ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC Edition Review - Mainstream DLSS 4 Impresses

TweakTown Rating: 85%

Our Verdict

The ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC Edition is fast, efficient, runs cool, and is an excellent showcase for DLSS 4. The additional VRAM also helps when playing some of 2025's most demanding PC games, however, the price premium does diminish its value.

Pros

• Impressive OC performance for 1440p gaming
• DLSS 4 is a game-changer for performance and image quality
• 16GB of VRAM comes in handy in more demanding titles
• ASUS's PRIME design offers excellent thermal performance
• Super efficient, drawing only 150W when gaming

Cons

• Falls short of matching RTX 4070 performance
• OC model price premium does sting

Should you buy it?

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Introduction

In testing a few different GeForce RTX 5060 Ti GPUs, all with 16GB of VRAM, we've found that OC models can easily outpace the reference-spec design - to the point where in a lot of games you can expect to get 5% or more performance with little effort and no real impact to temperatures. This is excellent news because OC models usually feature more premium cooling, adding extra room for manual tinkering. The ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC Edition reviewed here is no different, with its out-of-the-box OC action, 1440p gaming performance, on average, is 29% faster than the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and around 40% faster than the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti.

A quick look at the ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC Edition

And with the arrival of DLSS 4's new transformer AI model-powered Super Resolution update, the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti benefits immensely from NVIDIA's latest AI technology. Using the DLSS 'Quality' preset, which offers better image quality than native rendering with TAA enabled, 1440p gaming on the ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB gets an additional 20% boost to performance through software and AI hardware. It's enough to push performance into the 100+ FPS range in many games with 'Ultra' quality visuals, making the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB GPU one of the best 1440p gaming options. It's incredibly efficient, too, drawing around 150W on average for 1440p gaming, which is enough to make it perfect for just about any budget-oriented build.

Of course, there is a downside. One that we pointed out in our review of MSI's impressive Gaming Trio OC model. With an MSRP of $429 (excluding taxes and tariffs), the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB is notably faster than its previous generation counterpart and more affordable. Well, until you see the actual street prices. Like every other GeForce RTX and Radeon RX GPU launch this year, this premium GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB GPU is not immune to the current state of the market. This means that the ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC Edition's price sits uncomfortably close to the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti's MSRP - a GPU that is 28% faster than the RTX 5060 Ti when it comes to 1440p gaming.

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This is worth remembering as we review the GPU's impressive performance and efficiency. The 16GB model, in particular, feels perfect for pairing with the increasingly affordable and impressive 1440p displays hitting the market, which include several OLED models. This GPU benefits from all of the RTX Blackwell enhancements and improvements, from DLSS 4's new transformer model to Multi Frame Generation and cutting-edge neural rendering technologies.

Compared to the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti offers advanced AI capabilities for Frame Generation with 16GB of cutting-edge GDDR7 memory. It can even run a title like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle at 1440p with Full Ray Tracing at over 100 FPS. This is with DLSS 4's new Super Resolution enabled, Ray Reconstruction, Multi Frame Generation, and Reflex all switched on - but the results are immediately impressive. AI is helping usher in a new era of fidelity in cinematic single-player titles while pushing performance and responsiveness in competitive titles with DLSS Super Resolution and Reflex.

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RTX Blackwell - NVIDIA's Gaming Architecture for the AI Era

Below is a summary of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 Series and RTX Blackwell architecture, applicable to all models.

NVIDIA describes 'Neural Rendering,' which includes all previous versions of DLSS and the brand-new DLSS 4, as the 'next era for computer graphics.' They're not alone; the Lead System Architect for the PlayStation 5 Pro console, Mark Cerny, recently said that ray-tracing is the future of games and that AI will play an integral role in making that happen. DOOM: The Dark Ages developer id Software shared a similar sentiment, adding that the arrival of DLSS was an 'inflection point' for PC game visuals and performance and on par with the arrival of dedicated GPUs and programmable shaders.

With the arrival of the Blackwell generation and the GeForce RTX 50 Series, AI is now being used to accelerate programmable shaders with the brand-new RTX Neural Shaders. Yes, these are actual neural networks that use live game data, and the power of Tensor Cores to do everything from compress textures, render lifelike materials with a level of detail impossible to match using traditional rendering methods, and even use AI to partially trace rays and then infer "an infinite amount

of rays and bounces for a more accurate representation of indirect lighting in the game scene."

