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- Nvidia giving the RTX 5060 an 8 GB VRAM makes it look like they haven’t learned from their mistakes.
- The performance gap will not be too big, which will only make the card look mediocre.
- The upcoming AMD 60-class GPUs might take the lead again by offering great performance like the RX 9070 series.
The launch of the RTX 50-series graphics cards has been kind of a mixed bag due to multiple reasons involving high prices, stock shortages, and problems with the cards themselves. Anyhow, now that the time for the budget cards has come, the green team isn’t looking too good yet again. Remember how the RTX 4060 was considered the worst choice in its class last generation? Well, the RTX 5060 isn’t looking too different, as Nvidia doesn’t seem to have learned much from its past experiences.
Not Enough VRAM Once Again
Nvidia is following its previous generation in terms of deciding the amount of VRAM to be given to its new 60-class GPUs. For starters, this isn’t the move they should’ve made, as the backlash for the lack of enough VRAM of the RTX 4060 was quite big. For once, I was hoping that Nvidia might finally give its budget graphics cards an optimal size of VRAM, but got thoroughly disappointed. Even the cheaper option from Intel, the ARC B580, comes with 12 GB of VRAM. However, that’s more of a similarly priced graphics card than a cheap one, as it’s still hard to find it at near MSRP.
While the price remains unchanged, which is great considering the ongoing tariff situation, the blunder that Nvidia has made with the VRAM capacity is just too hard to ignore. From the looks of it, Nvidia seems to be doing this on purpose to try to sell its upper-tier cards to the customers by making the lower-tier offerings look bad.
Expect Minimal Performance Improvements
The performance gap between the same class cards of different generations has been closing up very fast. For instance, the RTX 4060 was promised to be better than its predecessor; however, in reality, it was torn apart by the RTX 3060 in many tests. Sure, the RTX 5060 will likely offer superior performance over its predecessor, but the gap won’t be noticeable enough to consider a swap if you’re rocking an RTX 4060 or a similarly performing GPU. Though you can consider the upgrade if you’re coming from an RTX 2060 or below, keep the limited VRAM in mind.
Hint At Stock Shortage
Going further, the lack of support towards the reviewers also says a lot about the kind of performance this card possesses, that even Nvidia isn’t caring all that much about it. As one of the biggest media groups, Linus Tech Tips shared their concerns in a dedicated video. They talked about the poor support for scheduled reviews and outrageous claims of the card offering up to a 50x performance bump. This also hints towards a similar stock issue that other RTX 50-series cards have suffered from so far, with the most recent being the RTX 5070.
AMD Might Surprise Again
Until now, AMD seems to be the better-performing company on the GPU side, as their RX 9070 & RX 9070 XT cards have received quite a positive reception. AMD has also improved its Ray Tracing performance as well as the upscaler with the FSR4, which incorporates AI similar to DLSS to deliver stunning visuals. All these combined with what we have heard about the upcoming RX 9060 & RX 9060 XT so far make it seem like we can expect good value like its bigger brothers as soon as next month. The higher VRAM (12 GB) of the RX 9060 alone will make a big difference during gaming and other VRAM-intensive tasks against the RTX 5060.
Nvidia Has To Listen
With how poorly the RTX 4060 performed and how mixed the reception of the RTX 50-series graphics cards went, Nvidia needs to open its eyes now, as the same is about to happen with the RTX 5060. The lack of proper attention, especially to its budget-class GPUs, won’t do any good to Nvidia. They have become the Apple of the graphics card market, as whatever they make, the blind Nvidia fans will gladly buy. However, this won’t work for long; one of the reasons is that both Intel & AMD are catching up and have released cards that deliver compelling performance without being priced ridiculously.
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Zain is our hardware expert, known for deep-dive reviews and round-ups on motherboards, CPUs, RAM, GPUs, and cooling systems. He focuses on performance and value, skipping the marketing hype to give you honest, no-nonsense advice.
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