ZOTAC GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Twin Edge Review: The smart mid-range pick of 2025?

NVIDIA’s gradual rollout of the RTX 50-series graphics cards continues with the arrival of the RTX 5060 Ti. Positioned just below the RTX 5070, it becomes the fifth GPU in the lineup and is available in two memory configurations: 16GB and 8GB.

On paper, the 16GB variant is aimed at gamers who want extra headroom for modern, VRAM-hungry titles without stepping up to higher-end cards. In fact, 16GB is the amount of GPU memory you should be targeting if you’re buying a new GPU in 2025. But does this card offer enough value to justify its Rs 48,000 price tag, and how does it compare to its predecessor, the RTX 4060 Ti?

In this review, we put the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB through its paces using ZOTAC’s GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Twin Edge model to see the kind of performance and value it actually delivers.

Design

ZOTAC has been a popular brand among PC gamers, especially in India and other parts of Southeast Asia, likely due to its policy of offering a five-year extended warranty. It has also consistently offered GPUs at reasonable prices. The company’s budget offerings haven’t always been the most aesthetically pleasing, but that seems to change with the RTX 50-series.

The RTX 5060 Ti Twin Edge model continues to be minimal, so there’s no flashy LEDs or unique gamer-oriented design. However it looks a bit more polished with angular lines all around the two cooling fans. Even the metal backplate looks more modern with open gaps meant for the air flow-through design.

It is also one of the most compact RTX 5060 Ti models on the market, with a dual-slot design and a length of 220mm. This makes it quite suitable for compact builds, or even a media-center PC for your large-screen TV.

Since the 5060 Ti is a power-efficient GPU, most models come with the tried-and-tested 8-pin PCIe power connector. That’s actually reassuring, as the 16-pin 12VHPWR/12V-2×6 connector remains a concern, although it’s currently limited to high-end graphics cards. As for the video-out ports, it’s a pretty standard situation with three DisplayPort 2.1b and a single HDMI 2.1b port. 

Specifications

Compared to its predecessor, the RTX 5060 Ti brings some improvements despite both cards targeting the same mid-range segment. The older 4060 Ti came with 4,352 CUDA cores and a boost clock of up to 2.54GHz, which is slightly lower than the 5060 Ti’s 4,608 cores and 2.57GHz boost. While both GPUs use a 128-bit memory bus and offer 16GB VRAM, the RTX 4060 Ti relies on GDDR6 memory with a bandwidth of 288GB/s, on the other hand, the 5060 Ti’s use of newer GDDR7 modules means a wider bandwidth of 448GB/s.

	RTX 5060 Ti	RTX 4060 Ti
CUDA Cores	4608	4352
RT Cores	36, 4th generation	34, 3rd generation
Tensor Cores	144, 5th generation	136, 4th generation
Boost clock	Up to 2.572GHz	Up to 2.535GHz
Memory size	8GB/16GB GDDR7	8GB/16GB GDDR6
Memory bus	128-bit	128-bit
Memory bandwidth	448GB/s	288GB/s
TGP	180W	165W
Starting price	Rs. 42,000	Rs. 41,000

In terms of power, the RTX 4060 Ti 16GB had a TGP of 165W, whereas the 5060 Ti bumps that up to 180W. This increased power, paired with Blackwell’s architectural enhancements and faster memory, should give the RTX 5060 Ti a slight edge. While the overall improvement in terms of specifications isn’t massive, it should be enough to improve frame consistency and future-proofing, especially at higher resolutions or with demanding textures.

Test bench explained

As with the RTX 5070 Ti that we reviewed, we used fairly premium components with the GPU to get the best performance.

Intel Core i7-13700K

Part of Intel’s 13th-gen Raptor Lake lineup, the Core i7-13700K features a total of 16-cores (8P + 8E) and 24-threads. This processor can clock up to 5.4GHz and supports DDR4/DDR5 memory, when paired with the right motherboard. Additionally, the CPU has been used with a special bracket to ensure proper contact with the cooler.

G.Skill Trident Z5 DDR5

For memory we have gone with a dual-channel DDR5 kit clocked at 6000 MT/s from G.Skill. It is compatible with Intel XMP 3.0 for quick tuning and stable operation and it also comes with some RGB flair.

