The ComputerBase portal recently tested the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti graphics card with 8 GB of memory and found another problem with this accelerator. The card turned out to be sensitive to the version of the PCIe interface to which it connects: the new product works noticeably slower with PCIe 4.0 than with PCIe 5.0.
Image source: VideoCardz
In 27 game tests conducted by ComputerBase, the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8GB demonstrated a level comparable to the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB in only 12 of them. Another 11 games showed “minor” issues: a decrease in FPS up to 19% compared to the older model. The remaining nine games were affected by a lack of memory, which caused significant performance losses or made the games completely unplayable.
However, the younger card is not limited to a lack of memory alone. ComputerBase also found that the transition from PCIe 5.0 x8 to PCIe 4.0 x8 (the card uses only eight PCIe lanes) leads to a significant decrease in the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB’s performance in games. The RTX 5060 Ti 16GB does not have this problem, as it has enough memory to avoid frequent swapping of game resources. In turn, the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB is more dependent on the bandwidth of the PCIe interface due to a limited memory buffer, which further degrades its performance.
«And this was also reflected in our tests. The GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB was on average 14% (based on average FPS) – up to 17% (based on the 1 percentile) faster when connected to PCIe 5.0 than when connected to PCIe 4.0. In some cases, the impact was even more noticeable. And we are not talking about scenarios where the card had problems even when connected to PCIe 5.0 – what is unplayable remains unplayable,” writes Computer Base.
The portal notes that all this leads to unusual situations when certain games with certain settings, launched on the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB, can demonstrate low performance on PCIe 5.0 and be completely unplayable on PCIe 4.0. The reviewers’ recommendation is quite clear: avoid the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8GB, especially in combination with the PCIe 4.0 interface.