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Title: Nvidia's RTX 5060 Review Debacle Should Be a Wake-Up Call

Link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/05/22/2025...

Nvidia is facing backlash for allegedly manipulating the review process of
its GeForce RTX 5060 GPU by withholding drivers, selectively granting early
access to favorable reviewers, and pressuring media to present the card in a
positive light. As The Verge's Sean Hollister writes, the debacle "should be
a wake-up call for gamers and reviewers." Here's an excerpt from the report:
Nvidia has gone too far. This week, the company reportedly attempted to
delay, derail, and manipulate reviews of its $299 GeForce RTX 5060 graphics
card, which would normally be its bestselling GPU of the generation. Nvidia
has repeatedly and publicly said the budget 60-series cards are its most
popular, and this year it reportedly tried to ensure it by withholding access
and pressuring reviewers to paint them in the best light possible. Nvidia
might have wanted to prevent a repeat of 2022, when it launched this card's
predecessor. Those reviews were harsh. The 4060 was called a "slap in the
face to gamers" and a "wet fart of a GPU." I had guessed the 5060 was headed
for the same fate after seeing how reviewers handled the 5080, which
similarly showcased how little Nvidia's hardware has improved year over year
and relies on software to make up the gaps. But Nvidia had other plans. Here
are the tactics that Nvidia reportedly just used to throw us off the 5060's
true scent, as individually described by GamersNexus, VideoCardz, Hardware
Unboxed, GameStar.de, Digital Foundry, and more: - Nvidia decided to launch
its RTX 5060 on May 19th, when most reviewers would be at Computex in Taipei,
Taiwan, rather than at their test beds at home. - Even if reviewers already
had a GPU in hand before then, Nvidia cut off most reviewers' ability to test
the RTX 5060 before May 19th by refusing to provide drivers until the card
went on sale. (Gaming GPUs don't really work without them.) - And yet Nvidia
allowed specific, cherry-picked reviewers to have early drivers anyhow if
they agreed to a borderline unethical deal: they could only test five
specific games, at 1080p resolution, with fixed graphics settings, against
two weaker GPUs (the 3060 and 2060 Super) where the new card would be sure to
win. - In some cases, Nvidia threatened to withhold future access unless
reviewers published apples-to-oranges benchmark charts showing how the RTX
5060's "fake frames" MFG tech can produce more frames than earlier GPUs
without it. Some reviewers apparently took Nvidia up on that proposition,
leading to day-one "previews" where the charts looked positively stacked in
the 5060's favor [...]. But the reality, according to reviews that have since
hit the web, is that the RTX 5060 often fails to beat a four-year-old RTX
3060 Ti, frequently fails to beat a four-year-old 3070, and can sometimes get
upstaged by Intel's cheaper $250 B580. And yet, the 5060's lackluster
improvements are overshadowed by a juicier story: inexplicably, Nvidia
decided to threaten GamersNexus' future access over its GPU coverage. Yes,
the same GamersNexus that's developed a staunch reputation for defending
consumers from predatory behavior, and just last month published a report on
"GPU shrinkflation" that accused Nvidia of misleading marketing. Bad move!
[...] Nvidia is within its rights to withhold access, of course. Nvidia
doesn't have to send out graphics cards or grant interviews. It'll only do it
if it's good for business. But the unspoken covenant of product reviews is
that the press, as a whole, gets a chance to warn the public if a movie,
video game, or GPU is not worth their money. It works both ways: the media
also gets the chance to warn that a product is so good you might want to line
up in advance. That unspoken rule is what Nvidia is trampling here.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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