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RTX Mega Geometry is incredible in its own right; it essentially increases a scene's geometry detail and complexity (triangles or polygons) by up to 100x. 100 times the detail, it's hard to wrap your head around - but the added benefit in a game like Alan Wake 2 is dramatically improving the performance of the game's Full Ray Tracing or Path Tracing mode. With DLSS 4 and RTX Neural Shaders, NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 Series and RTX Blackwell architecture (which includes the same AI optimizations as data center Blackwell) can be viewed as the turning point for PC gaming - the moment when AI becomes integral to everything from designing a game to programming and then finally rendering it on a 4K display to play.

DLSS 4 includes more goodies than NVIDIA's highly touted new Multi Frame Generation technology, but let's start there. DLSS 3's version of Frame Generation has evolved with DLSS 4, powered by Blackwell hardware and software, and an innovative use of AI to generate frames 40% faster while using 30% less VRAM. Switching to a new model also means that Frame Generation and Multi-Frame Generation could soon come to GeForce RTX 20, 30, and RTX 40 Series owners. DLSS 4 benefits all GeForce RTX gamers.

With the 5th Generation of Tensor Cores in the GeForce RTX 50 Series delivering 2.5X more AI performance, NVIDIA's latest GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs can execute five complex AI models - covering Super Resolution, Ray Reconstruction, and Multi Frame Generation in a couple of milliseconds. Part of the reason it happens so quickly is the addition of hardware Flip Metering, which shifts frame pacing to the Blackwell display engine. The result is frame rates of up to 4K at 240 FPS and higher, without stuttering issues. With up to 15 of every 16 pixels generated by AI, the result is up to 8X the performance when compared to native rendering or rasterized performance.

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DLSS Super Resolution and Ray Reconstruction are also switching to a new 'Transformer' model, with over double the parameters and four times the compute requirement. This is one of the most exciting aspects of the GeForce RTX 50 Series, as it pushes DLSS into a new realm of image quality and performance. The best part is that it will work on all GeForce RTX GPUs; however, there will be a performance hit compared to running it on an RTX 50 Series GPU. Already available in games, DLSS 4's Transformer model is another DLSS 2.0-like moment for the technology, and the results speak for themselves.

Even better, DLSS 4 is integrated into the NVIDIA App with a new 'DLSS Override' feature that allows users to experience the latest tech without waiting for a patch or game update. DLSS 4 is built to be backward compatible, with 75 games and apps supported (so far).

It doesn't stop there, as the new AI Management Processor (AMP) allows AI models to share the GPU with graphics workloads. As a result, expect to see digital humans in games alongside AI assistants like NVIDIA's Project G-Assist becoming more prevalent in the coming years. This filters down to the creator side, with AI assistants for streamers, who will also benefit from the GeForce RTX 50 Series' expanded creator features.

RTX Blackwell introduces 4:2:2 chroma-sampled video encoding and decoding. The ninth-generation NVENC encoder also improves AV1 and HEVC quality. RTX Blackwell is a game changer for creators and editors, especially with the new low-voltage and cutting-edge GDDR7 memory that dramatically improves memory bandwidth and speed.

Specs and Test System

Specifications

Here's a look at the specs of the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti compared to the previous generation's GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, GeForce RTX 4070, and GeForce RTX 5070.

When comparing the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti specs to those of the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, it looks like there hasn't been much progress since the Ampere generation. CUDA Core, Tensor Core, and RT Core counts have remained relatively flat, with the RTX 5060 Ti's GPU only featuring 4% more than the RTX 4060 Ti and 5% less than the RTX 3060 Ti. However, the RTX Blackwell-powered GeForce RTX 5060 Ti offers the most significant 60-class performance improvement since the Ampere generation, thanks to the latest generation of Tensor Cores, RT Cores, and enhancements to the GPU's underlying architecture.

Part of this comes from the shift to GDDR7 memory, which, even on a 128-bit bus, has almost double the bandwidth of the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti's GDDR6 memory. More VRAM is welcome and helps ensure that 16GB models of the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti are better equipped for handling more intensive workloads, whether that's enabling high-end ray-tracing effects in games, editing 4K or even 8K video, or running complex AI models locally. This is the sort of future-proofing we like to see. However, it does beg the question of why an 8GB model was released.

