Same Names, Different Frames

How Nvidia and AMD’s new budget GPUs could mislead consumers

The GPU market is a mess, but not like it was 6 months ago. New cards are being released and the demand is calming down. With that, the inflated prices are starting to creep down. In the UK at least, where I live, the cards are becoming available and my emails are constantly popping off about stock updates regularly!

On top of this, games consoles have had a price hike. Microsoft and Sony have both taken advantage of the tariffs imposed in the USA by giving everyone a price increase, and although Nintendo’s hardware is relatively ok priced, the games not so much. The license agreement doesn’t do the consumer any favours either. This could be the time for a gamer who has thought about moving their way into PC gaming, but with a console orientated budget. Time for the console gamers to get on those Steam sales!

This is where I feel the Nvidia 5060/ti series or the AMD 9060xt series makes sense. Entry level cards for beginners who want to take break away from a console’s proprietary ball and chain. They’ll push 1080p/1440p and with some frame generation will give the player a surprisingly good experience. That’s how I’ve come to view them, a gateway, and I think that’s how Nvidia and AMD see them also.

Which makes their naming of these cards all the more confusing.

Nvidia and AMD have released 8gb and 16gb models under the same naming. Why not add an addition to the name, for example; AMD using the XT variant as the 16gb and a standard 9060 for the 8gb? It seems dodgy. Especially when someone is scoping reviews, or looking at a website about to buy their shiny new graphics card only to mistakenly adding a 8gb variant that can’t play open world environments such as The Last of Us or Alan Wake up to the standards they expected. The problem with 8gb of VRAM is, frankly, its not good anymore and shows its age. Hardware Unboxed and other outlets have shown in their benchmark testing that it just cannot keep up. They have also shown stuttering frame rate deficiencies in titles compared to older 12gb cards or 16gb variants. Nvidia, in their dark anti consumer ways, decided against allowing reviewers to even attempt to benchmark the 8gb adaptations of their GPUs this series around which comes across as hoping the card blends in with the 16gb, in my opinion. AMD’s offering doesn’t even offer a decent enough price difference to help differentiate between both models either.

This doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for 8gb GPUs, its just a restricted product. 1080p sports titles such as; Valorant, CS2, Rocket League, or Fortnite will happily chug along with an 8gb card, even with some settings cranked up. These games make up a large portion of the PC gaming community. But apart from those, a bit of emulation, and some indie titles there just isn’t anything else worth mentioning. But how long these games can keep that card viable is questionable.

So where do we go from here? Well, the AMD 9060xt 16gb model is looking very good, if you can get it at MSRP which they claim will be around $350. Possibly not likely compared to the shitstorm the 9070xts went for. It offers PCIE gen 5 x16 which helps with older systems that benefit from those extra lanes, and it is considerably cheaper than the Nvidia 16gb alternative which is around $430, again if you can get it at MSRP. Meaning price per frame is a much better value. The 9060xt 8gb is only expected to be $50 cheaper, what’s the point?

There is also another, that for some reason, both AMD and Nvidia have decided to just pretend doesn’t exist. Intel’s b580.

The b580 is available in the UK, it’s much cheaper than the expected (£260 for the reference card on Overclockers at the time this was written), and has been praised by tech media for its 12gb of VRAM which gives excellent 1080p performance and good 1440p performance. I personally think if price is the deciding factor, those 4gb of VRAM will be a massive difference in what games can be played over the next few years.

If there is anything to take away from this Substack, always check the fine print would be it. Marketing is an issue in the retail PC industry, who tend to blur the lines between value and compromise, and first time buyers could learn that the hard way. PC gaming is a beautiful thing if you can sieve through the shite that goes along with it.