So...with the release of the 5000 series, and the fact that Nvidia is still selling 8 GB cards at $400, Nvidia is actually coming under fire for their scant VRAM amounts. There is a 16 GB version of the 5060 ti, and it massively outperforms the 8 GB version, in part due to VRAM limitations themselves, but also because the bus is so low with only 8 GB that the card cant even reach full speed with only 8 GB for some reason. Idk, it's kind of insane. Anyway, people are complaining about it, I agree with them, so I wanted to discuss why 8 GB is insane in 2025.
The fact is, 8 GB has kinda been "the standard" since 2016 or so. 9 years ago, affordable 8 GB cards were already commonplace. the RX 470 and 480 had 8 GB at around $200-250, and the GTX 1070 was a $380 card with 8 GB VRAM. Nvidia was a little more conservative with 6 GB on the $250 1060, but it still was a decent amount that held up for the card's relatively long lifespan (both the 6 GB 1060 and the 8 GB 480/580 stopped being viable around 2023).
However, let's be honest, 9 years is a long time and the amount of progress made in the industry from 2016-2025 is a lot lower than it was in the previous 9, from 2007-2016. And that's what we should be comparing the modern environment to.
Imagine if, in 2016, they were still selling 512 MB cards. Because that's what GPUs back around 2007 often packed. the 8800 GT, a $250 card at the time, was a 512 MB card. Heck, even the $160 8600 GT packed 512 MB. And a year later I got a HD 3650 with 512 MB for $80. 512 MB was ubiquitous back then at all price levels just about. You literally had to buy like a $60 HD 3450 or like a 8500 GT or something to NOT have 512 MB standard.
So GPUs have improved around 12-16x in the same price range from 2007 to 2016. And heck, let's go further than that. The 8800 GT/9800 GT were like the old school 60/70 tier cards at the time. Maybe closer to 70 tier with the original 8800 GT, 60 tier with the 9800 GT, which was the same thing, only cheaper. Nvidia tried to get away with overcharging with the 200 series with the GTX 260 being like $400+ MSRP, but AMD quickly knocked them in their place. By 2010 when I bought my first gaming PC, 1 GB cards twice as powerful as the 8800 GT were commonplace, stuff like the 460 and the 5850.
Fast forward a few years after that. In 2012, we started seeing 2 GB cards with the GTX 660 and higher. And these were priced around $200-300. Even the high end didnt have much more VRAM. Even the 780 only had like 3 GB in 2013. And the 760 was 2x as powerful as the 460. Fast forward again.
By 2015, the 960 STILL had 2 GB, and back then 3 generations in a row having the same VRAM was insane. The 960 was never going to be long for this world, and quite frankly, it wasn't. Because when the market compensated for that VRAM stagnation with the 6 GB 1060 in 2016, it really blew out those old cards. And games started wanting 4 GB VRAM and anything less just didnt cut the mustard. Of course by then, you could get 4 GB with the 1050 ti for like $140 so it was all good.
And then progress...stopped.
AMD struggled to compete after that. The 480/580 were their BEST CARDS at the time and only matched the midrange 1060. They followed up with Vega 56/64 to compete against the 1070 and 1080, but they didn't do very well. And 8 GB remained the standard. In 2018, Nvidia released their successor to the 1000 series. Given it was over 2 years later, and up to that point, performance doubled every 3, we kinda expected a doozy. Instead, we got ray tracing, DLSS, and higher prices. The $200-300 price range were occupied by the 6 GB 1660 and 1660 ti/super, while the true 2060 was bumped up to 70 range pricing with the same 6 GB VRAM. Think about it. The 2060 actually REGRESSED from the 1070 in VRAM for the money. But but, muh ray tracing! And it was only a 1080 performance wise too. The 1660 ti/super were basically 1070s with 6 GB VRAM.
AMD struck back with the 5000 series of their cards, with the 5700 XT being $400 with 8 GB, the 5600 XT being in the $250ish range with 6 (another regression...), etc. They were unpopular despite being a bit more powerful than nvidia cards because again, muh ray tracing. Ray tracing and all that AI BS nvidia put in basically gave them a monopoly, and since then they just raised prices, while AMD barely competed.
With the 3000 series, they still stuck with relatively low amounts of VRAM. i think the 3080s, which were like $700, had like 10-12 GB? The 3070s for $500-600 were like 8 GB still. Again, third generation in a row. The 3060 ti had 8 but the 3060 had 12. 3050 had 8. 8 was basically the standard up to $600.
AMD was a bit better but overpriced their cards, they had rudimentary ray tracing in their GPUs, but they charged nvidia prices, and they lacked nvidia's feature set, so they never made money. They ended up having to GREATLY lower prices post pandemic. nvidia still saw fit to charge 70 prices for 60 cards, while eventually 8 GB models like the 6600 and 6650 XT were available closer to the $200-300 mark I'm comfortable with. I wasnt happy about buying an 8 GB GPU in 2022 as I felt like the 8 GB era was already dragging on too long, not to mention the 6650 XT was just 2x my old 1060, but hey, that was my minimum requirement to upgrade, 2x performance for <$300, so...yeah. And yeah that was 2.5 years ago.
AMD by then had 12 GB GPUs in the $350ish range with the 6700 XT, but that was a bit too rich for my blood. And of course the 3060 was still that price, which was insane. Again, i know that covid and crypto messed with the market, but I really saw this pricing as pure greed. Nvidia just went haywire with the 2000 series and decided to start conditioning users to pay higher prices, and they largely succeeded, and now I'm called "entitled" and crap for wanting to spend $200-300 on a midrange GPU like the old days. Again, stop licking corporate boot, people.
But yeah, just up to 2022 at this point. Again, 6 years instead of 3 for 2x the performance, and we were still at 1-1.33x the amount of VRAM for the money. It was crazy.
And the market hasnt budged since then. 8 GB 4060, same thing. Downgrading the VRAM from the 12 GB 3060. 4060 ti still had 8 with a 16 GB version like $500. I mean, wtf? We realize 80 series cards used to cost $500 not long ago, right?
AMD....they had the 8 GB 7600 for $250 which wasnt awful I guess, given you could still buy the 6700 XT and by the time you hit $400, the 6800 with its 16 GB VRAM. Still, 8 GB was that sub $300 standard mostly. They made a 16 GB 7600 but it cost like $330 and wasnt worth it, again, due to the 6700 XT.
And now we're getting the 8 GB 9060/9060 XT coming up, and the 8 GB 5060/5060 ti. The 5060 ti is already a joke, with games performing significantly worse than the 16 GB version even at like medium settings. It's insane. Again, this is what happens when you have NINE YEARS of 8 GB GPUs for the same rough price range. While 8 GB seemed like overkill in 2016, but 2025 it's anemic. We're having the 2 GB 960 problem all over again at this point. Whoever buys this gen of cards is gonna get burned. Having an 8 GB GPU myself it still works, it's not awful, but I feel bad having to have bought an 8 GB GPU 6 years after they became mainstream and now 9 years on its just getting sad. Nvidia is stifling the market. Their GPUs are stagnating in performance, we've had virtually no movement in the GPU market since the post COVID crash that only happened because AMD cards dropped significantly in value and flooded the market at low prices. And now things are moving the wrong way, mainly because nvidia and AMD are discontinuing their previous series before their new series is out yet, and also because tariffs. It's a mess.
I keep saying it, but the video game market needs to crash like 1983 all over again. What we're doing isn't sustainable. Everyone is greedy, we can only afford so much, and inevitably, something is gonna have to give.
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