOOM has become. In a way, ID has regained its glorious FPS roots and is slaying with every new title.
Wolfenstein
Alan Wake 2
Alan Wake 2 sets you up in a horror thriller between two dimensions and lets you play better two different protagonists, Alan himself and Saga, who once again have to find a way to fix the darkness that erupted in Bright Falls.
Cyberpunk 2077 is an action role-playing video game developed by CD Projekt Red and published by CD Projekt. The story occurs in Night City, an open world in the Cyberpunk universe. Players assume the first-person perspective of a customizable mercenary known as V, who can acquire skills in hacking and machinery with options for melee and ranged combat. The game uses CD Projekt Red's in-house Red Engine, one of the most visually breathtaking and graphics-intensive engines designed to date.
Alan Wake 2 (Maxed Out / Rasterized)
Atomic Heart
Atomic Heart is set in an alternate universe where the Soviet Union achieved incredible technological breakthroughs thanks to Dr. Sechenov, who invented a liquid programmable module called Polymer that links robots in a so-called Kollektiv network.
Atomic Heart (Maxed)
Battlefield V
Battlefield V brings back the action of the World War 2 shooter genre. Using the latest Frostbite tech, the game does a good job of looking gorgeous in all ways possible. From the open-world environments to the intense and gun-blazing action, this multiplayer and single-player FPS title is one of the best-looking Battlefield titles to date.
Battlefield V (Maxed)
Baldur's Gate III
2023's GOTY is well-deserved of its title. The creation from Larian Studios is a turn-based RPG with gorgeous interiors and exteriors shown through a bird's eye top-to-bottom view. You can sink in countless hours into the game, and if you're a fan of the D&D playstyle, then this epic is just for you.
Baldurs Gate III (Maxed Out)
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 is an action role-playing video game developed by CD Projekt Red and published by CD Projekt. The story occurs in Night City, an open world in the Cyberpunk universe. Players assume the first-person perspective of a customizable mercenary known as V, who can acquire skills in hacking and machinery with options for melee and ranged combat. The game uses CD Projekt Red's in-house Red Engine, which is one of the most visually breathtaking and graphics-intensive engines designed to date.
Cyberpunk 2077 (Maxed Out)
Dead Space (Remake)
Remaking Dead Space was a bold choice, but I would say that the team at EA Motive nailed every bit and piece of this horror classic. The remake makes the USG Ishimura twice as scarily beautiful. The gore, endless corridors of terror, and the void of space all look incredible while the game remains true to its core, to the original Dead Space formula. Modern cards can run the game well, but can also be demanding if you crank the settings to the max with ray tracing enabled.
Dead Space Remake (Ultra / No RT)
Death Stranding
Sam Porter Bridges has delivered one of PS4's most anticipated games to the PC community and opened a new world of possibilities. This was the first game to feature the Decima Engine on PC and unarguably did it the best. Death Stranding may not feature ray tracing effects, but it does showcase that DLSS can be used effectively even when RT isn't around. We tested this one just like in our launch coverage with DLSS enabled.
Death Stranding DLSS/FSR/XeSS (Quality)
Forza Horizon 5
Forza Horizon 5 carries on the open-world racing tradition of the Horizon series. The latest DX12-powered entry is beautifully crafted, amazingly well executed, and a great showcase of DX12 games. We use the benchmark run while having all the settings set to non-dynamic with an uncapped framerate to gather these results.
Forza Horizon 5
Halo Infinite (DX12 Highest)
Next up, we have the latest entry in the Halo franchise, Halo: Infinite, which uses the brand new Slipspace engine (although there are rumors it will be ditched in the future for Unreal Engine) based on the DX12 API. The game rocks some incredible environments for Master Chief to visit on the Halo ring.
Halo Infinite
Hitman III (DX12 Highest Settings)
Hitman III is the highly acclaimed sequel to the 2016 Hitman & 2018 Hitman II, a redesign and reimaging of the game from the ground up. With a focus on stealth gameplay through various missions, the game again lets you play as Agent 47. The game runs on the IO Interactive Glacier 2 engine, which has been updated to deliver amazing visuals and environments on each level while using the DirectX 12 API.
Hitman III
Metro Exodus
Metro Exodus continues Artyom's journey through Russia's nuclear wasteland and its surroundings. This time, you are set over the Metro, going through various regions and different environments. The game is one of the premier titles to feature NVIDIA’s RTX technology and does well in showcasing the ray-tracing effects in all corners.
Metro Exodus Extreme Preset
Resident Evil Village
Resident Evil Village is the latest in the horror franchise that was wonderfully rekindled with RE7 and onto the RE2 Remake. But now the RE Engine is back and better than ever with Ray Traced Reflections and Lighting that makes the world just come to life, unironically. The game was tested in the center of the village itself with all graphical settings maxed out and with raytracing enabled.
Resident Evil Village (Maxed)
Resident Evil IV Remake
The remake of the beloved and highly acclaimed Resident Evil IV is here, boasting the latest RE engine, which adds stunning visuals and even better ray tracing effects. The game looks just as incredible as it plays.
