GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Review: $429 Blackwell For Gamers And Creators
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB: MSRP $429 The new GeForce RTX 5060 Ti brings NVIDIA's latest Blackwell GPU architecture down below $500, to target mainstream 1440p gamers, with peak performance realized in advanced AI rendering techniques like DLSS4 with multi-frame generation.
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Remember when we said NVIDIA was launching “the final member of the initial batch GeForce RTX 50 series cards” in our GeForce RTX 5070 Founders Edition review a few weeks back? Well, that wasn’t completely true. Yes, the GeForce RTX 5070 was the last of the cards announced at CES 2025, but we all new additional Blackwell-based RTX 50 series cards were coming down the pipe – NVIDIA just hadn’t announced them yet. After taking the wraps off of the GeForce RTX 5060 family yesterday though, here we are already with our first review of the 16GB GeForce RTX 5060 Ti – the fastest of the three cards announced.
As its name suggests, the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti scales the company’s Blackwell GPU architecture down even further versus the RTX 5070 (and higher end cards), to target more mainstream resolutions and price points. There are a trio of GeForce RTX 5060 cards coming, an 8GB GeForce RTX 5060 and 8GB and 16GB GeForce RTX 5060 Ti cards. It’s the top-of-the-range 16GB card that’s launching today, as 8GB models are coming a little later, with the base GeForce RTX 5060 coming in May.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Specifications
We’ve got two sets of specifications to share above, for both the base model GeForce RTX 5060 and the up-market GeForce RTX 5060 Ti. It’s the 5060 Ti numbers that are germane to this review, but figured we’d cover the specs for the entire family.
The entire GeForce RTX 5060 family is built around the GB206 GPU. The GeForce RTX 5060 Ti is the full implementation of the chip, whereas the RTX 5060 is scaled back somewhat. The GPU is comprised of roughly 21.9B transistors and is manufactured on TSMC’s 4N node. It is arranged into 3 GPCs, with a maximum of 4,608 CUDA cores, 144 Tensor cores, and 36 RT cores – the scaled back RTX 5060 obviously has fewer cores enabled overall. The GPU connected to up to 16GB of GDDR7 memory over a 128-bit interface, at a 28GBps data rate. At that speed, with a 128-bit interface, GeForce RTX 5060 / 5060 Ti cards offer peak memory bandwidth of 448GB/s.
GeForce "60" Series Multi-Generation Comparison
Of course, since the GB206 is based on NVIDIA’s Blackwell GPU architecture, the RTX 5060 family offers all of the same features as its higher-end counterparts, including updated CUDA, Tensor and RT cores, DLSS 4, RTX Neural Rendering, and the latest media encoders / decoders, with support for hardware accelerated 4:2:2 video. Just about every part of the GPU has been updated or enhanced in some way. For a deeper dive on everything Blackwell has to offer, we suggest reading this article where we cover all of the nitty gritty.
GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Cards From MSI And PNY
For the purposes of this article, we got our hands on a couple of GeForce RTX 5060 Ti cards, one from MSI and another from PNY. We should point out that NVIDIA won’t be offering Founders Edition boards with this the RTX 5060 Ti and is instead leaving this family of GPUs up to its partners.
At first glance, the dominant feature on the MSI GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio, as its name implies, is its triple-fan cooler. The card features a relatively large thin-fin heatsink array, with multiple heat-pipes and a nickel-plated copper baseplate. The baseplate makes direct contact with the GPU and memory, and the heat-pipes are what MSI calls “core pipes”; which basically means the pipes are squared off to maximize contact with the baseplate. The heatsink fins are also formed into curved ‘V’ shapes in a few sections to optimize air flow through the fins and minimize turbulence, which in turn lowers noise output. The fans feature dual ball bearings for increased longevity, along with 7, textured fan blades to maximize air flow and help minimize noise. It's also a partial pass-through design, with a section at the back that extends well past the actual PCB -- you can see it in the shot of the back of the card above.
Over and above the baseplate that’s affixed to the GPU and memory, multiple thermal pads are used as well to ensure additional heat dissipation for other critical components on the card that make contact with other portions of the heatsink. A metal backplate on the card also features thermal pads underneath to aid in cooling.
The MSI GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio offers a default GPU boost clock is 2,572MHz, and packs 16GB of GDDR7 memory running at NVIDIA’s reference spec of 28Gbps. Included with the MSI GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio is a basic lit pack, a dual 8-pin PCIe to 12HPWR adapter, and an adjustable GPU support stand.
Outputs on the MSI GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio mirror other GeForce RTX 50 series cards and include three DisplayPorts (2.1b) and a single HDMI port (2.1b). Those ports are nestled into a stainless steel backplate that features venting, to allow some warm air to escape a system. Some of the heat pipes that snake though the heatsink are visible just behind those vents.
The PNY GeForce RTX 5060 Ti has similar specifications and features, but has a significantly smaller form factor and it sticks with the traditional 8-pin PCIe power connector.
Both the PNY and MSI cards are only dual slot, which is a welcome development in light of all of the massive GPUs we’ve tested as of late. The PNY GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, however, is shorter and nowhere near as long, which should make it well-suited to mini-ITX or small form factor systems that can accommodate a discrete GPU.
You might think that a smaller cooler is a bad thing, but it really isn’t. Even while overclocked, the PNY card’s GPU temperatures barely creep into the mid-60s. The larger cooler on the MSI card is a bit quieter and keeps the card a couple of degrees cooler, but the GB206 can absolutely get by with a smaller cooler, with no problem whatsoever.
And now that you're familiar with the cards we’ll be testing today, let's get to the benchmarks...
