Nvidia accused of suppressing RTX 5060 reviews by withholding final drivers from press
We expect to see two new GPU launches this month: The AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060. Both GPUs could be here in mid-May, starting at $299 for the RTX 5060 and, possibly, $269 for the RX 9060 XT 8 GB. Unfortunately, Nvidia doesn’t seem to have much confidence in the RTX 5060.
We reported previously that Nvidia is lifting the review embargo and launching the RTX 5060 on the same day, May 19th. The situation wasn’t ideal since, in the current GPU market where stock is pretty tight, gamers couldn’t take their time to watch and digest the reviews before making a decision. However, per the current claims from Hardware Unboxed and Igor’s Lab, the situation is even worse than previously thought.
Tech reviewers Hardware Unboxed (HU) and Igor’sLab have claimed that Nvidia is suppressing the coverage of the RTX 5060 by limiting access to press drivers for the card. Since reviewers can’t test the RTX 5060 without press drivers, there are unlikely to be many, if any, RTX 5060 reviews on launch day.
HU claims that Nvidia is “trying to hide the RTX 5060” like the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB. HU further explains that Nvidia is seemingly pushing back the press drivers to the actual RTX 5060 release date when most reviewers will be in Taiwan for Computex 2025. This will make it impossible for reviewers to test and schedule their coverage for the RTX 5060 launch.
To that end, HU explains that, even with “multiple RTX 5060 samples” available, the publication won’t be able to review the RTX 5060 “until about a week after they go on sale”.
Igor’sLab shares a similar sentiment, informing the reader base that there will be “no early access, no pre-tests, and no benchmarking for the sales launch”.
Here, some might ask: Why would Nvidia want to limit the coverage of the RTX 5060?
The question has a pretty simple answer: The RTX 5060 might not be a good card, primarily due to the limited VRAM buffer. To see the scale of the problem, HU has quite a few videos on the subject, showing the insufficiency of 8 GB for today’s AAA games.
So, in the absence of substantial independent coverage, gamers could be in for another lousy GPU launch, potentially filled with deceptive marketing.
Source(s)
Hardware Unboxed on X, Igor'sLab, VideoCardz, Teaser image: Asus, Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash, edited
