Nvidia's DLSS 5 Cuts Frame Rates by Up to 73 Percent Before MFG Recovers

Nvidia's DLSS 5 technology has been met with controversy after independent test labs found that it cuts native frame rates by roughly 50 to 73 percent before Multi Frame Generation (MFG) claws the number back up. This is not a rounding error or an early-driver bug, according to six major outlets that benchmarked the game independently.

The technology, which uses 3D-Guided Neural Rendering, was chosen for NBA 2K27 in part because it targets the kind of scene complexity the technology addresses, including packed arenas, dynamic crowd shading, and reflective hardwood courts. However, when DLSS 5's neural rendering step is tested in isolation, the picture changes sharply.

Tom's Hardware ran every RTX 50-series card through NBA 2K27 and confirmed a big performance hit across the entire Blackwell lineup, with even the RTX 5060 managing close to 60 FPS at 1080p with DLSS 5 enabled. The pattern holds across nearly every independent test: DLSS 5's neural rendering step alone behaves like it caps performance somewhere in the 40 to 65 FPS range on current-generation hardware at higher settings.

Nvidia's marketing headline number, the 370 FPS claim for an RTX 5090 at 4K Ultra with ray tracing, only becomes achievable once Dynamic Multi Frame Generation is stacked on top of DLSS 5. The card you buy changes your starting point, but it doesn't change the size of the hit DLSS 5 takes once you turn it on.