In putting together the RTX 5060 review, we also carried out some custom testing. Looking back, we found that the last generation RTX 4060 - when paired with a system using a PCIe 4.0 or PCIe 5.0 interface - could deliver performance in line or even better than the PlayStation 5, which is one of the prerequisites we would have for a GPU you'd use for triple-A gaming. So, if the RTX 5060 is faster, surely that means you're getting better than console performance?

Well, as long as the full bandwidth of the card is available and the game in question does not require more than 8GB of framebuffer memory, you can find some pretty good results. I started off by checking out Black Myth: Wukong. In our testing, the PlayStation 5 version of the game tends to use settings equivalent to PC's high, albeit (and somewhat mysteriously) using medium or low quality textures. The PS5 performance mode also mandates frame generation - but not on the prologue, making it good benchmark fodder. I found that the RTX 5060 could engage the high quality textures the PlayStation 5 version does not, and I could use DLSS performance mode for a 4K output from the same 1080p native rendering input - and still register a 20 percent frame-rate improvement. That is pretty impressive.

Playing devil's advocate, there is the sense that BMW on the PlayStation 5 isn't making the best of system resources - and it is the debut console offering from developer Game Science, so we moved on to further testing, focusing on Playground Games' excellent Forza Horizon 5. We used PS5 for testing here, but the graphical quality and performance are essentially identical on Xbox Series X.

There is a 60fps cap in place on the consoles, which we don't need to have on PC, and we found that the same level of visual fidelity at native 4K at 60fps was easily attainable on the RTX 5060. Indeed, we even had enough headroom available to swap out the standard 4x MSAA of the console versions for Nvidia DLAA - essentially machine-learning based anti-aliasing - for improved image quality. Now, the 60fps cap means that we don't get to see full system resources from the consoles deployed - but on the flip side, those consoles can resort to dynamic resolution scaling on the horizontal axis which we don't have in play on PC. Either way, a 60-class GPU delivering 4K60 gaming on a beautiful triple-A title - where the 5060's hardware shortcomings are not a problem, it is possible to get good performance.

Finally, I looked at Alan Wake 2, where we also have a settings match with PlayStation 5 - although PC does have an advantage, with Nvidia cards supporting RTX Mega Geometry - a part of the neural rendering suite the vendor is working on. In the game's 30fps quality mode (essentially a match for PC's medium), the RTX 5060 maintains 30fps in challenging areas where the console does not.

However, moving to the console's performance mode (this one's a tweaked low setting - but still looks good!), we found that while PS5 can't sustain a locked 60fps in our testing, the RTX 5060 has a crushing 35 percent performance lead which easily keeps you north of the 60fps threshold. I also thought that this level of performance might be a good place to do some DLSS 4 multi frame generation testing.

Alan Wake 2 is a decent stress test for MFG in that input lag even without frame generation is somewhat on the high side. Looking at the first image below, you can get a decent idea of how frame-rate scales with each MFG preset - but also how average latency within the system rises. Going from basic DLSS super resolution to full 4x MFG can deliver stratospheric improvements to frame-rate, but clearly it comes with a cost. Latency will be higher. This is not so much of a problem in a slower-paced game like Alan Wake, especially if you are using a controller, but some may find it bothersome.

In some cases, using lower MFG factors may be appropriate: there's no point using higher factors that take you beyond 200fps if, for example, your screen refresh maxes out 144Hz. Another good reason to dial back MFG is that the less capable the RTX 50 series card you have, the more latency increases, so using lower MFG factors allows you to claw back some precious milliseconds.

A good level of tuning is required by the user to get a decent MFG experience - before engaging frame generation, it's a good idea to use optimised settings to increase frame-rate and lower input lag as much as possible before engaging MFG. That's what you're seeing in the bottom right image below. I retained PS5-quality settings on Black Myth: Wukong, dropped back resolution to 1440p and use DLSS balanced mode. MFG boosted frame-rate to 170fps to 200fps, while latency stayed in the 45ms range on average. I would take that experience over non-MFG and indeed the PlayStation 5 version, which is quite laggy in its performance mode, using FSR frame generation to hit a mere 60fps.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Analysis