GIGABYTE Z790M Aorus Elite AX

The GIGABYTE Z790M Aorus Elite AX is micro-ATX board supporting 12th/13th/14th Gen Intel CPUs and DDR5 memory. It includes a PCIe 5.0 GPU slot, Wi-Fi 6E, and 2.5Gb LAN. It also comes with a reinforced VRM section and proper heatsinks for stability.

Lian Li Galahad II Trinity 240

This 240mm AIO liquid cooler offers excellent performance capable of matching some 360mm units. It comes with a larger copper CPU contact plate compared to previous-generation coolers from Lian Li. It also comes with sleeved tubing with increased width wherein the inner diameter of the water tubes is now 7mm compared to 5.8mm from last-gen. The cooler also offers interchangeable pump covers and ARGB support, along with two 120mm ARGB fans.

Seagate FireCuda 530

To get the best read and write speeds, we went for the Seagate FireCuda 530, which is a high-speed NVMe SSD with read speeds up to 7,300 MB/s. The SSD uses a Phison E18 controller and TLC NAND and was primarily used to boot Windows, while games were installed on a secondary 2TB PCIe Gen 3 SSD from Kingston.

ASUS ROG Strix 850W (80+ Gold)

A 850W fully modular PSU from ASUS, which comes with 80 Plus Gold certification, powers it all. The PSU offers excellent power efficiency, and while it does not support PCIe 5.0 with the 12VHPWR connector, there are plenty of standard PCIe power connectors to power the high-performance GPUs.

Lian Li Lancool 207

An excellent mid-tower ATX case with mesh front and top panels, the Lancool 207 offers some of the best airflow performance for its asking price. The case supports 360mm radiators and comes pre-installed with dual-140mm ARGB fans on the front and two 120mm fans at the bottom for extra airflow for the GPU. 

Performance

A clear pattern appears to emerge with NVIDIA’s RTX 50-series graphics cards. Most models in the lineup deliver modest, incremental improvements over their predecessors. While these gains are welcome, especially in terms of power efficiency and support for newer technologies like DLSS 4, they fall short of the transformative leap that NVIDIA’s marketing might suggest.

Much of the performance uplift touted in promotional material is tied to features like Multi-Frame Generation through DLSS 4, rather than raw hardware improvements. This creates a gap between user expectations and real-world performance, particularly for gamers who prioritize native rendering capabilities over AI-driven enhancements.

In terms of synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 5060 Ti is more or less a decent GPU suited for both gaming and compute-intensive tasks. In compute benchmarks like Geekbench OpenCL, the card scores 117,174 and 113,575 in Vulkan, indicating respectable performance in workloads like image processing, video editing, and even some machine learning workloads.

The GPU holds up well under both DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 scenarios. It achieves a Time Spy score of 15,869 and a Time Spy Extreme score of 7,463, showcasing its ability to handle modern titles at high settings in 1440p, and even 4K in some cases with optimized settings. It is a similar story in legacy and DirectX 11 workloads. In Fire Strike the GPU scores 31,778 points, Fire Strike Extreme at 7,105, and Fire Strike Ultra at 8,463.

Moving onto gaming benchmarks, the RTX 5060 Ti delivers great performance across a range of modern and demanding titles, especially at 1080p and 1440p resolutions, while remaining just about capable at 4K in select games.

At 1080p, the card provides high frame rates, making it a recommended choice for high-refresh-rate gaming. Titles like Horizon Zero Dawn (161 FPS), Forza Horizon 5 (146 FPS), and God of War (148 FPS) all run exceptionally well, showcasing the card’s efficiency in handling graphically rich games. Even demanding titles such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Alan Wake 2 maintain playable performance at 85 FPS and 60 FPS respectively, showing that the RTX 5060 Ti can manage even the most challenging AAA titles at full HD.

At 1440p, the performance remains strong, with Forza Horizon 5 achieving 122 FPS, Horizon Zero Dawn at 127 FPS, and God of War still holding an impressive 94 FPS. More demanding games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Alan Wake 2 drop to 77 FPS and 42 FPS respectively, but these are still within a playable range, particularly if you tweak some settings and enable DLSS.

