I have been wondering where the affordable GPUs went, and now they’re finally here — Nvidia just unveiled today both desktop and laptop RTX 5060 and RTX 5060 Ti GPUs.
Buckle up because the desktop RTX 5060 Ti is launching tomorrow, April 16, starting at $379 with 8GB of VRAM. You can bump up to the 16GB VRAM model for just $429. However, those will probably sell like hotcakes and you may be stuck with a $500 GPU, so lock in, gamer.
You can take a breather on the RTX 5060 for now since that won’t launch until sometime in May. That model will ship with 8GB of VRAM for the low price of $399.
As for the RTX 5060 gaming laptops, Nvidia states that they’ll also launch in May, starting at $1,099. That’s actually a decent price considering the previous generation. However, there are a number of other specs to consider. And who knows how tariffs will impact that price.
But we do know which laptops are confirmed to arrive and how well Nvidia claims the RTX 5060 and RTX 5060 Ti perform.
Will the budget era be better than ever?
While many have their criticisms of DLSS 4 discouraging developers from optimizing their games (including me), it’s an undeniably positive technology for budget gaming laptops. The RTX 4060 series barely scrapes along the 30 frame-per-second threshold in Cyberpunk 2077, but now, according to Nvidia, you can get up to 148 fps.
Gaming on a budget doesn’t need to feel like settling for less, not anymore. With an RTX 5060, you can get 114 fps in Alan Wake II, 220 fps in Avowed, 330 fps in Marvel Rivals, and the list goes on.
If you don’t already know why the new 50-series is such a massive improvement over its predecessors, it’s because of Multi Frame Generation. With the power of AI, DLSS 4 can generate up to three frames for every one true frame. Therefore, boosting fps.
It’s not a perfect science. Visual artifacts may still be present, which could make the image blurrier than it should look. That’s one of the few reasons why the technology is currently criticized. But there’s no denying its usefulness.
Despite that, the RTX 5060 GPU is still stuck with 8GB of VRAM, which is unchanged from the previous generation. That’s unfortunate because there are a few games that can be super taxing on the GPU and cannot withstand only 8GB of VRAM being used. So even if you have killer performance, it won’t matter if you don’t have the memory for it.
Acer’s new Nitro-series leading the way
Acer debuted its new Nitro-series today. The Nitro 16 AI and Nitro 16S AI are slated to launch in July in EMEA starting at EUR 1,399. Pricing and availability are still up in the air in the U.S., but the Nitro 16 AI should arrive sometime in Q3.
Meanwhile, the Nitro V 16S AI and Nitro 18 AI will both launch in August in EMEA, starting at EUR 899 and EUR 1,499, respectively. Again, U.S. pricing and availability haven’t been disclosed.
These laptops weren’t listed in Nvidia’s blog, but we did get to see the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S, Dell Alienware 16 Area-51, Gigabyte Aero X16, HP Omen 16, Lenovo Legion 5i Pro, MSI Venture Pro 16 AI, Razer Blade 16, and of course, my favorite, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14.
The Alienware 16 and Razer Blade 16 are weird pulls for the RTX 5060 because those laptops are typically so damn expensive, but we’ll see how it plays out.
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