Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 review: passable GPU, shame about the drivers

Could have been a crowd pleaser

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Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 5060 Solo specs: CUDA Cores: 3840 Base Clock Speed: 2.28GHz Boost Clock Speed: 2.49GHz VRAM: 8GB GDDR7 Power: 145W Recommended System Power: 550W Price: From £270 / $299

I’d so desperately like to do a graphics card review without the fug of a wider controversy (or cacked-up market conditions ), but the RTX 50 series hasn’t been particularly cooperative in that regard, so why should the RTX 5060 be any different? This time, the sadness cloud comes wafting from Nvidia themselves, amid accusations of engineering dodgy RTX 5060 previews and attempting to trade access for greater coverage of its Multi Frame Generation (MFG) capability.

Such scheming, if true and intentional, would suggest a remarkable lack of faith in the RTX 5060’s core, un-frame-genned performance. Yet now that I’ve spent some quality time with the card myself – independent of any tit-for-tat preview shenanigans, obviously – it really isn’t that bad, on pure hardware terms. It’s not equipped for cut-price 1440p but as an affordable 1080p pusher, it’s fine. Adequate. Reasonable. Hardly some catastrophe that needs a thunder-running PR offensive to cover up with MFG figures.

The drivers, though? Now there’s a disaster. And not because of the convention-breaking lack of early review software for press hacks – I got access to the RTX 5060’s Game Reader Driver 576.52 update at the same time everyone else did, when both it and the GPU released on May 19th. The real problem is that it’s the latest in a series of GeForce driver updates that have invited all manner of unforced errors upon games old and new, including several of my benchmarking regulars.

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Some, like Horizon Forbidden West and Dragon Age: The Veilguard , began suffering sustained framerate drops that they’ve never exhibited before. Meanwhile, Metro Exodus would crash on startup, and F1 24 would perform worse with Nvidia’s precious DLSS frame generation than without. Even if these aren’t the fault of the RTX 5060 hardware, these driver problems are just yet more bad vibes around a graphics card that should be – like the RTX 3060 and, after a while, the RTX 4060 before it – a people’s champion.

This is, after all, the more affordable RTX 50 GPU of the bunch, and thus the least taxing entry point (literally, if you’re over the pond in Tariffs Land) into full-spectrum DLSS 4 support. In fact the very model you see here, the nicely compact Zotac GeForce RTX 5060 Solo, is one of several that are actually selling at RRP/MSRP, or £270 / $299 . That’s a snip, by 2025 standards, especially when most RTX 5060 Ti models have already gained a few quid. If nothing else, then it’s at least worth looking for some upsides.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 review: 1440p benchmarks

Granted, 1440p maybe isn’t the best place to start the search. After various restarts and reloads, I did eventually get some usable data from the 576.52 drivers, and at native resolution the RTX 5060 does make for visibly smoother framerates than the RTX 4060 in most games – Metro Exodus and Total War: Warhammer III especially. But then it only produced a single extra frame in Forbidden West, forcing it to drop behind the older and cheaper Intel Arc B580 . That’s an underdog GPU that the RTX 5060 could also only hold to a draw in both Cyberpunk 2077 and F1 24.

Click to embiggen! |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun

The RPS test PC: CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D RAM: 32GB Trident Z5 Neo RGB DDR5 Motherboard: MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi PSU: NZXT C1000 Gold

Points for coming close to the Radeon RX 7700 XT , a potential challenger from the second-hand market, but if I was speccing a 1440p rig on a budget, I’d still save up for an RTX 5060 Ti 16GB. In part because the VRAM difference does become evident at this kind of rez, particularly in Forbidden West, which had a certain jittery quality that I don’t think is entirely explained by the lower frame output alone. Playable evidence suggests 8GB is okay for most 1080p games, despite recent grumbles from tech enthusiasts, but an extra 8GB on top of that likely will help cope with the rigours of Quad HD.

