Nvidia is actively preventing 8GB RTX 5060 Ti reviews – Hardware Unboxed claim
Nvidia’s reportedly preventing reviewers from getting early access to 8GB RTX 5060 Ti graphics cards
Hardware Unboxed has confirmed reports that Nvidia are actively preventing its AIB partners from supplying 8GB RTX 5060 Ti graphics cards to reviews ahead of launch. This means that all early coverage of Nvidia’s newest GPU will be focused on the company’s 16GB model.
In a statement on YouTube, Hardware Unboxed claimed that Nvidia had “explicitly prevented” its partners from sampling 8GB cards. This will prevent early purchasers from knowing how the GPU’s 8GB and 16GB models compare.
Nvidia has likely avoided 8GB GPU reviews to avoid negative launch day coverage. After all, 8GB is not enough VRAM to run many modern games without issues. Users of 8GB GPUs need to lower the texture settings (and other VRAM-heavy settings) to achieve stable performance in modern AAA games. These kinds of issues are not present on graphics cards with larger VRAM pools.
Now, while the launch is claimed to be the same day for the two variants, Nvidia are only sampling the 16GB card to reviewers. That is what will be covered on launch day. It goes beyond that, because we’ve been told that AIBs will not be supplying 8GB cards for reviews and, in fact, cannot supply the 8GB card for reviews.
Despite Nvidia giving us permission to source 8GB models for day one reviews, board partners told us they were unable to send us a graphics card. In some cases, they said they weren’t ready, but in other cases, it was because Nvidia had explicitly prevented them from doing so.
Our opinion on Nvidia’s RTX 5060 Ti models is that you should get the 16GB model if you can afford it. The 16GB model will certainly age better than the 8GB model. Furthermore, it will save you a lot of time when optimising the settings of newer games. 16GB of VRAM is plenty for modern games, and that means that you don’t need to consider VRAM use when optimising your game settings. It will also help you avoid low-resolution textures in many instances.
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