01
Preface
The GeForce RTX 2060 is a mid-range graphics card released by NVIDIA in 2019. Due to its excellent price-to-performance ratio, it has remained very popular on the second-hand market over the years.
However, six years have passed. How does the GeForce RTX 2060 perform today? Can it still run mainstream games smoothly? If upgraded to the GeForce RTX 5060, how much of a performance boost can be expected? This article will reveal the answers through game testing.
02
Specifications Comparison
The GeForce RTX 2060 was released on January 7, 2019. It uses the TU106 GPU, built on TSMC’s 12nm process. It features 1,920 CUDA cores, 120 texture units, 48 raster units, 30 ray tracing cores, 30 streaming multiprocessors, 240 tensor cores, and 3MB of L2 cache.
Its base clock is 1,365 MHz, and the boost clock goes up to 1,680 MHz. It comes with 6GB of GDDR6 memory running at 14Gbps, with a 192-bit memory bus and a bandwidth of 336 GB/s. The FP32 performance is 6.451 TFLOPS, power consumption is 160W, and the official suggested retail price was $349.
The GeForce RTX 5060 was released on May 19, 2025. It uses the GB206 GPU based on the Blackwell architecture and TSMC’s 4nm process. It features 3,840 CUDA cores, 120 texture units, 48 raster units, 30 streaming multiprocessors, 120 tensor cores, 30 ray tracing cores, and 32MB of L2 cache.
Its base clock is 2,280 MHz, and the boost clock reaches 2,497 MHz. It is equipped with 8GB of GDDR7 memory running at 28Gbps, with a 128-bit memory bus and a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. The FP32 performance is 19.18 TFLOPS, power consumption is 145W, and the suggested retail price is $299.
03
Test Platform Configuration
The main specifications are as follows:
The processor is a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, the motherboard is an MSI MPG X670E CARBON, the memory is 32GB DDR5 at 6000 MHz, the graphics cards used are the GeForce RTX 2060 and GeForce RTX 5060, the storage consists of two Samsung 970 EVO 1TB drives, and the operating system is Windows 11.
04
Game Testing (RTX 2060 vs 5060)
Seven games were tested, all at 1080P resolution. In the comparison images, the left side represents the GeForce RTX 2060 platform, and the right side represents the GeForce RTX 5060 platform.
Game 1: God of War
- RTX 2060: Avg FPS 36, Min FPS 34, Frame Time 27.2ms, CPU Usage 22%, CPU Power 89W, CPU Temp 65°C, RAM 12.6GB, GPU Usage 99%, VRAM 5.9GB, GPU Power 157W, GPU Temp 70°C
- RTX 5060: Avg FPS 103, Min FPS 99, Frame Time 9.3ms, CPU Usage 46%, CPU Power 59W, CPU Temp 57°C, RAM 12.8GB, GPU Usage 100%, VRAM 6.1GB, GPU Power 139W, GPU Temp 54°C
Performance difference: +67 FPS (+~2.9×), -18ms frame time, lower power and temperature across the board.
Game 2: Cyberpunk 2077
- RTX 2060: Avg FPS 32, Min FPS 20, Frame Time 27.6ms, CPU Usage 34%, CPU Power 62W, CPU Temp 55°C, RAM 14.8GB, GPU Usage 98%, VRAM 5.7GB, GPU Power 160W, GPU Temp 67°C
- RTX 5060: Avg FPS 76, Min FPS 52, Frame Time 12.9ms, CPU Usage 46%, CPU Power 77W, CPU Temp 59°C, RAM 11.7GB, GPU Usage 94%, VRAM 7.8GB, GPU Power 129W, GPU Temp 54°C
Performance difference: +44 FPS (+~2.4×), -14ms frame time, significantly less VRAM bottleneck on 5060.
