In the world of GPUs, it's always the top-end halo products that launch first and grab all the headlines, but when it comes to sales, the mainstream models matter the most. And it looks like Nvidia fans might not have much longer to wait, as it's being reported that the launch of the RTX 5060 Ti is just two weeks away and card manufacturers are also required to have at least one MSRP model on retailer's shelves too.
News of the impending appearance of the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti was published by BenchLife via a post on X from wxnod, with April 16 being the official launch date. Just as it did with its predecessor, the 4060 Ti, Nvidia will have two variants of the 5060 Ti but they'll only differ in terms of the amount of VRAM: 8 and 16 GB of GDDR7.
However, Videocardz claims that the actual announcement of the RTX 5060 Ti will take place the day before (April 15) and that the RTX 5060 will also be in the line-up. For some reason, though, that particular model won't be available to buy until May. Videocardz also has the specs for the RTX 5060 Ti and 5060, so if they're genuine, this is what we're going to be looking at.
Starting with the 5060 Ti, it's said to sport 4,608 CUDA cores and a boost clock of 2,572 MHz—just 6% and 1% higher than the RTX 4060 Ti, respectively. That seems… umm…pretty terrible as a generational upgrade but given that both the RTX 5080 and RTX 5070 Ti overclock very well, some AIB (add-in board) partners may have a few decent OC models worth buying.
What the RTX 5060 Ti does have lots of, though, is memory bandwidth due to using 28 Gbps GDDR7. Where the 4060 Ti makes do with 288 GB/s, the 5060 Ti will boast 448 GB/s of bandwidth, if those memory specs are correct. That's a 56% increase and even if the newer Blackwell GPU has less L2 cache than the Ada Lovelace one (which I doubt it will), the significantly higher bandwidth will definitely help the 5060 Ti.
It's the RTX 5060 that most PC gamers will pay attention to and if Videocardz's specs are genuine, then it could well be the best mainstream card for a long time. With a reported 3,840 CUDA cores (25% more than the RTX 4060) and the same memory bandwidth as the 5060 Ti, it has the potential to be a real powerhouse for the money.
Ah, money. The metric that has come to utterly define the RTX 50-series. There's no word on how much any of the mainstream Blackwells will cost and I should imagine gamers who have been waiting for the likes of the RTX 5060 will be keen to know what the MSRP is going to be.
Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest.
That said, it hasn't helped that AIB partners have pretty much ignored Nvidia's stated MSRP and the few models that have been released at the recommended price have been low in stock or just not stayed at that price for very long.
Videocardz claims that Nvidia is demanding that all its partners have at least one model at MSRP on retailer's shelves for launch and while that may actually happen, there's no guarantee that you'll be able to get your hands on one.
If one ignores the whole pricing and stock debacle for a moment, Nvidia's RTX 50-series is somewhat polarizing in terms of how good each model has been. The RTX 5090 is incredible but the RTX 5080 is kinda meh; the RTX 5070 Ti is great whereas the RTX 5070 is just disappointing.
As things currently stand, the RTX 5060 Ti and RTX 5060 look like they might flip this around, with the latter being the better of the two, but only time will tell if that's the case.
