mainstream blackwell Nvidia nudges mainstream gaming PCs forward with RTX 5060 series, starting at $299 RTX 5060 includes 8GB for $299; RTX 5060 Ti has 8GB or 16GB for $379 and $429. Andrew Cunningham – Apr 15, 2025 12:36 pm | 18 PNY's version of the 16GB RTX 5060 Ti. Credit: PNY PNY's version of the 16GB RTX 5060 Ti. Credit: PNY Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Nvidia is rounding out its GeForce RTX 50-series graphics cards today with the official announcement of the mainstream RTX 5060 series. The company is announcing three new GPUs today: The 5060 Ti will launch on April 16 in both 8GB and 16GB variations, for $379 and $429, respectively. The regular RTX 5060 will follow at some point in May for the same $299 MSRP as the last-generation RTX 4060. It is also sticking with 8GB of RAM. Obviously, it remains to be seen whether the company and its partners can actually stock these cards at these prices. GPUs from the top-tier RTX 5090 to the mainstream RTX 5070 have been difficult to impossible to buy at their announced MSRPs. And it's not just Nvidia's problem or a high-end problem—AMD's Radeon RX 9070 series GPUs have also been hard to buy, as have Intel's Arc B580 and B570 cards. The new graphics cards' specs essentially match numbers that have been floating around for a couple of months now. Both models include modest increases in the number of CUDA cores compared to the last-generation 4060 and 4060 Ti models, with the same amount of RAM and the same 128-bit memory interface. But an upgrade to GDDR7 instead of GDDR6 provides a healthy bump to memory bandwidth and is probably also partially responsible for an increase in peak power consumption. The 4060 Ti in particular was memory bandwidth-constrained at higher resolutions, so hopefully some extra bandwidth will make it a better choice for a decent 1440p gaming PC. RTX 5060 Ti RTX 4060 Ti RTX 5060 RTX 4060 RTX 5050 (leaked) RTX 3050 CUDA Cores 4,608 4,352 3,840 3,072 2,560 2,560 Boost Clock 2,572 MHz 2,535 MHz 2,497 MHz 2,460 MHz Unknown 1,777 MHz Memory Bus Width 128-bit 128-bit 128-bit 128-bit 128-bit 128-bit Memory bandwidth 448GB/s 288GB/s 448GB/s 272GB/s Unknown 224GB/s Memory size 8GB or 16GB GDDR7 8GB or 16GB GDDR6 8GB GDDR7 8GB GDDR6 8GB GDDR6 8GB GDDR6 TGP 180 W 160 W 145 W 115 W 130 W 130 W Nvidia's xx60 tier generally ends up being its most popular, going off of the statistics provided by the Steam Hardware Survey; mobile and desktop xx60 models from various generations account for seven of Steam's 10 most-used GPUs, led by the RTX 3060 and 4060. That means that new xx60 GPUs are an important baseline for PC gaming performance. As with its other 50-series announcements, Nvidia is leaning on its DLSS Multi-Frame Generation technology to make lofty performance claims—the GPUs can insert up to three AI-interpolated frames in between each pair of frames that the GPU actually renders. The 40 series could only generate a single frame, and 30-series and older GPUs don't support DLSS Frame Generation at all. This makes apples-to-apples performance comparisons difficult. Generally, the company says the 5060 Ti and 5060 offer double the performance of the 4060 Ti and 4060, but all of its benchmarks are made using the "max Frame Gen level supported by each GPU." The small snippets of native performance information we do have—Hogwarts Legacy runs on a 5060 Ti at 61 FPS 1440p, compared to 34 FPS for the 3060 Ti—suggests that it's slightly less than twice as fast as that two-generation-old card. This would still be reasonably impressive, given the underwhelming 4060 Ti refresh. But we'll need to wait for third-party testing before we really have a good idea of how performance will stack up without Frame Generation enabled. Nvidia is making lofty performance claims about both the 5060 Ti and the 5060, but all of these numbers enable Multi-Frame Generation for the 50-series cards and not for the older ones (since they don't support the feature). Nvidia Nvidia is making lofty performance claims about both the 5060 Ti and the 5060, but all of these numbers enable Multi-Frame Generation for the 50-series cards and not for the older ones (since they don't support the feature). Nvidia Similar numbers for the 5060. Nvidia is claiming doubled performance compared to the 4060, but take that with a brick of salt. Nvidia Similar numbers for the 5060. Nvidia is claiming doubled performance compared to the 4060, but take that with a brick of salt. Nvidia Nvidia is making lofty performance claims about both the 5060 Ti and the 5060, but all of these numbers enable Multi-Frame Generation for the 50-series cards and not for the older ones (since they don't support the feature). Nvidia Similar numbers for the 5060. Nvidia is claiming doubled performance compared to the 4060, but take that with a brick of salt. Nvidia The frame-gen-enabled performance numbers here make apples-to-apples generational comparisons difficult to make. Nvidia The frame-gen-enabled performance numbers here make apples-to-apples generational comparisons difficult to make. Nvidia One of the only concrete references to the 5060 Ti's native frame rate. This suggests the 5060 Ti will be something slightly less than twice as fast as the 3060 Ti. Nvidia One of the only concrete references to the 5060 Ti's native frame rate. This suggests the 5060 Ti will be something slightly less than twice as fast as the 3060 Ti. Nvidia The frame-gen-enabled performance numbers here make apples-to-apples generational comparisons difficult to make. Nvidia One of the only concrete references to the 5060 Ti's native frame rate. This suggests the 5060 Ti will be something slightly less than twice as fast as the 3060 Ti. Nvidia As we and others have observed since the launch of the 40-series a few years ago, Frame Generation gives the best results when your base frame rate is already reasonably high; the technology is best used to make a good frame rate better and is less useful if you're trying to make a bad frame rate good. That's even more relevant for the slower 50-series than for the other GPUs in the lineup, which makes Nvidia's reticence to provide native performance comparisons especially frustrating. Rumors from earlier this year that correctly reported the specs of the 5060 series also indicated that Nvidia was planning to launch a low-end RTX 5050 GPU at some point, its first new entry-level GPU since launching the RTX 3050 in January 2022. The 5050 could still be coming, but if it is, it wasn't part of Nvidia's announcements today. Andrew Cunningham Senior Technology Reporter Andrew Cunningham Senior Technology Reporter Andrew is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica, with a focus on consumer tech including computer hardware and in-depth reviews of operating systems like Windows and macOS. Andrew lives in Philadelphia and co-hosts a weekly book podcast called Overdue. 18 Comments