RAM crisis lands another blow as Nvidia could stick to 8GB with mainstream GPUs for the foreseeable future — but is that enough in 2026?

• A new rumor suggests Nvidia could focus more on 8GB GPUs
• The theory is the RTX 5070 Ti and 5060 Ti with 16GB VRAM are going to be less of a priority
• Nvidia could instead focus on the RTX 5060 and 5060 Ti with 8GB this year

Rumor has it that Nvidia could be recalibrating its production strategy for RTX 5000 GPUs, switching away from making affordable models with 16GB of video RAM (VRAM), in favor of 8GB graphics cards at these mid-to-lower tiers.

This is due, as you might have guessed, to the RAM crisis, which also affects VRAM supply and costs. VideoCardz reports that a post from the Board Channels forum in China (where supply chain rumors are regularly aired) claims Nvidia is reducing production of the RTX 5070 Ti and 5060 Ti graphics cards with 16GB of VRAM.

Team Green will seemingly shift to favor production of the RTX 5060 Ti model with 8GB of VRAM, and also the RTX 5060 (which also has 8GB of VRAM, with no 16GB variant available for this one).

Those two RTX 5060 GPUs are identified as the two key models for Nvidia's GeForce GPUs in the Chinese market, and by extrapolation, it'd be surprising if the rest of the global picture didn't mirror that to a reasonable extent.

Analysis: is 8GB still enough in 2026?

It has been rumored for a while that Nvidia could shift its focus away from more affordable GeForce graphics cards that load up on larger amounts of VRAM relative to their price bracket, so this is not exactly a surprise. While we have to treat the source with some caution – I'm always a little wary of the Board Channels, though this forum can carry accurate info – it also makes sense that Nvidia would do this.

Nvidia won't want to 'waste' cutting-edge (GDDR7) VRAM, which has become a much scarcer commodity, on lower-tier graphics cards, especially seeing as the rising cost of that video RAM will be felt even more keenly proportional to the price tag of an RTX 5060 16GB. A sharper price hike isn't a good look, of course, and it's worth noting that this same post suggests price increases haven't been ruled out for Nvidia GPUs in the "next quarter", so Q2 might be a bit painful in that respect, which again would be no surprise.

And so with a potential shift back to producing more 8GB graphics cards, this begs the oft-repeated question: is this enough VRAM for a modern GPU? On the one hand, it's true that an 8GB GPU can actually be pretty decent for many contemporary games, as we discovered testing the RTX 5070 laptop GPU with that amount of video RAM. When using DLSS (and especially frame generation, where supported), you can get great results with a relatively affordable 8GB GPU.

However, not every game supports DLSS or frame gen, and there are some titles that really struggle with an 8GB allocation – even today, without considering where games are going in the future.

And that's the key issue with the 8GB of VRAM arguments: future-proofing looks wobbly to say the least. You expect a graphics card to last a good few years – preferably five in my book – and it won't be long before those GPUs with 8GB are going to start falling by the wayside with the increased demands that future games will doubtless make.

Personally, I wouldn't buy an 8GB GPU at this point, but if needs must and you have no option, it may be the case that you can get by okay for some time yet with this VRAM configuration – especially by leveraging DLSS.

The best graphics cards for all budgets

➡️ Read our full guide to the best graphics card
1. Best overall:
AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
2. Best budget:
Intel Arc B580
3. Best Nvidia:
Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti
4. Best AMD:
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX

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