Perhaps the start of a real scandal in graphics card land?
For as long as the world has existed - admittedly, we're exaggerating a little here, but let's just say it's been a very long time - independent journalists have been able to offer tests of new products in one of two ways: either they are in contact with the manufacturer of the product in question, who provides them with a bit of information in advance of the release, or they wait, like everyone else, for the product to be commercially available, in order to track it down (purchase or loan) and test it. The first case is obviously the most interesting, as it normally enables us to offer testing right at the time of the product's release in stores.
The same applies to processors, monitors, keyboards, mice or, in our case, graphics cards! Whether we're talking about AMD, Intel or NVIDIA, the main players in this market generally send their cards to journalists 15 days before release, and provide them with the graphics drivers they need to get the card up and running right away. Well, that's just the theory, and it just so happens that there's bad blood between NVIDIA and some of the best-known journalists on the hardware planet. Igor Wallossek was the first to make eyes at NVIDIA, explaining on his website that he had indeed received the GeForce RTX 5060 graphics card, scheduled for release on May 19... except that between Computex, which is taking place at that time, and the non-receipt of the new GeForce drivers, he won't be able to offer the test for May 19.
In the wake of this little rant, Steven Walton of Hardware Unboxed and Andreas Schilling of Hardwareluxx agreed with Igor Wallossek. Nor do the two journalists seem to believe that it will be possible for them to publish the tests for the release of the graphics cards, even if it has to be admitted that NVIDIA still has some time left to send out the graphics drivers. The question that now arises is whether NVIDIA is really behind schedule or whether it has consciously decided not to deliver the graphics drivers on time... perhaps to delay the publication of tests that would not be favourable to the latest addition to the GeForce RTX 50 series "Blackwell" range. A word of advice: if you're tempted by this card, which should be priced at around 300/350 euros, wait a few days/weeks to see what it's got up its sleeve.
