Despite their temptingly low prices, PC gamers appear to be rejecting 8GB graphics cards, with the prices of these cards dropping substantially compared to their 16GB equivalents. Right now, several AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8GB graphics cards are going for just $269.99, undercutting the MSRP by $30, and there are identical reductions available on Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8GB cards.
As I found in my recent AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT review, the 16GB version of this card is now the best GPU if you’re on a tight budget, while the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB is the one to buy if you have a bit more money to spend. It’s telling that neither AMD nor Nvidia sent me samples of the 8GB versions of these cards, and it’s obvious why – 8GB simply isn’t enough VRAM to run some of the latest games at high settings now, let alone in two years.
And I’m not talking about running path tracing at 4K here – in my own benchmarks, I’ve found that some games fall over at 1080p with moderate settings if you try to run them on a graphics card with just 8GB of VRAM. Just take the graph below of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle running at 1080p with the Ultra preset – there are two graphics presets above this level, as well as a whole other tier that adds path tracing features with four other levels.
As you can see, there’s a substantial jump from an 8GB graphics card, such as the RTX 4060 Ti or RTX 5060, to a 16GB one, and it’s much larger than the increase in GPU power would suggest. On 8GB cards, performance falls off a cliff in this game at these settings, with 1% lows of 15fps and under. In fact, the game’s settings menu continues to give you a red warning that you don’t have enough VRAM at the high and medium graphics presets, too. It’s only when you drop to the low preset that you get the green light.
Even an old game such as Doom Eternal struggles on an 8GB card if you enable ray tracing. In the graph below, you can see that, even at 1080p, performance drops like a stone on the RTX 4060 and Radeon RX 7600, and while the RTX 5060 can at least play the game (albeit with disappointing 1% lows), there’s a huge boost in performance when you get to the 16GB cards. The latter can even play this game at 4K (averaging 103fps on the 9060 XT), while the game refuses to run at all on the 8GB cards at these settings.
It looks as though gamers have got the message too – 8GB simply isn’t enough when you’re spending this sort of money on a new graphics card anymore, and it’s unbalanced GPU pricing. While an 8GB RTX 5060 Ti card can currently be bought for $349.99 on Amazon ($30 below its MSRP), the cheapest 16GB 5060 TI card at the same retailer costs $429.99, which is bang on the MSRP. Meanwhile, 8GB AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT cards can be bought for just $269.99 on Amazon now (again, $30 below MSRP), while 16GB 9060 XT cards start at $349.99, which is again bang on the MSRP.
In a year when we’ve seen GPU prices climb to exorbitant levels, and demand is clearly massive, you might expect people to lap up these 8GB graphics cards simply because they’re cheaper, but it doesn’t look like that’s happening. The 16GB cards are maintaining their prices, while the 8GB cards need to have their prices knocked down to make them more appealing.
Is the 8GB era over? In this lower mid-range sector, I think it may well be – although I don’t have the whole supply picture, it looks as though there’s substantially more demand for 16GB cards than 8GB ones.
However, it’s also worth noting that the $299 Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 is still maintaining its price, despite only having 8GB of VRAM, and I think that’s partly down to the strength of Nvidia’s branding, but also because there isn’t another option for this GPU – there isn’t a 16GB version to steal its thunder. I’m pretty sure Nvidia knows that 8GB isn’t enough VRAM for this GPU either, though, which would explain why it wouldn’t send any samples for review before the embargo earlier this year.
When there’s a choice, though, it looks as though gamers want 16GB rather than 8GB, and I hope that’s reflected when the next generation of Nvidia and AMD graphics cards surfaces. After all, even the RTX 3060 had 12GB of VRAM (mainly thanks to its bus width), and it’s ludicrous that 8GB RTX 5060 TI cards are going for even $349.99 right now.
How much VRAM do you have on your graphics card, and is it enough? Let us know your thoughts on our community Discord server.
