Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 review: better than console performance - but not enough VRAM

As we mentioned on the first page of this review, the RTX 5060 uses a PCIe 8x connection, rather than the more common 16x that uses the full physical width available. That's fine for modern motherboards with PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 slots, as it still translates to a generous ~16GB/s or ~32GB/s of bandwidth respectively, but on older PCIe 3.0 motherboards it's only ~8GB/s. That's low enough that we can see some performance degradation in certain bandwidth-heavy games.

To demonstrate this, we tested on our Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Hero motherboard with the PCIe slot manually set to PCIe 3.0 in the BIOS instead of its customary 5.0. We found relatively noticeable performance degradation in a range of games, even at 1080p, though the degradation was relatively more impactful to the more powerful RTX 5060 Ti.

For example, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle showed the 5060 hitting only 92.5 percent of its average frame-rate using the lower bandwidth slot, while the RTX 5060 Ti managed only 83 percent in the same conditions. The PCIe penalty is less severe at higher resolutions, as other elements start to bottleneck performance.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

F1 24

Black Myth: Wukong

In F1 24 with RT disabled, it was a similar story, with the RTX 5060 only achieving 92 percent of its PCIe 5.0 performance when restricted to PCIe 3.0 speeds. Here, the gap worsened slightly at higher resolutions.

Black Myth: Wukong showed the same pattern, with the PCIe 3.0 testing hitting 88 percent of the average frame-rate achieved over PCIe 5.0 at 1080p, 89.6 percent at 1440p and 84 percent at 2160p.

With this in mind, it's best to stick to motherboards with PCIe 4.0 or PCIe 5.0 slots - or instead consider the upcoming RX 9060 XT, which is said to offer a full 16x interface that should work better on older motherboards, if you're upgrading an older system with a new graphics card.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Analysis

• Introduction and test rig
• RT benchmarks: Alan Wake 2, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Cyberpunk 2077
• RT benchmarks: Dying Light 2, F1 24, Hitman: World of Assassination
• RT benchmarks: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, A Plague Tale: Requiem
• Game benchmarks: Alan Wake 2, Black Myth: Wukong, Cyberpunk 2077
• Game benchmarks: F1 24, Forza Horizon 5, Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2
• Game benchmarks: Hitman: World of Assassination, A Plague Tale: Requiem
• PCIe 3.0 vs PCIe 5.0: Black Myth: Wukong, F1 24, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle [This Page]
• PlayStation 5 comparisons and DLSS 4 multi frame generation
• Conclusions, value and recommendations