Resident Evil 4 Remake (Maxed)
Starfield
Bethesda's latest RPG epic is set in space and takes place across a vast universe, filled with lots of planets to explore. Based on the latest iteration of the Creation Engine, Starfield offers a great amount of visual fidelity, whether you are exploring an abandoned base or just roaming a planet on which you have just set foot.
Starfield (DirectX 12 / Max)
DLSS 4 Performance
RTX 5060 Ti vs RTX 4060 Ti (Maxed Out, RT, Quality, 1440p)
Crysis Remastered (DXVK RT)
Crysis is back with a vengeance to reclaim its title of the graphics crown. The remastered version of the game uses DX11 API but has Vulkan extensions on top which enable Vulkan Ray tracing. That's also something that the original game didn't offer. DXVK, along with improved textures and visual effects, leads to higher performance demand making us question once again "Can It Run Crysis?"
Crysis Remastered (4K Native RT SMAA2TX)
Doom Eternal
DOOM Eternal brings hell to earth with the Vulkan-powered IDTech 7. We test this game using the Ultra Nightmare Preset and follow our in-game benchmarking to stay as consistent as possible.
DOOM Eternal (Nightmare 4K / RT)
Alan Wake 2
Alan Wake 2 sets you up in a horror thriller that takes place between two dimensions and lets you play better two different protagonists, Alan himself and Saga, who once again have to find a way to fix the darkness that erupted in Bright Falls.
Alan Wake 2 (Max / PT / No Frame-Gen)
Alan Wake 2 (Max / PT / FSR/DLSS Frame-Gen)
Note - FSR Frame-Gen mod applied across all GPUs. DLSS 3.5 has been applied to RTX 50/40 GPUs.
Battlefield V
Battlefield V brings back the action of the World War 2 shooter genre. Using the latest Frostbite tech, the game does a good job of looking gorgeous in all ways possible. From the open-world environments to the intense and gun-blazing action, this multiplayer and single-player FPS title is one of the best-looking Battlefield titles to date.
Battlefield V Raytracing DLSS/FSR (Quality)
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 is an action role-playing video game developed by CD Projekt Red and published by CD Projekt. The story occurs in Night City, an open world in the Cyberpunk universe. Players assume the first-person perspective of a customizable mercenary known as V, who can acquire skills in hacking and machinery with options for melee and ranged combat. The game uses CD Projekt Red's in-house Red Engine, which is one of the most visually breathtaking and graphics-intensive engines designed to date.
Cyberpunk 2077 (Max / PT)
Cyberpunk 2077 (Max / PT / DLSS 3.5 / FSR 3)
Dead Space (Remake)
Remaking Dead Space was a bold choice, but I would say that the team at EA Motive nailed every bit and piece of this horror classic. The remake makes the USG Ishimura twice as scarily beautiful. The gore, the endless corridors of terror, the void of space, all of it looks incredible while the game remains true to its core, to the original Dead Space formula. Modern cards can run the game well, but it can also be demanding if you crank the settings to the max with ray tracing enabled.
Dead Space Remake (Ultra RT / FSR2/DLSS2 Quality)
Hogwarts Legacy
Hogwarts Legacy, as the name suggests, is set in the world of Hogwarts and retains its landscape true to the books and the movies. The game looks visually stunning, although it can be a total hog when running at the highest settings with all visual candy enabled.
Hogwarts Legacy (RT Ultra)
Shadow of The Tomb Raider
The sequel to Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, is visually enhanced with an updated Foundation Engine that delivers realistic facial animations and the most gorgeous environments ever seen in a Tomb Raider Game. The game is a technical marvel and shows the power of its graphics engine in the latest title.
Shadow of The Tomb Raider Raytracing DLSS/FSR/XeSS (Quality)
Metro Exodus
Metro Exodus continues Artyom's journey through Russia's nuclear wasteland and its surroundings. This time, you are set over the Metro, going through various regions and different environments. The game is one of the premier titles to feature NVIDIA’s RTX technology and does well in showcasing the ray-tracing effects in all corners.
Metro Exodus Raytracing DLSS (Quality)
Resident Evil Village
Resident Evil Village is the latest in the horror franchise that was wonderfully rekindled with RE7 and onto the RE2 Remake. But now the RE Engine is back and better than ever with Ray Traced Reflections and Lighting that makes the world just come to life, unironically. The game was tested in the center of the village itself with all graphical settings maxed out and with raytracing enabled.
Resident Evil Village Raytracing (Maxed / RT High / FSR 2 Quality)
Resident Evil IV Remake
The remake of the beloved and highly acclaimed Resident Evil IV is here, boasting the latest RE engine, which adds stunning visuals and even better ray tracing effects. The game looks just as incredible as it plays.
Resident Evil Village Remake (Maxed / RT High / FSR 2 Quality)
Stray (That Cat Game)
Stray is a 2022 adventure game developed by BlueTwelve Studio and published by Annapurna Interactive. The story follows a stray cat who falls into a walled city populated by robots, machines, and mutant bacteria, and sets out to return to the surface with the help of a drone companion, B-12. The game uses Unreal Engine 4, but DX12 Ray tracing can be enabled by adding the "-dx12" extension to the game.
