I've found DLSS 5 can slash frame rates by up to 73%

What the report says

DLSS 5 is finally here. Well, its been officially released in one game, anyway, after modders got their hands on it last week and made the actual launch somewhat redundant. Still, I've been testing Nvidia's new AI image-enhancing tech in NBA 2K27, the latest hoop-shooting game in the long-running series, and I have bad news: even on a high-end RTX 5080 rig, it's seriously punishing when it comes to performance.Which isn't a huge surprise, given that Nvidia itself estimated a 50-60% DLSS 5 performance hit in the briefings last week. Still, my early testing shows it can tank your frame rate considerably harder than that, even on a PC that costs well over $3,000 in 2026.I threw a pre-release version of NBA 2K27 at one of our benchmarking rigs, an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, RTX 5080-equipped, 32 GB DDR5 behemoth.

And while this particular PC can make mincemeat of the game's relatively lightweight hardware needs overall, turning on DLSS 5 can drop the average frame rate by up to 73% in certain scenarios.It's capable of looking very pretty in this particular game, that's for sure. But my jaw has dropped several times during my testing, and not always for the reasons Nvidia may have hoped for. To the benchmarks, then.DLSS 5: 1440p NBA 2K27 benchmarksGiven the RTX 5080 is Nvidia's second-fastest consumer graphics card, I had no qualms about turning up the settings to Ultra, including enabling ray tracing.

I recorded my results during actual gameplay within NBA 2K27's quick match mode, making sure to play for long enough that cutaway shots to the player's celebrations and the crowd triggered several times.It's worth mentioning, however, that given the lack of repeatability within this mode, these results are potentially more representative of the DLSS 5 average frame rate hit, rather than game performance overall.DLSS 5 | RTX 5080 | 1440p gaming benchmarksResults recorded during gameplay in NBA 2K27 at Ultra settings, ray tracing enabled, using an RTX 5080.NBA 2K27 (Ultra preset)Avg FPS1% Low FPSNative23093Native + DLSS 59337Quality upscaling + 2x FG363153Quality upscaling + 2x FG + DLSS 5168750100200300400NBA 2K27 (Ultra preset) DataProductValueNative230 Avg FPS, 93 1% Low FPSNative + DLSS 593 Avg FPS, 37 1% Low FPSQuality upscaling + 2x FG363 Avg FPS, 153 1% Low FPSQuality upscaling + 2x FG + DLSS 5168 Avg FPS, 75 1% Low FPSAnd my goodness, what a performance hit it is.

Key details

The difference between the Native 1440p average frame rate and the average rate with DLSS enabled is a whole 137 frames. A 93 fps average still results in very smooth gameplay overall, but the drop to just 37 fps in terms of 1% lows is very troubling.This is an RTX 5080 running at 1440p, after all. A 4K-capable graphics card that will currently cost you $1,550 thanks to the ongoing memory/component pricing crisis. And that figure is based on the cheapest we can find—I've seen them listed for $2,000+ in the past month or two.It's often very pretty at these settings, though... so that's somethingOf course, Nvidia will tell you that upscaling and frame generation are here to save the day when it comes to smooth performance, and that proves to be the case.

Still, watching a 363 fps average result plummet to 168 fps at the push of a DLSS 5 button is pretty jaw dropping. Nvidia has confirmed that DLSS 5 performance improvements are coming in future, and by the looks of it, it's in desperate need of some. It's often very pretty at these settings, though, as I'll go into below. So... that's something, I guess?DLSS 5: 4K NBA 2K27 benchmarksThere are no awards for guessing that, at 4K, the effect is even more pronounced. At Native resolution with no upscaling or frame gen assistance, the RTX 5080 spits out an admirable 183 fps average (still at Ultra with ray tracing enabled, no less), which duly plummets to 49 fps as soon as DLSS 5 is enabled.That represents a staggering 73% decrease in average frames, and an instantly crunchy experience.