The Hardware Unboxed Controversy

The team at Hardware Unboxed recently expressed their discontent with the handling of the GeForce RTX 5060 (non-Ti) review conditions. In a humorous jab at NVIDIA's decision-making process, the Australian media outlet mocked the company's approach to the new product launch. They highlighted the delayed release of the RTX 5060 and the lack of evaluation samples for the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB, which led to concerns among reviewers.

Tim Schiesser from Hardware Unboxed raised the issue of not receiving the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB samples, forcing reviewers to purchase the cheaper variants themselves. This included prominent reviewers like W1zzard from TechPowerUp. The team at Hardware Unboxed also criticized the compromises made in the custom Gainward effort for the RTX 5060.

Following their initial comments, Hardware Unboxed took a more measured tone in expressing their disapproval of the "controlled conditions" set by NVIDIA. They pointed out that the company was trying to conceal the RTX 5060 by releasing it during Computex when most tech media would be occupied. Reviewers were also blocked from accessing the driver early, hindering their ability to provide timely reviews.

Other critics, including VideoCardz and igor'sLAB, shared similar concerns about the rushed development of the GeForce RTX 5060 series. The repeated rollout of 8 GB and 16 GB VRAM configurations, upgraded to GDDR7 standards, was seen as uninspiring. igor'sLAB specifically mentioned the challenges of testing a new GPU without access to a final driver, highlighting the limitations of evaluating performance without official software.

Overall, the controversy surrounding the GeForce RTX 5060 launch has raised questions about transparency and fairness in the tech industry, with reviewers and critics calling for more open communication and access to evaluation samples.