NVIDIA RTX 5060 Ti 8GB is DOA? YouTube channel argues the graphics card is 'instantly obsolete'

If you were thinking of saving $50 with the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB version, don't do it - the FPS drop is a huge compromise, as Hardware Unboxed shows us.

NVIDIA RTX 5060 Ti 8GB is DOA? YouTube channel argues the graphics card is 'instantly obsolete'
Comment IconFacebook IconX IconReddit Icon
Tech Reporter
Published
2 minutes & 15 seconds read time

As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. TweakTown may also earn commissions from other affiliate partners at no extra cost to you.

TL;DR: The NVIDIA RTX 5060 Ti 8GB flavor underperforms significantly compared to the 16GB model, struggling with modern games due to that insufficient VRAM loadout. With the beefier VRAM configuration you get so much smoother frame rates in many games, and the 8GB spin is pretty dire in some circumstances, according to testing conducted by Hardware Unboxed.

NVIDIA notably didn't send out review samples of the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB version - when the new Blackwell GPUs were launched last week, only the 16GB flavor was provided to reviewers - and we can see why going by a new YouTube video.

This is Hardware Unboxed (as flagged by VideoCardz), which had to buy an RTX 5060 Ti 8GB graphics card to give it a thorough testing. And - spoiler alert, albeit this is nothing you won't guess - the verdict was not good. Not good at all.

It seems that 8GB really isn't enough of a video RAM pool these days, although gamers have been saying that since the RTX 4060 Ti, of course (clearly NVIDIA wasn't listening then, or now).

So how bad is it? The RTX 5060 Ti 8GB is billed as 'instantly obsolete' by Hardware Unboxed, and indictments don't come much more damning than that frankly.

The YouTube channel tested an ASUS Prime model, and while some games saw the 8GB variant come close to the 16GB card in terms of performance, the former was way off the pace in many of the benchmarks conducted.

For example, Hogwarts Legacy at 1440p (native resolution, high details, high ray tracing) saw the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB achieve 62% faster average frame rates (around 55 FPS) compared to the 8GB variant of NVIDIA's graphics card.

With Horizon Forbidden West at 4K (DLSS, very high details) the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB averaged an impressive 72 FPS, which was 3.5x faster than the 8GB version. The latter also hit terrible 1% lows, stuttering down below 10 FPS, compared to the 1% lows of 62 FPS with the 16GB version.

Night and day difference

Those two games in particular were night and day - the doubled VRAM meant the difference between palatably smooth and a juddery mess - and Hardware Unboxed was quick to point out that in some scenarios, the performance from the 8GB board is just completely unacceptable. And even when it was close between the two versions of the RTX 5060 Ti, the 8GB video RAM pool was right on the brink of viability, straining to keep up.

The YouTube channel's argument is that 8GB is no loadout for a graphics card at this price range, and these days, that allocation should only be used with true budget GPUs. For graphics cards costing $300+ there should be a 12GB minimum, in short.

NVIDIA may point to its VRAM tricks that should help the RTX 5060 models (and other Blackwell GPUs), but RTX Neural Texture Compression must be supported by developers - and wider adoption is going to take time. A lot of time, while games get more advanced, and eat up more video RAM, of course...

Read more: The priciest consumer GPU ever? Custom ASUS RTX 5090 is decked out in gold and signed by Jensen