NVIDIA graphics driver 576.02 apparently does more than just fix bugs and other critical issues users have been facing with RTX GPUs.
GeForce RTX 5080 Gains a Good Bump in Performance; Sees Noticeable Uplifts in Both Synthetic and Gaming Tests
NVIDIA recently released its latest graphics driver, 576.02, which aimed to fix the widespread bricking of RTX GPUs and other critical problems. Since the release of NVIDIA driver 572.xx, multiple GeForce RTX series have been facing various bugs, but the 576.02 reportedly didn’t just fix most of them but also came with improvements in performance.
As per one report, the RTX 50 series hugely benefited from this driver in terms of power-efficiency and dropped in power consumption significantly in idle mode. In previous GPU driver versions, the RTX 5070 ran at roughly 180 MHz, which was reduced to only 22 MHz with the latest 576.02. The RTX 5060 Ti also saw a massive improvement in idle mode, dropping to just 7W of power consumption.
In another instance, the RTX 5080 is reported to have gained a good performance boost. One user saw a roughly 4.3% higher score with the 576.02 driver (8832 points vs 9215 points with 576.02 in 3DMark Steel Nomad). Another user reported a staggering 7.5% gain in the same test (8400 points vs 9033 points) with the latest driver.
The gains also extend to real gaming tests such as Marvel Rivals, where the RTX 5080 with Ryzen 7 9800X3D delivered over 150 fps compared to 140+ fps with the previous driver. So, a 5-7% gain was seen here as well. Users on a Reddit thread owning other RTX 50 GPUs reported the same, including RTX 5070 series GPU owners. Surprisingly, a few also saw 3-4% improvements on the RTX 40 series as well.
Therefore, this looks more of a driver issue, which throttled the performance of RTX GPUs. Some users also reported the unlocking of higher VRAM clocks with the latest driver update, resulting in more performance, but one would have to manually overclock the VRAM for this. Overall, the 576.02 does what an NVIDIA GPU driver should usually do.
In the past several weeks, the NVIDIA drivers have been annoying, let alone the multiple issues RTX 50 series GPUs have been shipping with on the hardware level. Some have been addressed but not completely fixed. On the software side, things can be managed much more easily than on the hardware side, and we have reported all the fixes the latest GPU driver 576.02 comes with.
News Sources: @unikoshardware, Guru3D, YouTube
