NVIDIA 576.02 graphics Driver has just been released, bringing some improvements in benchmark scores, particularly in 3DMark’s Steel Nomad test. However, many users are still reporting serious performance issues and crashes while gaming, making this update controversial within the RTX 50 series GPU community.
Slight performance improvement with new driver, but game bugs remain unresolved
According to reports from the ComputerBase forum, users owning new GPU lines such as RTX 5090, 5080, 5070 Ti, and 5070 have seen increases of 6% to 8% in the Steel Nomad test after updating to driver 576.02. Some cases even saw an increase of up to 2,000 points, indicating clear optimization from NVIDIA in terms of benchmarking.
However, performance in other tests like Speed Way and Time Spy remains unchanged or even slightly decreases by about 1%. More concerningly, many users on Reddit are still reporting continuous crashes while playing titles like Black Myth: Wukong, Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and Monster Hunter Wilds. In particular, shader compilation errors causing system freezes in Rebirth and Monster Hunter are becoming the most prominent issues.
RTX 50 series struggles due to software bugs and performance below expectations
NVIDIA previously announced that they had patched crashes and black screen issues from drivers released in February. Nevertheless, some developers are advising RTX 30 and 40 series users to stick with the older 566.36 driver instead of upgrading to newer versions. This suggests that the stability of driver 576.02 is not yet fully guaranteed on a wide scale.
Notably, the RTX 50 series has been disappointing since its launch due to several issues: performance that is not significantly better than the previous generation, limited VRAM, supply shortages, ROP deficiencies, and unstable software quality. In fact, the RTX 5070 has even been compared to being not significantly more powerful than the 4070 Super, while facing pressure from the AMD Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT.
Driver 576.02 also adds support for the RTX 5060 Ti, the latest version released with 16GB of VRAM. However, the 8GB version was not sent to reviewers—suggesting that NVIDIA seems to be avoiding criticism regarding the continued release of low-capacity GPUs in 2025.
In summary: NVIDIA 576.02 Driver is a step forward in performance in certain benchmark tests, but it is still not stable enough for real-world gaming experiences. Users should consider carefully before upgrading, especially if they own an RTX 40 or 30 series card. Given the current trajectory, NVIDIA needs to continue improving software quality if they want to regain the trust of the gaming community and professional users.