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Like the GeForce RTX 40 Series, GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs are built using a custom TSMC 4N process. This makes it the first generation of GeForce RTX to arrive without a process node shrink. What does this mean? Well, it means less impressive generational gains, for one thing - a process shrink usually offers double-digit improvements to efficiency and performance. The RTX Blackwell generation offers higher clock speeds and increased power to compensate, alongside more densely packed chips than their Ada Lovelace counterparts. However, that's not where the story ends. Architectural improvements improve performance on top of everything else, and improved AI hardware and performance will help power a new generation of PC games.

Cutting-edge chips are becoming increasingly more expensive to produce, and it's one of the reasons why we haven't seen price reductions on gaming hardware in recent years, including consoles. In fact, in most markets, the price of a PS5 is now significantly higher in 2025 than in 2021. For GeForce RTX, the good news is that NVIDIA's leadership in AI means that technologies like DLSS are now fully matured to the point where Frame Generation is a fantastic piece of technology.

But going beyond that and looking at how games render visuals, Neural Shaders (which can already be seen in titles like Alan Wake 2 and Half-Life 2 RTX) and AI are now being leveraged to improve performance and efficiency in ways that would have seemed impossible a few years ago. The GeForce RTX 50 Series is all about this transition to the AI era for PC gaming, and the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB makes all of this more accessible and affordable.

Kosta's Test System

Physical Design and Cooling

ASUS's new PRIME GPU design for 2025 represents its more affordable or 'entry-level' range. However, it certainly doesn't feel like it. The build quality here is uniformly excellent, with the triple-fan ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC Edition offering outstanding thermal performance in a robust package that might sit on the larger side of the RTX 5060 Ti spectrum but is still relatively lightweight and compact. This 2.5-slot GPU from ASUS doesn't feature any RGB lighting; its curves, branding, and subtle design flourishes help define its sleek and minimal look.

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It includes three of ASUS's impressive Axial-tech fans with Dual-Ball Fan Bearings that offer improved airflow with less noise. Even though there's a 0dB mode that turns off the fans when the GPU temperature drops below 50 degrees Celsius, even when spinning, you'd be hard-pressed to hear the ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB do its thing. The fully enclosed shroud includes a metal backplate with large vents, and underneath the hood, there's ASUS's MaxContact Design heat spreader and ASUS GPU Guard to protect the GPU.

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There's also a Dual BIOS switch for Performance and Quiet modes, both of which feature faster clock speeds than NVIDIA's reference specs. The ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC Edition is an impressively built GPU that should last you years of gaming, and it's an excellent option for gamers looking to overclock their GeForce RTX 5060 Ti. In our testing, we found that an additional +200 - 250 MHz to the Boost Clock speed didn't affect the thermal performance of the GPU in a meaningful way, which is great to see.

The Games and Tests

PC gaming not only covers a wide range of genres and styles, from indie games with simple 2D graphics to massive 3D worlds lit by cutting-edge real-time ray tracing technology. With that, the needs and requirements of each gamer vary. High refresh rates and latency reduction become more important than flashy visuals or playing at the highest resolution possible for those who live and breathe fast-paced competitive games. For those who want to live in a cinematic world and become a key player in an expansive narrative, ray-tracing and high-fidelity visuals are a stepping stone toward immersion.

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Our chosen benchmarks cover various games, engines, APIs, and technologies. For the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, all tests are run at 1080p and 1440p and include results for performance-boosting Super Resolution technologies like NVIDIA DLSS 4 - including Frame Generation and the new Multi Frame Generation. In many ways, DLSS numbers are more important in 2025 than native rendering - a title with ray tracing isn't meant to be played without Super Resolution. Also, DLSS technologies like Ray Reconstruction and the new RTX Mega Geometry dramatically improve visual fidelity and detail compared to native rendering. However, our benchmark results are still sorted using 'raw performance' or native rendering.

Here's the breakdown of games, settings, and what's being tested.

Games and Settings Benchmarked

Path Tracing Games and Settings Benchmarked

Gaming Performance Analysis - 1080p and 1440p

Average Gaming Performance - 1080p Results

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According to the latest Steam data, 1080p is still the most popular resolution for PC gaming, and GPUs like the GeForce RTX 3060 and RTX 4060 are still the most popular options. When looking at these two cards, the ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC Edition presents a sizable improvement, with average 1080p gaming performance 48% faster than the RTX 4060 and a massive 76% faster than the 76%. When it comes to upgrading, most people skip a generation, and from that perspective, the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti in ASUS PRIME form is 37% faster than the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti for 1080p gaming.

