Nvidia has introduced the GeForce RTX 5060 and RTX 5060 Ti desktop graphics cards, aiming to attract owners of its earlier budget GPUs to consider an upgrade. These models are the most basic in the difficult-to-purchase RTX 50-series lineup, yet they remain quite capable for 1080p gaming. Enhanced with more CUDA cores, ray tracing cores, and Tensor AI cores than previous models, they also feature DLSS 4 improvements like Multi Frame Generation, significantly increasing frame rates in compatible games.
Fortunately, their pricing is aligned with their budget-friendly performance. The RTX 5060 will debut in May at $299, while the more robust RTX 5060 Ti arrives on April 16 in two versions, with 8 GB and 16 GB of video memory, priced at $379 and $429, respectively. Notably, there’s no Founders Edition for the RTX 5060 cards from Nvidia; instead, they will be produced by third-party manufacturers.
Nvidia asserts that the RTX 5060 delivers a significant performance increase over the RTX 3060, which is the most used graphics card among Steam users, followed by the RTX 4060. The new graphics cards will excel in running games compatible with the DLSS Transformer AI model. Titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Black Myth: Wukong, Alan Wake 2, and Assassin’s Creed Shadows will present sharper images, fewer visual artifacts, and improved speed. It’s important to note that the RTX 3060 does not support DLSS 4 or frame generation, although the RTX 4060 supports the latter feature.
Though the RTX 5060 series lacks the flashiness of Nvidia’s more expensive cards, it remains a crucial release. As discussed, it aims to succeed some of Nvidia’s most favored (and cost-effective) GPUs. Moreover, it follows Nvidia’s launch of the $549 RTX 5070, which was claimed to be faster than the RTX 4090 at CES 2025—a claim disproven by The Verge. The RTX 5070 was shown to compete with AMD’s equally priced, yet more impressive, Radeon RX 9070 graphics card, which The Verge found to surpass Nvidia’s RTX 5070 at both 4K and 1440p resolutions. So, while Nvidia currently leads the $299 GPU market, it’s uncertain how long this will continue.
If you’re curious about how the RTX 5060 Ti compares to the 5070, a look at the specifications could help inform your purchase. The 5060 Ti has 26% fewer Tensor cores, 26% fewer ray tracing cores, and 28% fewer CUDA cores, in addition to lower memory bandwidth (192-bit vs. 128-bit). Compared to the previous generation RTX 4060 Ti, the 5060 Ti boasts a modest 5% increase in CUDA cores, but a substantial 73% more Tensor cores and a 34% increase in ray tracing cores.
