It’s no secret that the RTX 50-series launch has been a little bit of a mixed bag between stock issues and high prices (mostly due to the former), but I was ever so eager to test out the new MSI RTX 5060 Ti 16GB which I suspect for most people, will probably be the card that falls into budget for the everyday gamer.
The size of the MSI GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB Gaming Series is a lot more acceptable for those with smaller builds. With the RTX 5070 Ti-RTX 5090 coming in at humungous sizes, this particular model weighs just 781 grams and comes in at 247 x 135 x 51mm fitting even my tiny Mini ITX build before I shifted it over to my gorgeous new MSI Pano 100R case (where it admittedly looked comically small).
Like all of the other MSI GPUs that I’ve tested within the 50-series, this a very nicely built GPU that oozes quality in the right places, but also is quite understated in its design as well. It has a metal backplate and a cooper baseplate, and you can expect all of the usual suspects when it comes to RGB in the form of the MSI logo on the right side of the GPU, the dragon that sits on top and reflects the RGB lights of your fans, and two little transparent RGB cut-outs underneath to shine onto your case as well.
When it comes to noise I couldn’t hear this little beauty running even when putting my head right next to it and even when pushing it to its limits in 4K gaming, it stayed steadily around the mid 50s which is more than acceptable and it only consumes 180w of power which is at the low-end of the 50-series GPUs.
In terms of the build that I tested the 5060 Ti in, I’ve got a beefy new PC build (available from Scorptec here) including the below specs:
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
- MOBO: MSI MAG B850 Tomahawk Max WiFi
- RAM:Kingston RGB 64GB 6000MHz DDR5
- SSDs: 2 x MSI Spatium M461 2TB M.2
- PSU: MSI 1000W Gold
- CASE: MSI MAG Pano 100R PZ
Whilst I normally benchmark 15-20 games, I decided to do something a little different for the 5060 Ti. I really just went about my regular gaming for the last week or so, cycling through a bunch of games that I’ve been playing recently, and I wasn’t too sure what to expect given this GPU hadn’t been announced when I was using it, but I was pleasantly surprised. The GPU really comes into its own at 1440p (and 1080p) especially when partnered with DLSS and Multi Frame Generation, but it even surprised me at how capable it was at 4K.
Since I reviewed the 5070 Ti, there’s now heaps more games with Multi Frame Generation support including a bunch of PlayStation games in Returnal, God of War Ragnarok and Until Dawn and a heap of Xbox games too including Microsoft Flight Simulator, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Avowed.
I’m really back into Returnal at the moment and it’s a great game to test on any PC as it looks incredible, but how it runs is super important in how your run plays out. At 4K with everything turned, I was able to get about 50 FPS which was fairly solid without stuttering, but 1440p was where the game really game into its own at 78 FPS and bumping it down to 1080p (which I’d probably never do) made it soar at 106 FPS, but really, this was a great example of a game looking phenomenal on PC and well ahead of its PS5 version and still running at solid frame rates even at 4K.
Next up was Cyberpunk 2077 which I love to test with everything including ray-tracing cranked all the way up. At 4K with frame gen set to 2x it was able to hit 41 FPS which was still playable, but with MFG turned on to 4x it was able to reach 75 FPS. Similarly at 1440p, it was able to hit 78 FPS with frame gen set to 2x and with MFG was able to reach a very respectable 140 FPS and at 1080p it could hit 120 FPS at frame gen turned on and 215 FPS with MFG at 4x, so if you really wanted to hit those higher frames (with a resolution hit) it’s more than possible with the 5060 Ti.
I’m really into The Last Of Us Part 2 Remastered at the moment particularly the roguelike No Return mode, and this looks absolutely phenomenal on PC with a bunch of particle effects that just weren’t visible on the PS5 and this also ran really well on the 5060 Ti. There’s no MFG here, but just with DLSS it ran at 75 FPS in 4K, 121 FPS at 1440p and 145 FPS at 1080p, which I thought was great for a game that looks this good.
Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is another game that always runs well on NVIDIA tech and it was no different here with the game hitting 94 FPS at 4K, 164 FPS at 1440p and 220 FPS at 1080p without any MFG, so it’s a phenomenal experience that looks a lot better than it does on a base PS5.
Lastly, I booted up Spider-Man 2 which again really relies on steady frame rates as it feels incredibly janky when you’re swinging with stuttering, and it performed well with the 5060 Ti with DLSS staying above 60 FPS at 4K with an average of 63 FPS, 98 FPS at 1440p and 134 FPS at 1080p.
So really, the main takeaway whilst playing modern AAA games on the 5060 Ti is that 1440p is really the sweet spot for gaming with everything cranked all the way up on a 144hz monitor, but if you’re happy with 60 FPS you can bump it up to 4K and if you’re stuck on a 1080p monitor with a high refresh rate you can push 200 FPS with most games.
I understand that from a raw performance point of view, it does fall short of the 4070, but with DLSS and MFG, which I believe is only going to get better with time, for the everyday gamer, I think that the 5060 Ti is still a great buy at this price point and one to consider unless you want to spend a lot more to go up to 5070 Ti or 5080.
