Facepalm: As Computex 2025 is about to unfold in Taipei, a lot of the tech world’s consideration might be understandably drawn to new improvements and massive bulletins on the present. But, amid the thrill, a extra troubling story is enjoying out behind the scenes – one which raises severe issues about transparency, media integrity, and the trustworthiness of GPU launch protection. The problem? Nvidia’s launch technique for the GeForce RTX 5060, and the way the corporate is manipulating public notion by way of tightly managed media “previews.”
{Hardware} Unboxed has discovered loads of success success on YouTube and has turn out to be a trusted voice within the PC {hardware} neighborhood. As you could know, Steve and Tim run HUB independently, and we’re proud to have them proceed collaborating with TechSpot to convey their opinions to our viewers. Steve has been reviewing PC {hardware} for over 20 years right here, and even earlier than that on a private tech weblog earlier than we teamed up.
Most just lately, Steve and Tim have raised alarms about what they view as an unprecedented stage of media management within the lead-up to the RTX 5060’s launch. Not like earlier launches, Nvidia seems to have averted issuing early evaluation drivers to impartial reviewers. We reported about that, as an extension of Nvidia’s questionable launch of a brand new era of GPUs with solely 8GB of VRAM, however issues go a lot deeper than that.
The corporate is favoring a handful of extra “pleasant” shops with early entry, below strict situations. These shops got preview drivers – however solely below pointers that make their merchandise shine past what’s real-world testing would conclude. To quote two examples:
- One of many restrictions shouldn’t be evaluating the brand new RTX 5060 to the RTX 4060. Do not even want to elucidate than one.
- One other restriction or heavy-handed suggestion: run the RTX 5060 with 4x multi-frame era turned on, inflating FPS outcomes, whereas older GPUs that do not help MFG look significantly worse in charts.
The outcome: glowing previews printed simply days earlier than the official launch, creating a primary impression primarily based nearly totally on Nvidia’s advertising and marketing narrative.
These previews should not conventional opinions. They arrive with important constraints, together with necessary testing at 1080p, strict sport lists, and the required use of DLSS with multi-frame era enabled. Extra troubling, comparisons are restricted to older playing cards just like the RTX 3060 and 2060 Tremendous – merchandise that do not help body era.
This permits Nvidia to showcase dramatically inflated efficiency deltas, usually 3 – 4× greater, as a consequence of artificial benefits that do not translate to precise, uncooked efficiency.
What Nvidia’s dream ‘impartial’ tech evaluation seems like: pic.twitter.com/pePA2WEABw
– {Hardware} Unboxed (@HardwareUnboxed) Could 17, 2025
What makes this example significantly egregious is the absence of actual opinions to counterbalance the spin. Not like with the RTX 5070 launch, the place deceptive previews had been shortly adopted by impartial opinions from shops like {Hardware} Unboxed and Players Nexus, the RTX 5060 lacks such steadiness. Nvidia has not launched the mandatory drivers to most impartial reviewers, particularly these attending Computex.
It isn’t the primary time Nvidia has tried to lean on its relationships with media to form early perceptions. From the 8K “meme” advertising and marketing of the RTX 3090 to the fastidiously framed 4K-only benchmarks of the RTX 3080, {Hardware} Unboxed traces a transparent sample: Nvidia is keen to make use of its affect to selectively showcase best-case situations and bury much less flattering realities.
However the RTX 5060 seems to mark a brand new low. That is the primary time Nvidia has actively excluded nearly all impartial opinions and voices from collaborating within the launch narrative of a mass-market GPU.
This technique has troubling implications…
- First, it threatens the belief customers place within the evaluation course of.
- Second, it units a precedent the place solely media keen to toe the company line acquire entry – marginalizing impartial, vital protection in favor of promotional fluff.
- Third, it dangers reshaping search algorithms and public opinion, as glowing previews dominate on-line discourse in the course of the launch window, earlier than skeptical opinions also have a likelihood to seem.
It should be stated that these issues should not born out of private grievance, regardless that there’s some historical past there between {Hardware} Unboxed and Nvidia.
In a non-public assembly in 2019, Nvidia provided {Hardware} Unboxed cash to provide favorable DLSS content material. Steve declined – and a few 12 months later, he was excluded from Nvidia’s evaluation applications.
On the time, Nvidia claimed his opinions “centered an excessive amount of on rasterization as an alternative of ray tracing” – in different phrases, he wasn’t aligning with the corporate’s most popular messaging. After this was made public and the tech neighborhood rallied in help of {Hardware} Unboxed, Nvidia issued an apology simply days later, walked again its calls for for tailor-made testing, and successfully lifted the imposed restrictions.
This is not a conspiracy principle. It is a systemic shift in how media manipulation works in tech. It isn’t at all times about express bribery. Generally, it is about entry, publicity, and a refined however highly effective change of favors that compromises journalistic integrity.
That is additionally taking place at a time when Nvidia is a extra highly effective entity than ever earlier than. Now one of many three largest corporations on the planet, with a market cap of $3.3 trillion, its main income comes from information heart gross sales and AI acceleration – fields the place Nvidia’s GPUs have turn out to be the {hardware} of selection for powering fashions like ChatGPT and just about each main push into generative AI.
Compared, PC gaming represents solely a small fraction of Nvidia’s total enterprise. That is why it is troublesome to reconcile their aggressive media ways with their broader company message. If their {hardware} is actually the perfect, why resort to such heavy-handed methods?
At this scale, the danger of backlash or reputational injury – particularly now that Nvidia is a family title past the PC fanatic house – might outweigh any perceived advertising and marketing beneficial properties.
As for the RTX 5060, the recommendation is easy for all our readers: don’t purchase the RTX 5060 primarily based on present preview protection. Await actual opinions. Make knowledgeable choices primarily based on complete, impartial testing – not on early-access impressions designed to promote a story.
A month in the past, when Nvidia formally launched the 5060 Ti 16GB, 5060 Ti 8GB, and the 5060, they advised us that the $200 RTX 5060 wasn’t geared toward fans who learn opinions at TechSpot or YouTube channels like {Hardware} Unboxed, so launch-day opinions had been much less necessary.
This isn’t solely inaccurate – it is also a weak excuse. Our viewers is not simply rich avid gamers shopping for RTX 5090s. Loads of individuals who try our opinions are mainstream avid gamers buying mid-range graphics playing cards. Absolutely Nvidia did not count on us to just accept this reasoning, particularly when, in the identical briefing, in addition they claimed that “avid gamers love the 60 sequence.” So which is it? Players like it, however fanatic avid gamers do not care about mainstream GPU opinions?The messaging was fully contradictory.
You would possibly make that argument for ultra-budget $150 playing cards – however not for what’s traditionally the most well-liked GPU tier in Nvidia’s lineup every era – simply have a look at the Steam survey and you may simply conclude it is all pointless excuses.
This case is a wake-up name. As tech fans, we depend on trustworthy protection to information our purchases. We should demand transparency and help shops that prioritize fact over advertising and marketing. As a result of if this pattern continues unchecked, the following era of avid gamers may discover themselves drowning in polished PR, with out even realizing they’re being offered a fantasy.
