Nvidia has put NBA 2K27 to work as the first showcase for DLSS 5 on its RTX 50 cards showing how its GeForce RTX 50 stack performs across 1080p, 1440p and 4K.
The important split is between native DLSS 5 games and modded examples floating around online. Nvidia says developers will control visual settings in native titles, while players will get a simple on/off toggle.
Nvidia said: “All the controls that we showed during the presentations, the way we see it is that, again, these are developer controls. We’re developing, we’re creating them for the developers.”
Nvidia said those controls are intended to help game makers deliver their own visual targets, rather than letting every player fiddle with the guts of the model. Mods will still exist, but they will not represent what the original artists intended.
The NBA 2K27 tests were run with DLSS 5 enabled in-game, ray tracing on, the ultra preset selected, Multi-Frame Generation in 6x mode and DLSS Super Resolution set to quality mode.
At 1080p, the RTX 5060 managed more than 250 frames per second, while higher cards pushed between more than 300 and more than 500 frames per second. At that resolution, 6x Multi-Frame Generation looks like overkill unless someone owns an absurdly quick monitor.
At 1440p, Nvidia recommends an RTX 5070 or better. The RTX 5070 cleared more than 260 frames per second, while the RTX 5090 shot beyond 500 frames per second.
At 4K, Nvidia recommends the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090. The RTX 5080 averaged 233 frames per second, while the RTX 5090 hit 370 frames per second.
DLSS 5 runs on Tensor cores and is tuned for the fifth-generation Tensor cores in Blackwell RTX 50 GPUs. Nvidia called it its largest and most complex model so far, with older RTX cards lacking the base frame rate and Multi-Frame Generation support for an “adequate” experience.
The model carries a 50 to 60 per cent performance hit on average, which explains Nvidia’s broad use of Multi-Frame Generation across the RTX 50 stack. Latency does not behave like frame generation because DLSS 5 does not wait for the next frame, and the extra cost comes from the current-frame model.
Nvidia said the model has improved sharply since GTC in March 2026, moving from a dual RTX 5090 demo to support across the RTX 50 range by August. DLSS 5 lands in NBA 2K27 on 3 September, with Nvidia promising faster optimisations and better visuals later.