Compared to its predecessor, the ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC Edition is 24% faster than the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Founder Edition GPU with 8GB of VRAM. There are a few titles where the increased VRAM capacity to 16GB comes into play - Cyberpunk 2077 with the Ultra ray-tracing quality preset is 38% faster on the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB compared to the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB. Dragon Age: The Veilguard is another example where the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB is 34% faster than Total War: Warhammer 3, which runs 38% faster on the new RTX 5060 Ti 16GB. The increased memory capacity and speed also deliver a 1% improvement in performance for a more stable and smooth gaming experience.

However, there is a decent-sized gap when looking at the next tier. The GeForce RTX 5070, which features 12GB of GDDR7 memory, is, on average, 24% faster than the ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC Edition for 1080p gaming. The Radeon RX 9070 non-XT GPU, which features 16GB of GDDR6 memory, is 28% faster.

Average Gaming Performance - 1440p Results

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Although 1080p is still the most popular resolution for PC gaming, which makes sense when you factor in that more GPUs out there are 60-Class cards, 1440p is the fastest-growing resolution, thanks in part to several high-quality displays targeting the QHD resolution. The jump from 1080p to 1440p is noticeable, too, with games looking sharper, cleaner, and more detailed. Even though going from 1080p to 1440p sees the ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC Edition's performance drop off by around 28% on average, this is still the resolution where the GPU excels. And that's because DLSS 4, with its fantastic image quality, delivers an additional 22% boost to performance, closing this gap.

Looking at the average 1440p gaming results, the ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC Edition pulls ahead of its predecessors by delivering a baseline result that is 29% faster than the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and 40% faster than the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. When looking at two of the most popular cards, the GeForce RTX 3060 and RTX 4060, the ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB is 80% and 57% faster, respectively. A massive improvement that you immediately notice. The only downside is that it still falls short of the GeForce RTX 4070, with the mid-range Ada Lovelace GPU being around 7% faster on average.

Some significant gen-on-gen gains are partly attributed to the additional VRAM capacity. Cyberpunk 2077 with the Ultra ray-tracing quality preset runs 40% faster on the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB than on the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB. Dragon Age: The Veilguard is another excellent example. Here, the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB is 43% faster. This poses the question of why NVIDIA also opted to release an 8GB variant for the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, which we'll dig into when we post a full review of an 8GB model in the coming days.

Benchmarks - 3DMark Synthetic Tests

3DMark offers a suite of synthetic benchmarks built to test GPUs in various scenarios. 3DMark Steel Nomad is a cutting-edge DirectX 12 benchmark with newer, modern rendering techniques designed to push GPUs to their limit. The 'Light' version tests at 1440p, while the main Steel Nomad benchmark tests pure native 4K rendering. Port Royal is a benchmark focusing exclusively on real-time ray tracing for lighting effects like reflections, shadows, and more.

Looking at the Steel Nomad Light 1440p and Steel Nomad 4K benchmark results, the ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB's score does match what we see in several real-world gaming tests. Both scores are around 25% higher than the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and 38% higher than the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. The results are also within 6% or so of the GeForce RTX 4070, which shows that the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti's performance does fall a little short of matching its performance. The results also showcase a decent gap when looking at more powerful cards, with the GeForce RTX 5070 and Radeon RX 9070 delivering 34% higher scores in the Steel Nomad Light test.

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As a benchmark for ray-tracing performance, the Port Royal results show that the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB GPU sees some of its most significant improvements when going RTX On. Here, the ASUS PRIME model score is 31% higher than the RTX 4060 Ti and an impressive 51% higher than the RTX 3060 Ti. This can be seen in titles with heavy ray-tracing, like Cyberpunk 2077, or games with the option to enable Path Tracing. This is NVIDIA's best 60-Class ray-tracing GPU, opening the door to a new level of fidelity for more gamers.

