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The Nvidia RTX 50-series hasn’t really stolen our hearts so far at PC Gamer thanks largely to low stock-induced scalping and high prices. For my part, I’ve been keeping hopes tentatively raised for a cheaper AMD RX 9070 or 9070 XT, under the assumption that an RTX 5060 and 5060 Ti are well beyond the near horizon. As it turns out, I might have been wrong on that assumption.
That’s because, according to Wccftech, citing their own sources, the RTX 5060 Ti should be arriving in late March. That’s when we’ll see a 16 GB version of the card arrive, though it’s said that an 8 GB version is coming soon after, in April. Both versions are said to have a 180 W TGP.
This launch cadence would be a departure from the previous generation, in which the 8 GB version of the RTX 4060 Ti launched before the 16 GB version—though this card was a bit of an oddity.
As a reminder—and you can read our Dave’s circa-summer 2023 summary here—plenty of gamers slated the 8 GB RTX 4060 Ti for having too little VRAM, so Nvidia released a 16 GB version… for $100 extra. Unsurprisingly, this didn’t exactly enthral people. What many wanted was 16 GB from the outset, not for an additional $100. The benefits just weren’t there to justify it.
Whether the benefits will be present enough with the lower-end RTX 50-series are yet to be seen. The Blackwell architecture powering it feels pretty similar to Ada Lovelace in the RTX 40-series, which means we’re expecting a low double-digit improvement over previous cards, in line with the 15–20% or so improvement with the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080, respectively. That, plus DLSS Multi Frame Generation.
How much difference the extra memory will make depends on the game being played. Though there are sure to be benefits in other ways common to both rumoured 16 GB and 8 GB cards. The RTX 5060 Ti is said to use fast GDDR7, in line with the rest of the RTX 50-series, which will combine with a 128-bit memory bus (same as the RTX 4060 Ti) for higher memory bandwidth than its predecessor.
This all makes for a marginally higher TGP at 180 W versus the RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB’s 165 W and the RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB’s 160 W.
To the more cynical-minded, releasing a (presumably more expensive) 16 GB version first and then an 8 GB version might mean more of an incentive for gamers to actually pick up the more expensive version. It launches first, which means you might as well scramble to get one ahead of the 8 GB card, which can then serve as a backup opportunity if you fail to secure the goods on the day.
Taking my cynical cap off, though, there is something to be excited about here—apart from the fact that this rumour coming to fruition might mean an actually affordable 50-series GPU in the near future. For starters, it will surely be a more affordable option compared to the RTX 5070 Ti, which often sold at launch for around $900, despite an MSRP of $750. In the same vein, however, the RTX 5060 Ti might also be subject to substantially higher prices than MSRP.
All told, it’s hard to be positive about these cards with the state of the market right now. But here’s hoping our gloomy outlook is lifted once these cheaper 50-series cards roll around.
That’s reportedly happening in March, if these rumours are to be believed, which suggests the wheels are very much in motion. There’s likely to be a Founders Edition of the RTX 5060 Ti when the time comes, be that for one or both versions, though that’s not yet confirmed.
Though as always we should take unconfirmed release dates with a pinch of salt—even if this is the plan right now, Nvidia can always decide to delay at the last minute. Just look at AMD with the 9070-series, which, by the way, are coming early March now.
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Kurt Indovina
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