Nvidia just finished revealing its range of newRTX 50 - seriesGPUs , the first of which will go far in just a duo of week . They ’re some of thebest nontextual matter cardsever made , according to Nvidia , and for theflagship RTX 5090that clocks in at $ 2,000 , I believe the company . Lower down the tidy sum , however , I ’m bear on .

For the past couple of geezerhood , there ’s been a growing issue surrounding graphics cards with 8 GB of VRAM , which is something we ’ve watch on full display withgames likeIndiana Jones and the Great Circle . Despite recoil in the previous generationconcerning releases like the RTX 4060 Ti , I ’m worried that Nvidia will repeat the mistakes of the past tense when the RTX 5060 inevitably rolls around .

Although cards like the RTX 5090 are flashy , most PC gamers do n’t have that sort of budget to bedevil around . Nvidia ’s 60 - year computer graphic cards remain the most popular options among PC gamers , and they have for years . The RTX 3060 and RTX 4060 worry two of the top three slot inthe Steam computer hardware survey , and the remaining smirch is hold in by the wandering version of the RTX 4060 . Nvidia has n’t announced an RTX 5060 yet — thecompany ’s CEO has hinted at the card — but I ’d be outrage if we did n’t see it show up eventually .

Just as we ’ve see with the GTX 1060 , GTX 1660 , RTX 2060 Super , RTX 3060 , and now the RTX 4060 , the RTX 5060 will likely take a top slot among the most popular GPUs . This social class of graphics card makes sense for a muckle of PC gamers . They go far around $ 300 , and for generations , they ’ve delivered solid gambling carrying out at 1080p , even in the latest AAA games . They ’re workhorse GPUs ; they ’ll play the games you want to play with solid carrying out . This class of graphic card is the epitome of the view that PC gamers work game , not hardware .

It shouldjust oeuvre . Load up a game at 1080p , pick out a graphics preset , and you ’re off to the airstream , hopefully with soma rate nearing the threefold finger to fully impregnate a gamy - refresh - rate 1080p gaming monitoring machine . Now that we ’ve seen the first placard in Nvidia ’s new generation , however , I ’m not confident that the RTX 5060 will be able-bodied to pitch that experience , and that for the most part comes down to VRAM .

It’s time to address the VRAM problem

Nvidia has been willing to die on the hillthat 8 GB of VRAM is sufficientfor a premium play experience . Real - mankind performance dissent . latterly , PCGamesHardware lookedat the performance of AMD ’s RX 7600 andRX 7600 XTacross 35 different tests . This is an significant comparison , as the only divergence between the two cards is VRAM mental ability . The RX 7600 comes with 8 GB , while the RX 7600 XT comes with 16 gigabyte .

establish on the issue , the 8 GB RX 7600 was 12 % boring at 1080p in rasterized games , and a shocking 30 % dull in games with ray trace . Remember these final result are for 1080p , too . At high resolving power , the gap is even wider , with the RX 7600 dropping nearly one-half of the execution of the RX 7600 XT at 4K. Raw frame rate do n’t even encapsulate the problem fully — as PCGamesHardware demonstrates , circumscribed VRAM content can also lead to mussy texture and sometimes even broken rendering in game likeThe Witcher 3 , Dead Island 2,andAvatar : frontier of Pandora .

In paleness to Nvidia , these are AMD graphics cards . Although the RX 7600 and RX 7600 XT are ideal picks for isolate VRAM electrical capacity , the reality is that different architectures and memory system pattern will respond to remembering electrical capacity , well , differently . As you may take in my most recentRTX 4060 review article , though , these problems show up from clip - to - time on Nvidia GPUs , too . The manifestation from PCGamesHardware simply sequester storage to show what can pass off when in an apples - to - apples comparison .

As mentioned , Nvidia has n’t announced the RTX 5060 yet , but based on the residual of the card , it attend like it could be limit to 8 GB of VRAM . Across the stack Nvidia has revealed , only the RTX 5090 received a prominence in computer storage capacity . The RTX 5080 has 16 GB , while the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5070 have 12 Gbit , all three matching their last - gen counterparts . In addition , Nvidia has reveal the mobile versions for all of these graphics visiting card , and the RTX 5070 clocks in with just 8 GB of VRAM .

It ’s possible Nvidia could persist the RTX 5060 with a higher computer storage spec — it did something like that with the wildly democratic RTX 3060 — but I ’m not hold my breath . establish on what Nvidia has expose so far , 8 GB is not only possible on the RTX 5060 ; I ’d wager that it ’s likely .

The competition is strong

Although Nvidia has support 8 GB graphics cards , it ’s also accidentally acknowledged the issue with them . That ’s why we see the 16 GB version of the RTX 4060 Ti , and likely why the RTX 3080 went from 10 GB to 12 GB late in its lifespan . AMD and Intel have more forthwith acknowledge the problem . AMD , for its part , has been pushing VRAM mental ability up lower down its production stack for the retiring several genesis , while Intel came out of the logic gate drop with high capacity on budget - focused offerings .

you could see that in natural process with Intel ’s recent Arc B580 , which occur with 12 GB of VRAM for only $ 250 . VRAM capacity is n’t directly indicative of performance — it actually says very piddling about how well a GPU performs — but as you may read in myArc B580 review , there are VRAM walls that the RTX 4060 runs into that Intel ’s later GPU simply does n’t .

AMD has n’t revealed its offering around the 60 - class of GPUs this genesis , but it has revealed themidrange RX 9070 XT , and it comes with 16 GB of VRAM . That ’s already outclass the 12 GB available on the RTX 5070 , so I suspect that AMD ’s low - end offerings will come with higher VRAM capacity , too . Again , that say nothing about how they ’ll do , but assume similar performance between AMD and Nvidia offer as we ’ve seen in former multiplication , that gamy VRAM capability wins the sidereal day .

We ’re probable still a few months away from Nvidia revealing more artwork card in its RTX 50 - series range , and the idea that the RTX 5060 — assuming that ’s what Nvidia call its offering around $ 300 — will come with 8 GB of VRAM is n’t limit in stone . Based on the way thing are proceed , however , that looks like a decent opening . And that could become a problem with some bounteous games set to release this yr , includingDoom : The Dark Ages , Borderlands 4,andAvowed . For now , though , all we can do is wait until Nvidia has more to share .