Nvidia’s shenanigans surrounding its RTX 50-series graphics cards seem almost never ending. Beyond driver issues, missing ROPs, melting power cables, and supply issues, it seems steadfast in its plans to hide the graphics cards that we all know are going to underwhelm. It didn’t send out review samples for the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB, and now it’s restricting reviewers from testing the upcoming RTX 5060 by not releasing any compatible drivers until launch day.
Nvidia has been shady and underhanded with its handling of the entire RTX 50 series, and it only seems to be getting worse.
The 8GB version was decidedly worse due to its lack of VRAM and susceptibility to performance issues related to the PCIe generation of the slot it was plugged into. That left it seriously underperforming at higher resolutions, and falling notably behind the 16GB in even 1080p gaming, despite their otherwise comparable specifications. But you’d never have known that before the cards’ launched, because Nvidia didn’t send out any 8GB samples of the card.
It’s now doing the same thing with the RTX 5060, but this time locking reviewers out of testing it by limiting their access to drivers, which is arguably worse. Nvidia now expects them to do unboxings and talk about the card, and even talk about how they can’t test it; And even get us talking about it here. It’s bad publicity for a card that will probably underperform if Nvidia is being this cagey about it, but it’s still publicity.
On top of that, Nvidia is launching the RTX 5060 during Computex, where there will be a lot of other tech-related stories doing the rounds which will help bury any bad launch day coverage.
But for gamers, they’ll see an affordable RTX 50-series card on the shelf, and buy it. Well they better, right? Stock has been so low they’re lucky to even have the chance. And that leaves them making an uninformed decision, leading to potential buyers’ remorse at best, and unplayable games at worst.
It doesn’t care.
Nvidia has made it abundantly clear in recent years that its focus is on AI and datacenters, and gaming is just a way for it to fun-wash its sinking reputation. Jensen isn’t cool, his cards aren’t impressing, and Nvidia is being ever shadier about the way it milks what it seems to see as a captive audience.
It knows better and should do better. But at least now, so do we. Skip the RTX 5060 until we can see how it actually plays, and don’t buy anything Nvidia sells on marketing hype alone.
