Nvidia's budget-friendly RTX 5060 GPUs are rumored to hit shelves on May 19th, according to VideoCardz's sources. This release window falls just a day before Computex, and a day after AMD's RX 9060 XT series, allegedly. Nvidia is reportedly relaying the embargo timelines to AIB partners as we speak, which is likely the origin of this leak. Since embargoes are always subject to change, we should treat this leak with skepticism.
Last week, Nvidia unveiled the RTX 5060 family of Blackwell GPUs, including the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB/16GB ($429/$379) and the RTX 5060 ($299), with the latter slated for an unspecified launch date next month. Contrary to a typical one-day gap between the review and sales embargoes, VideoCardz reports that for the RTX 5060, both will be lifted on the same day: May 19th. Instead of relying on Nvidia's skewed first-party benchmarks, interested customers should wait for independent reviews before jumping the gun.
With the sharp spike in shader count and bandwidth, you could be looking at 20-30% higher performance than the RTX 4060, but that's just a rough estimate. Equipped with the GB206 core, the RTX 5060 features 3,840 CUDA cores, 25% more than the RTX 4060, along with a 128-bit interface for 8GB of memory. Thanks to the adoption of GDDR7, there is a 64% increase in memory bandwidth (from 288 GB/s to 448 GB/s), which will prove useful in memory-intensive tasks.
The RTX 5060 Ti 16GB offers notable improvements over its predecessor, thanks to increased memory bandwidth and architectural refinements, and is otherwise a solid choice if you can obtain it at MSRP. Despite sharing the same core, its 8GB brethren suffers greatly in VRAM-bound titles, so you'll have to acknowledge its limits.
With a potential RTX 5050 on the horizon, Nvidia's Blackwell lineup might include three GPUs sharing the same, limited 8GB framebuffer. This is obviously to segment its offerings, forcing users to invest over $400 should they want more than 8GB of VRAM, which is borderline essential for 1440p gaming. Testing shows that modern AAA titles can be so taxing at the highest settings that they can completely saturate an 8GB framebuffer, even when playing at 1080p.
The RTX 5060 might shape up to be a great pick for budget-minded gamers aiming for a modern GPU without emptying their wallets. However, you should be aware of its limitations. That being said, all eyes are on availability, as RTX 50-series GPUs are practically a unicorn at MSRP.
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