At 2160p (4K), the GPU starts to show its limits in the most demanding games. While Forza Horizon 5 remains very playable at 80 FPS and Horizon Zero Dawn at 69 FPS, others like Alan Wake 2 (21 FPS) and Cyberpunk 2077 (33 FPS) dip below ideal thresholds for smooth gameplay.

Adding DLSS to the mix the RTX 5060 Ti sees a meaningful uplift in performance, especially in more demanding titles. While the improvements are noticeable, they don’t drastically elevate the card beyond what older GPUs like the RTX 30 or 40 series could achieve with similar upscaling support.

At 1080p, performance was already strong, but DLSS pushes games even further. Cyberpunk 2077 climbs from 85 to 139 FPS, and Alan Wake 2 from 60 to 80 FPS, helping smooth out gameplay in heavier titles. Less demanding games like Forza Horizon 5 and Horizon Zero Dawn hit 157 FPS and 193 FPS, respectively, showcasing excellent high-refresh potential.

At 1440p, the benefits of DLSS are more impactful. Cyberpunk 2077 jumps to 114 FPS, Alan Wake 2 to 64 FPS, and God of War to 119 FPS, making high-quality settings much more playable across the board.

In 4K gaming, DLSS helps keep performance viable in several titles. Cyberpunk 2077 improves to 57 FPS, while Forza Horizon 5 and Horizon Zero Dawn reach 98 FPS and 97 FPS, respectively. However, Alan Wake 2 still lags behind at 34 FPS, showing that even with DLSS, the 5060 Ti isn’t a true 4K card for the most demanding games.

Taking a step further with DLSS 4 Multi-Frame Generation, which is an exclusive RTX 50-series feature, significantly enhances the perceived performance of the RTX 5060 Ti. With MFG 4x enabled, Cyberpunk 2077 reaches up to 265 FPS at 1440p and 142 FPS at 4K, while Alan Wake 2 hits 172 FPS at 1440p and 102 FPS at 4K. These numbers look quite impressive for a 60-class GPU, but in essence, MFG is mostly creating fake frames as they are AI-generated. Depending on the game you play and the environment within, you may deal with artifacting, ghosting, and jagged edges around certain objects. On top of that, the list of games supporting the latest version of the DLSS 4 with MFG is quite limited.

Power efficiency is key with the RTX 5060 Ti. NVIDIA officially lists the GPU with a TGP (Total Graphics Power) at 180W. This means you shouldn’t necessarily need a power supply unit over 600W. The ZOTAC unit we tested peaked at 181W during peak gaming loads and around 30W when idling. That’s pretty impressive for the kind of performance you get from the card.

Lower power consumption also means lower GPU temperatures. We recorded a maximum of 67°C while playing games around 35°C during basic office work with some video streaming. Of course, the values may vary depending on the ambient room temperatures and the kind of airflow your PC cabinet offers, especially with the summer season setting in.

Verdict

The RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, priced at Rs 48,000 in India, offers a reasonable value proposition given its VRAM capacity, improved memory bandwidth (thanks to GDDR7), and solid 1440p performance. Importantly, some board partners are actually sticking to this pricing, at least for some models, which is a welcome surprise in a market where GPUs often launch well above MSRP.

The 8GB version, at Rs 42,000, saves you Rs 6,000, but that saving is probably going to come at a real cost in terms of longevity and compatibility with modern titles. As mentioned at the start of this review, 8GB cards are already struggling to keep up, especially if you are someone who loves playing the newest games. This trend is only expected to grow as newer games push the limits further.

The performance uplift over the RTX 4060 Ti 16GB is modest, around 10–15% in most titles. The GPU’s compute capabilities, rather than memory bandwidth, remain the limiting factor. Still, the generational improvements and slightly lower pricing compared to the launch prices of the 4060 Ti 16GB make the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB a smart mid-range pick. As always, final value depends on real-time availability and regional fluctuations, but for now, the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB looks like a safe, balanced option for most gamers at its current price.

Editor’s rating: 7.5 / 10

Pros:

• MSRP models offer good value
• 16GB VRAM with GDDR7 bandwidth
• Good 1440p performance
• Power efficient

Cons:

• Performance uplift could be better
• Limited benefits of DLSS 4 with MFG