You’ll also need to invest more if you want to partake in path tracing . Even with Quality DLSS upscaling, neither of my path traced test games could reach 30fps on the RTX 5060, again making an argument for the RTX 5060 Ti. MFG could get the numbers up, but only Cyberpunk 2077 at 2x felt remotely playable: at 4x, input lag went off the charts, and Alan Wake II had a similarly sludgy feeling (along with noticeable blurring on camera movements).

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DLSS 4 is still the best overall upscaler/frame gen package in the biz, but as I seem to say every time it comes up, it just doesn’t work as a means of smoothening out low performance. It’s great at taking quite-fast games and making them look even slicker, but that really needs a foundation of ordinarily rendered frames for DLSS to generate new ones from; without that, it’s the gaming hardware equivalent of sitting in a rusty wheelbarrow with a Ferrari livery. You’ll pick up some good speeds on the right hill, but won’t enjoy the sensation.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 review: 1080p benchmarks

Life is much better at 1080p. The B580 still beats the RTX 5060 in Horizon, but only by a few frames, and it’s practically on par with the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB in Metro and Cyberpunk. Not far behind in Warhammer III or Assassin’s Creed Mirage, either.

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Vitally, there’s also – more often than not – a decent improvement on the RTX 4060, especially in Metro and Cyberpunk. This is sustained with the application of regular ray tracing, too. Adding Ultra-quality RT effects to Metro only brought the RTX 5060 down to 77fps, while the RTX 4060 managed 62fps.

Will it consistently fill out a 165Hz monitor on max quality? No, but then for less than £300 it doesn’t need to. It’s fine. Adequate. Reasonable, I remember someone saying. VRAM-wise, you should probably think about whether you might like to upgrade to 1440p within this card’s shelf life, but for the time being it does look like you can get away with 8GB at 1080p. I didn’t see much more of that jittering in Forbidden West, for one thing, and a side-jaunt into Doom: The Dark Ages – with its always-on ray tracing and Ultra Nightmare settings – produced a smooth, stutter-free 73fps, once again besting the RTX 4060 at 60fps.

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Path tracing remains a questionable endeavour, mind. Although the RTX 5060 could crawl to an ostensibly playable 30fps-plus in both games at this lower rez, this wasn’t enough to avoid an offputting deluge of input lag once MFG tried to make up the difference. Alan Wake 2 wasn’t as blurry as at 1440p, but still, it felt sharper to just have Ultra-quality ray tracing at 44fps instead.

In fairness, I did find a use case for MFG in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. With Ultra settings, DLSS on Quality and all ray tracing effects enabled, Nvidia’s tech turned 53fps into 88fps on 2x and 150fps with a 4x override. Crucially, neither of the heightened results came with excessive latency, thanks largely to the fact that the RTX 5060 was already running the game acceptably without them.

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It’s just unfortunate that to get these numbers, I had to re-run the test every time one of those newfound framerate collapses took place, on top of having to restart the game after every settings change because otherwise they’d kill performance for no apparent reason. That’s not because of a recent bad patch on Bioware’s part, and it’s certainly not a problem with how the RTX 5060 itself is engineered, with Zotac’s single fan keeping peak GPU temps to a sensible 68°c. Nope, this was the fault of my lifelong enemy for the past two days: those 576.52 drivers.

A possibility exists that they’ll be fixed, and might not even be replaced by something worse, but at this point, there have been enough faulty Game Ready drivers – whose faults are usually specific to the RTX 50 series – that it’s become a problem for the entire GPU family. Sadly, that has to include the RTX 5060. By Nvidia’s own hand, this puts it in the unenviable position of being the most powerful and flexible 1080p graphics card in its price range yet also one that makes the words “Yes, you should buy this” disproportionately difficult to say out loud. Why would, or should, someone invest in a component when its requisite drivers have such a high chance of breaking their games?

This review is based on a retail unit provided by the manufacturer.

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All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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