diff --git a/cmake/presets/kokkos-cuda.cmake b/cmake/presets/kokkos-cuda.cmake
index 8195e0f090..36d099479d 100644
--- a/cmake/presets/kokkos-cuda.cmake
+++ b/cmake/presets/kokkos-cuda.cmake
@@ -1,9 +1,11 @@
-# preset that enables KOKKOS and selects CUDA compilation with OpenMP enabled as well
-
+# preset that enables KOKKOS and selects CUDA compilation with OpenMP
+# enabled as well. This preselects CC 5.0 as default GPU arch, since
+# that is compatible with all higher CC, but not the default CC 3.5
 set(PKG_KOKKOS ON CACHE BOOL "" FORCE)
 set(Kokkos_ENABLE_SERIAL ON CACHE BOOL "" FORCE)
 set(Kokkos_ENABLE_OPENMP ON CACHE BOOL "" FORCE)
 set(Kokkos_ENABLE_CUDA   ON CACHE BOOL "" FORCE)
+set(Kokkos_ARCH_MAXWELL50 on CACHE BOOL "" FORCE)
 set(BUILD_OMP ON CACHE BOOL "" FORCE)
 get_filename_component(NVCC_WRAPPER_CMD ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/../lib/kokkos/bin/nvcc_wrapper ABSOLUTE)
 set(CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER ${NVCC_WRAPPER_CMD} CACHE FILEPATH "" FORCE)