The newly released NVIDIA 576.02 graphics driver brings some improvements in benchmark scores, especially in 3DMark's Steel Nomad test. However, many users still report serious performance problems and crashes while gaming, which has made the update a point of heated debate among RTX 50 series GPU owners.
The new driver gives a slight performance boost, but game bugs remain unfixed
According to reports on the ComputerBase forum, owners of the new GPUs, including the RTX 5090, 5080, 5070 Ti and 5070, saw gains of 6% to 8% in the Steel Nomad test after updating to driver 576.02. In some cases the score rose by as much as 2.000 points, which points to clear benchmark-focused optimization from NVIDIA.
Performance in other tests such as Speed Way and Time Spy, however, is unchanged or even down by about 1%. More worrying is that many Reddit users still report constant crashes in games like Black Myth: Wukong, Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Monster Hunter Wilds. Shader compile bugs that freeze the system in Rebirth and Monster Hunter in particular have become the most prominent issue.
The RTX 50 series struggles with software bugs and underwhelming performance
NVIDIA has previously said it fixed the crash and black screen bugs in the driver releases going back to February. Even so, some developers advise RTX 30 and 40 series owners to stay on the older 566.36 driver rather than upgrade to newer versions. That suggests the stability of driver 576.02 is still not fully assured across the board.
Notably, the RTX 50 series was already a letdown at launch because of several problems: unremarkable performance compared with the previous generation, limited VRAM, scarce supply, missing ROPs and unstable software quality. The RTX 5070 has even been described as not significantly faster than the 4070 Super, while also facing pressure from the AMD Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT.
Driver 576.02 also adds support for the RTX 5060 Ti, whose newest version is released with 16GB of VRAM. However, the 8GB model was not sent to reviewers, which suggests NVIDIA may be trying to dodge criticism over continuing to release low-capacity GPUs in 2025.
In short: NVIDIA Driver 576.02 is a step forward in performance in some benchmark tests, but it is still not stable enough in real-world gaming. Users should think carefully before upgrading, especially if they own an RTX 40 or 30 series card. At the current pace, NVIDIA needs to keep improving its software quality if it wants to win back the trust of gamers and professional users.
