An AMD RX 9060 XT featuring 16GB would disrupt Nvidia's used market.

      I understand the excitement surrounding the RX 9070 XT and 9070 launch — I certainly feel it myself. However, I am also very enthusiastic about the potential of the rumored 9060 XT. It's not just because it’s likely to be more affordable — which it will be — but also because it may come equipped with up to 16GB of VRAM. This could disrupt Nvidia's second-hand card market significantly, potentially boosting AMD's market share in the long run.

      Currently, this is all speculation, and some of my colleagues are not as optimistic as I am, but I genuinely see real potential for this compact card to be transformative.

      Addressing the VRAM Limitations

      Video memory, or VRAM, has been a crucial aspect of graphics card specifications for many generations, but its significance has increased notably in recent years. While flagship graphics cards now boast higher VRAM, such as the 5090 with 32GB, most mainstream options still manage with lesser amounts. Just a couple of generations ago, the top RTX 3080 model had only 10GB of VRAM, and it remains common to see cards with 12GB, 10GB, or even 8GB.

      Although the RTX 3080 is still a viable choice for budget-conscious gamers, its insufficient VRAM mostly diminishes its relevance. The issue now is that this capacity is becoming inadequate, particularly for new games and demanding settings like ray tracing. For instance, Alan Wake 2 has been reported to use over 15GB when fully engaged at 4K with ray tracing. Other games are not far behind in their demands.

      Your card cannot rely on DLSS to compensate for running out of VRAM when using 4K textures, and neural texture compression is not ready to address this problem either. As other games start increasing their VRAM requirements even for relatively modest settings, older high-end cards risk becoming obsolete.

      The Importance of Affordable 16GB VRAM

      AMD has been enhancing the VRAM in its graphics cards over the past couple of generations. For example, the RX 6700 XT had 12GB of VRAM compared to the RTX 3070's 8GB. The RX 7700 XT features 16GB of VRAM, while the 4070 only has 12GB. Even Nvidia's poorly-reviewed RTX 5070 comes with only 12GB of VRAM.

      Graphics cards with less than 16GB of VRAM will struggle to run certain games at higher settings in the coming years. They may still have the raw performance capability to match those higher settings but will be unable to do so due to VRAM limitations.

      Now, let’s consider the RX 9060 XT. This card is expected to launch in the next few months at a price lower than the $550 for the 9070, likely substantially less. If we estimate its long-term cost at around $300 — which is at the upper range of RX 7600 XT pricing as of now — we are looking at a $300 card that can perform tasks that some of Nvidia's latest high-end GPUs cannot.

      This means that in around a year, when consumers are searching for new graphics cards, they'll likely examine AMD’s entry-level models against Nvidia's higher-end options in the second-hand market, ultimately choosing the model that can effectively run the games they want.

      What about Bus Width?

      The only potential drawback to this scenario is bus width. As my colleague Monica mentions in her preview of the expected RX 9060 XT cards, AMD could undermine these GPUs before they even launch. In previous generations, the X600 series faced performance issues due to limited bus widths and PCIExpress bandwidth.

      If AMD makes the same mistakes with the RX 9060 XT and 9060, my optimistic prediction could be naïve and overly rosy. Poor performance remains poor performance, regardless of VRAM abundance.

      However, if AMD avoids this pitfall... if it manages to produce these cards competitively against whatever Nvidia is developing for the RTX 5060, especially with enhanced ray tracing and new FSR features, alongside ample VRAM? AMD could potentially create a winner that stands a good chance of being one of the most popular graphics cards in the Steam Hardware survey, a category where AMD hardly registers by early 2025.