Allegedly, that’s because Nvidia have been keeping hold of the drivers needed for full reviews, only providing them at the eleventh hour to press outlets that have previously run these previews.
And, in turn, would only be compared to results from older XX60 GPUs that lack DLSS frame gen support entirely.
“We worked with a few chosen media on previews with a pre-release driver,” an Nvidia spokesperson told me this afternoon.
Even if, by that point, reviewers are free to use their own, independently-set benchmarks, the initial wave of RTX 5060 reviews will come from publications that Nvidia has – accurately or otherwise – deemed more friendly than others.
More disturbing still is that this isn’t even the only accusation of editorial manhandling to be laid at Nvidia’s feet today.
As is customary for me, I took a few days off right before another graphics card dispute broke out in the open. This time, the formerly modest RTX 5060 is at the center. As you may have noticed, it is scheduled for release today, but there aren’t many “hands-on previews” to show you how powerful its graphics are. This is allegedly because Nvidia has been holding onto the drivers required for thorough reviews, giving them to media outlets that have already published these previews at the last minute. According to the same reports, these previews were only made available under stringent testing requirements set by Nvidia itself. No preview? No review, at least not until the drivers are made available to the public later today.
The required test conditions, according to VideoCardz and Hardware Unboxed, reportedly range from limiting the number of games that can be used for benchmarking (based on the previews that are currently available online, these include Doom: The Dark Ages, Avowed, Cyberpunk 2077, Hogwarts Legacy, and Marvel Rivals) to the more outrageous requirement that RTX 5060 performance figures concentrate on DLSS 4’s Multi Frame Generation (MFG). Results from older XX60 GPUs that completely lack DLSS frame gen support would then be the only ones to be compared.
An Nvidia representative informed me this afternoon that “we worked with a few chosen media on previews with a pre-release driver.”. Apart from a release time of 5 p.m. BST, no comment was made regarding the review driver situation.
RPS was not invited to participate in these previews, and I can’t fathom accepting such conditions if we were. The limited selection of games and focus on frame-generated performance compared to the much older RTX 3060 and RTX 2060 Super are obviously meant to promote a specific narrative: one that, at best, minimizes the disadvantages of frame generation and, at worst, misleads readers with an unhelpfully narrow view of relative performance. However, many previewers pointed out the shortcomings of the RTX 5060’s 8GB VRAM limit. The GPU giant even specified the in-game settings that each game should be tested with, according to a preview published by GameStar, a German website that accepted Nvidia’s offer.
The purported exchange of previous review drivers for a compliant preview adds to the feeling that a large, green thumb is pressing down on the critical scales. The first wave of RTX 5060 reviews will originate from publications that Nvidia has, correctly or otherwise, judged to be friendlier than others, even if reviewers are then allowed to use their own, independently-set benchmarks. It will be necessary for those who declined the locked-down previews to wait before sharing their impressions, as they have shown a reduced willingness to comply with the intended messaging.
Once more, I was not invited, so I was unable to send a “Thanks but no thanks” email (even though I hadn’t been too busy recuperating from gin-assisted groomsman duty at the same time). As a result, I can’t claim complete moral superiority in this situation. I’m still not a fan, though.
In my reviews, I have never received even a hint of retaliation for ignoring Nvidia PRs, but lately I have noticed that they are getting unusually pushy about how great it would be to test such and such frame generation in such and such game. In reality, though, those have always been suggestions. Nevertheless, I am now in the odd situation of having an RTX 5060 in my physical possession for almost a week (it was posted by Zotac with no conditions other than to not break or lose it), but I lack the software necessary to test or evaluate it on the day of release. Well, at least Bethesda didn’t send us Starfield copies while they were denying us the activation keys.
Even more concerning is the fact that Nvidia is currently facing other charges of editorial manipulation. According to a video (above) by big-deal tech YooToobers Gamers Nexus, Nvidia has threatened to deny them access to interviewing Nvidia engineering staff because of their reviews’ alleged lack of emphasis on DLSS and MFG performance testing. Gamers Nexus has actually produced a number of in-depth videos on these subjects in particular.
