Nvidia's first DLSS 5 benchmarks left out the one number we actually wanted to see: how much performance you lose by enabling the technology. Those "official" NBA 2K27 results leaned heavily on 6X Frame Generation to inflate the output frame rates, a laughable attempt at benchmarking with frame gen enabled in every chart and every configuration.
What we didn't get were proper before-and-after figures showing how much performance is lost simply by turning DLSS 5 on. So we're fixing that today. No 6X Frame Gen, proper on vs. off testing, and results across the full RTX 50 series lineup. Even the RTX 5050.
We've only had a day to test this first official implementation of DLSS 5, using an early access copy of NBA 2K27 and Nvidia's supported driver. That's why this article is focused exclusively on performance.
For now, there's plenty to dig into. DLSS 5 is available in NBA 2K27 as this article goes live, so it's worth exploring its performance and, more importantly, why DLSS 5 performs the way it does. Because there are some quirks here.
DLSS 5 performance appears to be largely dictated by two key factors: the first is that DLSS 5 is extremely performance-intensive. The neural network pass, which post-processes the final rendered frame, takes a very long time to complete relative to other effects and shaders you might be familiar with.
