GeForce RTX 5060 with a chip from the RTX 5070 tested in games — no performance difference found
The GeForce RTX 5060 graphics card is officially based on the GB206 graphics processor with 3,840 CUDA cores, 120 texture mapping units (TMUs), and 48 raster operations pipelines (ROPs), and is equipped with 8 GB of GDDR7 memory operating on a 128-bit bus. However, some time ago, RTX 5060 models based on the more advanced but cut-down GB205 chip began appearing on the market. This chip was originally intended for higher-end GeForce RTX 5000 gaming graphics cards. The Quasar Zone portal tested one of these graphics cards.
GeForce RTX 5070, RTX 5070 Ti Mobile, and RTX PRO 3000 Blackwell models are typically produced using the GB205. A month earlier, it was reported that MSI had announced the GeForce RTX 5060 V1 Gaming and Gaming OC graphics cards, as well as the RTX 5060 V1 Ventus 2X and Ventus 2X OC, based on this GPU. Now, the GB205-200-KB-A1 graphics chip has been discovered in a new version of the Asus Dual GeForce RTX 5060 OC D7 8 GB graphics card.
Manufacturers—Nvidia and AMD—have used more powerful GPUs intended for higher-end graphics cards in lower-end models before. This is done to optimize production. If a higher-end chip fails to meet the technical requirements specified for a particular graphics card model—for example, if some CUDA cores do not work or the specified clock speed cannot be maintained—the chips are not thrown in the trash. Instead, they are adapted to the requirements of lower-end models by further reducing the number of CUDA cores, TMUs, and ROPs, as well as power consumption. Therefore, there should be no performance difference.
In the case of the MSI and Asus RTX 5060 graphics cards based on the GB205, PCIe 5.0 lane support has also been reduced from 16 to 8, as originally specified for the RTX 5060.
In Quasar Zone’s tests, the Asus RTX 5060 model based on the GB205 delivered approximately the same performance results, except in very rare cases when it was slightly faster. These examples can be seen in the screenshots above. The difference is likely related to the additional factory overclock applied to the GPU.
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