Test

In classic me fashion, I swanned off for a few days just as another graphics card fracas has spilled out into public view. At the centre this time is the previously unassuming RTX 5060, which you may have noticed is due for launch today yet only has a handful of “hands-on previews” to tell you how big of a graphics it does. Allegedly, that’s because Nvidia have been keeping hold of the drivers needed for full reviews, only providing them at the eleventh hour to press outlets that have previously run these previews. No preview? No review, at least until the drivers release publicly later today, and what’s more, the same reports say that these previews were only offered under strict testing provisos set by Nvidia themselves.

According to VideoCardz and Hardware Unboxed, the mandated test conditions supposedly range from only allowing certain games for benchmarking – judging from the previews currently online, these were Doom: The Dark Ages, Avowed, Cyberpunk 2077, Hogwarts Legacy and Marvel Rivals – to the more egregious demand that RTX 5060 performance figures would focus on DLSS 4’s Multi Frame Generation (MFG). And, in turn, would only be compared to results from older XX60 GPUs that lack DLSS frame gen support entirely.

“We worked with a few chosen media on previews with a pre-release driver,” an Nvidia spokesperson told me this afternoon. No comment on the review driver situation, other than a 5pm BST release time, was given.

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun

RPS was not invited to take part in these previews, and I can’t imagine agreeing to such terms if we were. Although it doesn’t appear that Nvidia required previewers to give positive RTX 5060 takes, with several highlighting the shortcomings of its 8GB VRAM limit, the limited game selection and emphasis on frame-genned performance versus the much older RTX 3060 and RTX 2060 Super are clearly intended to push a particular narrative: one that at best downplays the drawbacks of frame generation and at worst misleads readers with an unhelpfully narrow view of relative performance. GameStar, a German site that took Nvidia up on the offer, said in their preview that the GPU giant even specified the in-game settings that each game should be tested with.

The sense that a big, green thumb is pressing down on the critical scales is deepened by the alleged trading of earlier review drivers for a compliant preview. Even if, by that point, reviewers are free to use their own, independently-set benchmarks, the initial wave of RTX 5060 reviews will come from publications that Nvidia has – accurately or otherwise – deemed more friendly than others. Those who refused the locked-down previews, and have thus demonstrated less of a willingness to go along with the desired messaging, will be forced to wait before sharing impressions.

I can’t claim absolute moral superiority here because again, I wasn’t invited, and thus didn’t have the chance to send a “Thanks but no thanks” email (even I hadn’t simultaneously been too busy recovering from gin-assisted groomsman duty). Still, yeah, not a fan.

I have recently noticed Nvidia PRs becoming unusually pushy about how great it would be to test such and such frame generation in such and such game, but functionally those have only ever been suggestions, and I’ve never faced even a veiled hint at retribution for ignoring them in my reviews. Nonetheless, I now find myself in the bizarre position of having had physical possession of an RTX 5060 for nearly a week (posted by Zotac, with no strings attached other than to please not lose or break it), yet don’t have the software means to test or appraise it on the day of release. Like, man, at least Bethesda didn’t send us copies of Starfield while they were withholding the activation keys.

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More disturbing still is that this isn’t even the only accusation of editorial manhandling to be laid at Nvidia’s feet today. Big-deal tech YooToobers Gamers Nexus claimed in a video (above) that Nvidia have, with varying levels of subtlety, threatened to cut off their interview access to Nvidia engineering staff in response to a perceived lack of focus on DLSS and MFG performance testing in their reviews. Gamers Nexus have, in fact, produced multiple long-form vids on these topics specifically.

It isn’t unheard of for, nor technically outside the rights of, companies to pick and choose who gets primo access for coverage. In tech media especially, there may even be a minor, ethically unbothersome quid-pro-quo involved: attending a virtual briefing, for instance, in exchange for getting onto the review list. But there’s a honking great difference between asking journalists to sit through a thirty-minute slideshow and, essentially, demanding editorial jurisdiction over how their products are evaluated. Nvidia, one of the richest, most powerful firms on Earth, should know better – and should have at least had an idea that being caught fiddling with the independent review process might cause more damage to the RTX 5060 than a few variations of “It’s not much faster than the 4060, is it?”

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A key crypto bill has opened a rift among Senate Democrats as another big test approaches for the viability of legislation to regulate stablecoin issuers. Most expect the bill to clear a significant procedural vote on Monday night, but Democrats are split.