Game 3: Red Dead Redemption 2
- RTX 2060: Avg FPS 55, Min FPS 50, Frame Time 18.3ms, CPU Usage 13%, CPU Power 46W, CPU Temp 48°C, RAM 13.0GB, GPU Usage 96%, VRAM 4.5GB, GPU Power 170W, GPU Temp 59°C
- RTX 5060: Avg FPS 94, Min FPS 75, Frame Time 10.7ms, CPU Usage 20%, CPU Power 59W, CPU Temp 54°C, RAM 12.5GB, GPU Usage 95%, VRAM 4.7GB, GPU Power 138W, GPU Temp 53°C
Performance difference: +39 FPS (+~1.7×), -8ms frame time, lower power and temperature.
Game 4: Ghostwire: Tokyo
- RTX 2060: Avg FPS 48, Min FPS 43, Frame Time 21.0ms, CPU Usage 12%, CPU Power 61W, CPU Temp 55°C, RAM 12.7GB, GPU Usage 99%, VRAM 5.1GB, GPU Power 164W, GPU Temp 67°C
- RTX 5060: Avg FPS 81, Min FPS 74, Frame Time 11.8ms, CPU Usage 14%, CPU Power 48W, CPU Temp 55°C, RAM 11.2GB, GPU Usage 100%, VRAM 5.1GB, GPU Power 145W, GPU Temp 56°C
Performance difference: +33 FPS (+~1.7×), -9ms frame time, improved thermals and efficiency.
Game 5: Horizon Forbidden West
- RTX 2060: Avg FPS 44, Min FPS 32, Frame Time 22.5ms, CPU Usage 39%, CPU Power 82W, CPU Temp 67°C, RAM 14.8GB, GPU Usage 99%, VRAM 5.5GB, GPU Power 168W, GPU Temp 67°C
- RTX 5060: Avg FPS 88, Min FPS 79, Frame Time 11.5ms, CPU Usage 41%, CPU Power 73W, CPU Temp 63°C, RAM 11.8GB, GPU Usage 99%, VRAM 7.5GB, GPU Power 142W, GPU Temp 54°C
Performance difference: +44 FPS (+~2.0×), -11ms frame time, significantly better frame consistency and thermal efficiency.
Game 6: Forza Horizon 5
- RTX 2060: Avg FPS 44, Min FPS 40, Frame Time 22.3ms, CPU Usage 20%, CPU Power 59W, CPU Temp 51°C, RAM 16.5GB, GPU Usage 98%, VRAM 6.0GB, GPU Power 134W, GPU Temp 64°C
- RTX 5060: Avg FPS 124, Min FPS 109, Frame Time 8.6ms, CPU Usage 29%, CPU Power 54W, CPU Temp 52°C, RAM 12.2GB, GPU Usage 98%, VRAM 8.0GB, GPU Power 128W, GPU Temp 53°C
Performance difference: +89 FPS (+~2.8×), -14ms frame time, VRAM usage maxed on both but better handled by RTX 5060.
Game 7: Black Myth: Wukong
- RTX 2060: Avg FPS 19, Min FPS 16, Frame Time 51.9ms, CPU Usage 6%, CPU Power 41W, CPU Temp 48°C, RAM 13.2GB, GPU Usage 99%, VRAM 5.9GB, GPU Power 167W, GPU Temp 71°C
- RTX 5060: Avg FPS 41, Min FPS 35, Frame Time 23.3ms, CPU Usage 9%, CPU Power 44W, CPU Temp 49°C, RAM 11.9GB, GPU Usage 99%, VRAM 6.0GB, GPU Power 139W, GPU Temp 56°C
Performance difference: +22 FPS (+~2.2×), -28ms frame time, RTX 2060 VRAM bottlenecked.
05
Conclusion
The test results are clear: the GeForce RTX 2060 is now struggling and can only smoothly run a small number of lightweight games. Most games suffer from high latency and noticeable stuttering.
Based on the data above, the overall gaming performance of the GeForce RTX 5060 is approximately 2.2 times that of the GeForce RTX 2060. This is the conclusion of this article, for reference only.
In other words, upgrading from the GeForce RTX 2060 to the GeForce RTX 5060 can result in a performance improvement of about 120%. Moreover, the benefits go beyond just performance—power consumption and temperatures are generally lower on the GeForce RTX 5060, offering a significantly better overall experience.
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