Benchmarks - 1080p Gaming

Benchmarks - 1440p Gaming

DLSS 4, Frame Generation, and the new Multi-Frame Generation

DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation are impressive bits of technology, thanks mainly to the overall improvements to performance and latency on the Frame Generation side and the new 'Transformer' model for Super Resolution and Ray Reconstruction. We used the DLSS 'Quality' mode preset for these benchmarks, often delivering better-than-native image quality.

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Multi Frame Generation is currently exclusive to the new GeForce RTX 50 Series, a new AI-enhanced form of Frame Generation that leverages RTX Blackwell to generate three additional frames using AI on top of the standard natively or Super Resolution-enhanced rendered frame. Frame Generation works best when there's a baseline of at least 60 FPS, with the result offering a smoother presentation with increased motion clarity, perfect for high refresh-rate displays.

Looking at the 1440p Multi Frame Generation results for the ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC Edition, Dragon Ahe: The Veilguard goes from 60 FPS without any DLSS action to 82 FPS with DLSS Super Resolution and then 212 FPS with the max Multi Frame Generation 4X setting enabled. Numbers-wise, it's impressive, but the best part is that image quality and responsiveness are all excellent, so it's a feature that works great in a wide range of titles. There are still artifacts to be found in the AI-generated frames, but for the most part, these aren't noticeable.

Path Tracing Performance - 1080p

Path Tracing, or Full Ray Tracing, arrived with the GeForce RTX 40 Series and DLSS 3 and is leveling up with the GeForce RTX 50 Series and DLSS 4. It's only possible thanks to AI technologies like DLSS Super Resolution, Ray Reconstruction, and RTX Neural Shader technology like RTX Mega Geometry. It's designed specifically for these technologies, and we're only including native or rasterized performance to highlight just how intensive it is on a GPU like the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti. In fact, outside of the massive increase in performance, these games also look notably worse without DLSS 4.

Cards like the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti and GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, with tweaks and the proper DLSS settings, can deliver a playable and immersive 1080p Path Tracing experience. However, it's the performance that is right there on the edge, making the ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC Edition a more viable option. Especially in a title like Cyberpunk 2077, where the 16GB of VRAM helps deliver up to a 60% improvement to the game's Path Tracing mode in 1080p using the DLSS 4 'Quality' preset. Multi Frame Generation also helps, by increasing the smoothness without impacting responsiveness, delivering 100+ FPS.

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Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is an example of a well-optimized title with Full Ray Tracing. The ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC Edition delivers a playable 84 FPS at 1080p without Frame Generation.

Temperature and Power Efficiency

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The GeForce RTX 5060 Ti is the most efficient GPU in the RTX Blackwell line-up and the most efficient GPU for 1440p gaming. With an average power draw of 150W when gaming in 1440p, even in overclocked form, the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB is impressive. Although on the larger side for RTX 5060 Ti cards, ASUS's PRIME design delivers excellent thermal performance, with GPU temperatures staying below 60 degrees Celsius even during a stress test.

Final Thoughts

The GeForce RTX 5060 Ti is here, and when it comes to performance, the 16GB models offer decent gains over the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and the RTX 3060 Ti, especially when gaming in 1440p. The ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC Edition, which offers around 5% more performance than the reference-spec design with a generous overclock, also delivers excellent thermal performance in a robust and stylish design. Although we would have loved to see the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti outpace the GeForce RTX 4070 (performance falls short by around 7% on average), you're still looking at a fantastic 1440p gaming card that is remarkably efficient, too.

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As mentioned in the introduction, the price is the genuine hurdle that prevents the RTX 5060 Ti from becoming a 'must buy' or something you'd have no issues picking up. The $429 MSRP represents fantastic value in the current climate. Still, the current environment means that OC models and pricing for cards like the ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC Edition are creeping a little too close to the MSRP of the GeForce RTX 5070 and the Radeon RX 9070 non-XT - two cards that are notably faster than what you're getting here.

Pricing aside, there's a lot that the GeForce RTX 50 Series brings to the table, and it all applies to the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, from the improved media engine for creators to the enhanced AI performance for productivity. On the gaming front, the show's star has to be DLSS 4 and the new AI transformer model for Super Resolution. At 1440p, the resolution sweet spot for the ASUS PRIME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, DLSS 'Quality' offers better-than-native image quality with a 20% boost to performance. Using the 'Balanced' preset, this jumps up to 30%. This result indicates that the AI era of PC gaming is well and truly here and that raw performance can be viewed as more of a foundation for something grand to be built.