The Senate’s most prominent crypto critic, Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren, is leading a faction trying to dig in their heels on the bill, raising objections that include national security threats, consumer hazards and the corruption of a White House that’s conflicted because of President Donald Trump’s own digital assets business interests.

The other group, including Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, one of the bill’s primary backers, has argued that presidential conflicts are already illegal under the U.S. Constitution, and the bill doesn’t need to have specific constraints added to clarify that point. That side also praises a number of changes to the legislation to improve consumer protections and to partially address worries that large corporations will issue stablecoins — the steady, typically dollar-based tokens that underpin so much of the crypto markets’ transaction activity.

The bill is set for what’s known as a cloture vote on Monday night, which will decide whether it advances into a formal and time-limited period of debate before final consideration. Cloture tends to be the most difficult test for Senate legislation, because it requires 60 votes — much more than a simple majority. A previous version of the bill failed such a vote once before, when Democrats demanded more time to make changes.

The stablecoin bill is one of two highly significant U.S. legislative efforts that will finally establish a set of rules and system of oversight for crypto in the U.S., and many in the industry believe it’ll usher in a flood of interest from investors who’ve waited on the sidelines until the sector is completely regulated. The supporters of the stablecoin legislation have set it up for this vote, suggesting they were able to wrangle enough backers to triumph.

The current Senate bill — known as the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act — is worse than doing nothing, according to the arguments from the camp led by Warren, who is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee. “A strong bill would ensure that consumers enjoy the same consumer protections when using stablecoins as they do when using other payment systems, close loopholes that enable the illicit use of stablecoins by cartels, terrorists, and criminals, and reduce the risk that stablecoins take down our financial system,” according to a sheet issued on Monday by the committee’s Democratic staff. “The GENIUS Act does not meet those minimum standards.”

Gillibrand, however, said the bill has been written in a “truly bipartisan effort.”

“Stablecoins are already playing an important role in the global economy, and it is essential that the U.S. enact legislation that protects consumers, while also enabling responsible innovations,” the New York Democrat said in a statement last week.

Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, also explained his view in choosing to support the bill. “It sets high standards for issuers, limits big tech overreach and creates a safer, more transparent framework for digital assets,” he said in a statement. “It’s not perfect, but it’s far better than the status quo.”

Read More: U.S. Stablecoin Bill Could Clear Senate Next Week, Proponents Say

In the hours before the planned Monday vote, a coalition of 46 consumer, labor and advocacy groups continued objecting to the legislation, which has been overhauled repeatedly.

“A vote for this legislation would enable and condone cryptobusiness activities by the Trump administration, organization, and family that raise unprecedented concerns about presidential conflicts of interest, corruption, and the abuse of public office for private gain,” they wrote in a letter to the Senate leadership.

The crypto industry itself has come together to support the legislation, with various lobbyist groups publishing statements arguing lawmakers should advance the legislation. Stand With Crypto, a Coinbase-backed group focused on getting voters to support crypto issues, warned lawmakers in a statement Monday that their votes would go into its sometimes arbitrary assignment of grades for politicians’ crypto sentiment.

While the stablecoin bill has drawn some political heat, it’s widely expected to be the easier of the two crypto efforts on Capitol Hill. The legislation to establish U.S. market rules for crypto is much more complex. For both bills, the House of Representatives is also working on parallel efforts.

If the bill clears cloture, it could speed toward Senate passage in a matter of days. Jaret Seiberg, a policy analyst with TD Cowen, expects it to clear the Senate this week

“That means it could become law by summer as we see the House moving quickly on the bill,” he wrote in a note to clients.

Warren wrote her own letter on Monday to the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Department of Justice, pressing for answers about what’s being done about North Korean hackers who stole more than a billion dollars in assets from exchange Bybit earlier this year.

“These stolen assets have helped keep the regime afloat and supported continued investments in its nuclear and conventional weapons programs,” Warren and Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, wrote to the Treasury secretary and attorney general. “Reports suggest there are potentially thousands of North Korean-affiliated crypto hackers around the globe.”

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Only press who previewed the RTX 5060 under Nvidia’s test conditions are getting review drivers, reports claim

Senate Dems Gear Up Resistance as Stablecoin Bill Meets Test Most Think Will Succeed