Stray (Maxed With DXR)
No graphics card review is complete without evaluating its temperatures and thermal load. All of the graphics cards that we tested were running their default 'Performance' BIOS, and the results are below:
Temperatures
I compiled the power consumption results by testing each card under idle and full stress when the card was running games. Each graphics card manufacturer sets a default TDP for the card, which can vary from vendor to vendor depending on the extra clocks or board features they plug into their custom cards. The default TDP for the RTX 5060 Ti is rated at 180W.
Power Consumption
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti is here, and we can tell how the least performant entry in the RTX 50 series so far performs.
Close To RTX 4070 Performance
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti offers an average 18% performance improvement over the RTX 4060 Ti. That's a decent improvement for the price, which is definitely lower than what many PC gamers paid for the 16 GB 4060 Ti. The performance sometimes ends up 12% faster than the RTX 4060 Ti, but largely ends up close to the RTX 4070. We also expect that while the overall graphics performance between the 16 GB and 8 GB models to be largely the same, the major downside of 8 GB will come in modern titles which require more than 8 GB frame buffer space to run optimally. In such titles, the 16 GB model is the preferred solution, and 8 GB can very easily be occupied, leading to unwanted stuttering and frame drops.
DLSS4 Is The Game Changer: Better Image Quality Than DLSS3 With Transformers Gunning For 1440P 240Hz Gaming
DLSS4 is huge! With the updated upscaling technology, NVIDIA is taking image quality to the next level. The model they have been training is in the most advanced state yet, with the image quality improving day by day. DLSS4 is a visual upgrade over DLSS 3, and all RTX gamers can enjoy its benefits. With the faster transformer model on the Blackwell GPUs, you will see limited losses in terms of performance when switching from the older CNN model to the newer transformer model.
Now, DLSS has been plagued with the "Fake Frames" controversy in regard to the frame-gen tech, but it does offer better performance and smoothness. NVIDIA is quadrupling the frame rate with a 4x mode, which boosts FPS dramatically. This is enough for those who want to utilize the potential of their 4K & 1440P 240Hz monitors.
Yes, there will be certain artifacts when using DLSS4 with frame generation enabled, but like I said, the DLSS model is improving, and this is DLSS at its finest. We can expect DLSS4 to receive countless amounts of updates in the coming months, and during the time I spent trying it out, there were just minor artifacts that you can only notice when focusing on a certain section of the frame. It is almost indistinguishable from the native render.
NVIDIA's Blackwell Is Built For The Future of Gaming, But We Might Have to Wait
The NVIDIA Blackwell architecture is designed with AI in mind. While DLSS 4 and its 4x Multi-Frame Generation technology are one aspect, there's also support for FP4, which would help in certain AI workloads.
Things we liked about the PNY GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Stealth OC:
- Good performance for entry-level 1440p gaming, great for 1080p gaming
- 16 GB Capacity
- Comes close to the RTX 4070 in many games
- Built for high refresh rate OLED monitors
- Designed With Next-Gen Neural Rendering
- Next-Gen Blackwell Architecture With Several AI Additions
- New GDDR7 Memory
- DLSS4 Offers Better Image Quality
- DLSS4 MFG Offers 4x FPS Boost
- Compact design & SFF Approved
- Low noise output with 0 dB operation
- Factory overclocked out of the box
- Next-Gen Video Encode/Decode Engines
- DP2.1b (UHBR20) support
- PCIe Express 5.0 technology
The big gun is the neural shaders support, along with several new Neural rendering approaches that the company has highlighted and discussed. While the company hasn't yet announced any major game partnerships that will make use of these technologies, we are anxiously waiting for NVIDIA's update in this regard, as that would further unlock the architectural potential of NVIDIA's Blackwell architecture.
Things we would have liked about the PNY GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Stealth OC:
- Performance is not a big uplift over 4060 Ti
- Lower power rating
- GDDR7 Memory runs hot
- 8-Pin connector routing may lead to ugly cable management
- 16 GB Variant should have been standard and priced at $379
- A few games with next-gen RTX features at launch
Decent 16 GB Graphics Card With Next-Gen Features, If Availability & Pricing Can Be Sorted
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB graphics card is a good option for mainstream gamers. It has nearly 4070 levels of performance with all the Blackwell's next-gen features at a price point of $429 US, which should attract many gamers. The card will be great for 1080p monitors, and with DLSS 4, you can even go the 1440p or even 2160p route (in many titles, especially eSports). But as always, there's another side to look at.
For NVIDIA, it would've been an ideal decision to go with just one 16 GB variant of the 5060 Ti and price it at $379 US, which is the price point for the 8 GB model. That would have made things very competitive in the segment. But now we have to wait and see how well the launch goes this week & if there's good enough stock for gamers out there. We will also see if NVIDIA and its partners can enforce MSRP-level pricing, which would form the ultimate decision for gamers.
Contents
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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