RTX 2060 Can't Handle DLSS 5: FPS Crashes to 13 in Cyberpunk 2077

Remember when the RTX 2060 was the go-to card for budget-conscious gamers? Well, seven years later, it's meeting its match against DLSS 5. A fresh round of experimental testing shows the aging GPU absolutely buckling under the weight of the new upscaling tech.

The test rig paired an EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 6GB GDDR6 Black SC with an Intel Core i7-13700, an ASUS ROG Strix B760-A motherboard, 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory, and Windows 11 Pro, all powered by a 1000W ASUS ROG STRIX Gold PSU. In Cyberpunk 2077, the scene ran at a steady 85 FPS with DLSS off, frame times at 11.8ms, GPU utilization at 100%, and temps around 72°C.

Flip on the experimental DLSS 5, and everything falls apart. The frame rate crashes to just 13 FPS—a drop of more than six times. Frame generation time balloons to 78ms. GPU utilization stays roughly the same, and power draw sits around 172.7W. Basically, the card is working just as hard but delivering a fraction of the performance.

The culprit? The RTX 2060's first-gen Tensor Cores from the Turing architecture and its mere 6GB of VRAM. DLSS 5 uses a far more complex neural network reconstruction model that can sharpen facial textures and boost detail, but it demands a ton of extra compute. On older entry-level cards, that's a recipe for unplayable frame rates unless you drop the base render resolution or upgrade to beefier hardware.

One important caveat: this test is based on an experimental DLSS 5 build, so it doesn't necessarily reflect how the final version will perform. Still, it's a clear sign that the RTX 2060's days of effortlessly running cutting-edge upscaling might be numbered.

What do you think—is it time to retire the RTX 2060, or are you still squeezing frames out of yours? Let us know in the comments.