Latest Nvidia drivers boost synthetics by 6-8% on RTX 50 GPUs — Users still report stability woes

(Image credit: Nvidia)

The latest addition to the Nvidia R570 branch of GPU drivers, 576.02, has resolved many stability problems troubling RTX GPUs for the past three months, including crashes and black screens.

Adding to the mix is increased synthetic performance, as reported by ComputerBase, whose data suggests an up to 8% performance bump in 3DMark Steel Nomad. Alas, it's not all sunshine and rainbows, as it appears a new set of stability woes has surfaced with these new drivers, as indicated by user reports.

It is important to understand that improved synthetic performance might not directly reflect real-world tests, such as games and content creation. Either way, with the onset of enablement drivers (R570) for the RTX 50 series in February, a wide range of stability problems affected nearly all RTX GPUs. I personally had to roll back to an older 566.xx release to get RTX HDR working properly. Fast forward to March, and back-to-back hotfixes ironed out most of these quirks for Blackwell.

RTX 40 and RTX 30 GPUs, still plagued by crashes linked with G-Sync and Frame Generation, had to hold out until the latest 576.02 release that is said to fix most of these problems. ComputerBase did some testing and revealed that these drivers also deliver better synthetic performance on RTX 50 GPUs. This is further backed by several user reports at r/Nvidia, though the numbers could vary.

We're looking at uplifts ranging between 6%-8%, depending on the GPU in 3DMark's Steel Nomad benchmark. The most notable performance shifts can be observed with the RTX 5070, RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080, while the RTX 5090 remains largely unchanged.

We won't say no to free performance, but user reports still indicate lingering game crashes, black screen issues, stuttering, and other anomalies across the RTX GPU stack. Some of the mentioned game titles include Monster Hunter Wilds, FFVII Rebirth, and Black Myth Wukong, just to name a few. That's to say, there have been mentions of increased gaming performance with several games, so it's hard to draw a decisive conclusion.

The general consensus is that you should update to the latest drivers. In case you face any stability problems, try downgrading to the 572.xx release or 566.xx, but this comes with the trade-off of losing access to certain features.

Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he’s not working, you’ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun.