I Gamed on a 4GB GPU in 2026: AMD is Repeating its Worst Radeon Mistake

[Scorpus]

AMD is bringing 4GB graphics cards back in 2026. We tested the Radeon RX 6500 XT across 12 modern games to see what that means for buyers, and the results are every bit as bad as we feared all along.

Read the full article here.

I Gamed on a 4GB GPU in 2026: AMD is Repeating its Worst Radeon Mistake

 

[GeoffreyA]

It wouldn't be surprising if the slippery, downward slope to 2GB follows.

 

[LordVile95]

No it doesn’t and your testing is flawed. It’s an esports GPU on a x4 interface the 9050 is also an esports GPU but it’s on a x16 interface. Testing a GPU meant for esports on new AAA titles isn’t exactly representative is it. I’m guessing it’s also why you didn’t also use the 8GB model in a side by side as it doesn’t fit your agenda. The limitation is the narrow Bud and the x4 connection as you stated in the review when it launched, you’ve literally dug through every 4GB GPU to find the worst one.

Why don’t you test like the 1050 and 1050ti rather than expecting every GPU to perform like a 5070Ti or better? Maybe you’re just out of touch.

 

[GeoffreyA]

No it doesn’t and your testing is flawed. It’s an esports GPU on a x4 interface the 9050 is also an esports GPU but it’s on a x16 interface. Testing a GPU meant for esports on new AAA titles isn’t exactly representative is it. I’m guessing it’s also why you didn’t also use the 8GB model in a side by side as it doesn’t fit your agenda. The limitation is the narrow Bud and the x4 connection as you stated in the review when it launched, you’ve literally dug through every 4GB GPU to find the worst one.

Why don’t you test like the 1050 and 1050ti rather than expecting every GPU to perform like a 5070Ti or better? Maybe you’re just out of touch.

Even without testing, 4GB in 2026 is concerning. Of course, there are no bad products; only bad prices. But a move like this might set precedent for more to follow and feels anti-consumer. E-sports titles are often well served by APUs.

 

[Thatsdisgusting]

That thing on the last photo - a load of jokes comes to mind when looking at it, but my Ma told me not to make fun and laugh on cripples.

 

[Vixiy]

The only usecase this might make sense for is PS3 emulation.

 

[LordVile95]

Even without testing, 4GB in 2026 is concerning. Of course, there are no bad products; only bad prices. But a move like this might set precedent for more to follow and feels anti-consumer. E-sports titles are often well served by APUs.

Depends on the use case. For esports a 4GB GPU is no issue, it’s also OEM part priced at less than $200. It’ll do fine for the price and what it’s intended to do but people will start running AAA titles on it and be shocked that it only gets 35FPS. Of course it’s all the VRAMS fault if the 8GB model gets 37 and I’m sure if the 8GB model is perfectly fine and a good deal if that’s the case.

My issue with the card is the retention of the tiny bus width though a x16 connection will help somewhat. The reason why I’d say an 8GB 9060XT is fine and a 5060Ti is not is down to the interface differences for example.

 

[The Talking Tech]

Companies will try very hard to convince you that it's ok to play with those ancient specs.

And of course, corporate bootlickers will also try to defend them (as we see some here already), but hope you know better than that.

At this rate it's better to go back and play on the Xbox 360 and PS3....good old days!

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Depends on the use case. For esports a 4GB GPU is no issue, it’s also OEM part priced at less than $200. It’ll do fine for the price and what it’s intended to do but people will start running AAA titles on it and be shocked that it only gets 35FPS. Of course it’s all the VRAMS fault if the 8GB model gets 37 and I’m sure if the 8GB model is perfectly fine and a good deal if that’s the case.

My issue with the card is the retention of the tiny bus width though a x16 connection will help somewhat. The reason why I’d say an 8GB 9060XT is fine and a 5060Ti is not is down to the interface differences for example.

The RX 480 offered a 8GB model for $200 a DECADE ago.

4GB for $200 in 2026 is an absolute ripoff.

Why dont they test like the 1050 or 1050ti? Because its not 2016 anymore buddy. Try to keep up.

 

[KedsDead]

Well with the big push to everything will be streamed, the 4GB GPU might be on the large size. If streaming the games does not require hardware or memory capacity.

It is the giant push to you will own nothing. You will watch your movies and TV shows, over a streaming service. You will play your games over a streaming service. That is another reason for the huge push for data centers. It is not just AI compute power, its storage space. How else are they going to use those Nvidia GPUs to make money, when they are outdated in two years. Stream games to gamers.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Well with the big push to everything will be streamed, the 4GB GPU might be on the large size. If streaming the games does not require hardware or memory capacity.

It is the giant push to you will own nothing. You will watch your movies and TV shows, over a streaming service. You will play your games over a streaming service. That is another reason for the huge push for data centers. It is not just AI compute power, its storage space. How else are they going to use those Nvidia GPUs to make money, when they are outdated in two years. Stream games to gamers.

Great conspiracy theory, really! Two things:

One, you still need hardware on the receiving end. Not as much, but a 4GB GPU is still gonna struggle to keep up.

Two: those datacenter GPUs are not RTX 5090s. The AI GPUs dont have texture units, for example. They are utterly useless for gaming, either remotely or in person.

 

[Vanderlinde]

Plenty of games, that do not need 4GB at all. I mean there's so many games out there; even I sometimes play RTCW or something random because I feel like it. OEM stuff is usually things on a budget; never really high end unless you specify to really need one.

 

[LordVile95]

The RX 480 offered a 8GB model for $200 a DECADE ago.

4GB for $200 in 2026 is an absolute ripoff.

Actually $200 was the 4GB model of the same card and with standard inflation, not including the crazy hardware price increases, the 4GB 480 would be about $300, the 8GB model would be 330. If you’re looking at a price for price comparison you’re looking at the RX 460 4GB. Again not including addition price hikes beyond pure inflation

Why dont they test like the 1050 or 1050ti? Because its not 2016 anymore buddy. Try to keep up.

It’s the same class of card at the 1050 so the methodology should be the same rather than pretending it was ever designed to run AAA games at anything above very low

 

[brucek]

For me its all about the relative cost of VRAM and GPU silicon.

In a situation like a couple years ago where the GPU cost dwarfed the VRAM cost, it just felt silly to not spend an extra few bucks to protect the value of an expensive GPU. Even if you had no conceivable need of that VRAM for yourself at that moment, there's no way to know what the future might bring or what the person you try to sell the card/system to will care about.

But in today's crazy world, where the VRAM may cost even more than the GPU, well now the logic is different. It's no longer a nearly free addon that you don't want to stupidly forget to attach. There's a lot more room to justify buying only exactly the minimum you need now.

 

[amghwk]

Why game on a 4GB GPU in 2026? For reader views?

(Which means I'm also a sucker to post a comment here, even when I didnt bother to read the whole article.)

 

[LordVile95]

Why game on a 4GB GPU in 2026? For reader views?

(Which means I'm also a sucker to post a comment here, even when I didnt bother to read the whole article.)

Because they have a hard on for scaring people about not having enough VRAM (when they do)

 

[arrowflash]

While I do find the current situation concerning just like everyone else, I don't think people purchasing a video card with 4GB vram in 2026 are going to use it to play AAA slop, much less so at 1440p or above. It's a 1080p GPU for indie games (not counting the unoptimized UE5 indieslop asset flips ofc), e-sports and older titles released the past decade, that's still far ahead of the most powerful desktop iGPUs. So I do think that the testing methodology, mostly using triple-A slop games at 1440p, is a bit flawed since it feels tone deaf.

The biggest issue, of course, is that its MSRP in 2026 shouldn't be more than $100 for the 4GB version (if it was released in retail and not only OEM), and $150 for the 8GB model. At this price point it would've been a nice little card.

 

[LordVile95]

While I do find the current situation concerning just like everyone else, I don't think people purchasing a video card with 4GB vram in 2026 are going to use it to play AAA slop, much less so at 1440p or above. It's a 1080p GPU for indie games (not counting the unoptimized UE5 indieslop asset flips ofc), e-sports and older titles released the past decade, that's still far ahead of the most powerful desktop iGPUs. So I do think that the testing methodology, mostly using triple-A slop games at 1440p, is a bit flawed since it feels tone deaf.

The biggest issue, of course, is that its MSRP in 2026 shouldn't be more than $100 for the 4GB version (if it was released in retail and not only OEM), and $150 for the 8GB model. At this price point it would've been a nice little card.

Your issue is that it’s not 2016 anymore and $100 then is like 140 now not counting hardware increases like VRAM and even then the cards you should be comparing it to would be the 1050 or 460 which started at 110 which would be 150 now for the 2GB model again not factoring in hardware inflation. 200 is about as low as they could feasibly go for this and still make profit.

My concern isn’t really the VRAM is the 64 bit bus, doesn’t matter how much VRAM or GPU you have a 64 bit bus is going to cause issues. Sub 150gBps over a PCIE 5 x16 connection isn’t great. The 1060 3GB model was around 200.

 

[Skully]

No it doesn’t and your testing is flawed. It’s an esports GPU on a x4 interface the 9050 is also an esports GPU but it’s on a x16 interface. Testing a GPU meant for esports on new AAA titles isn’t exactly representative is it. I’m guessing it’s also why you didn’t also use the 8GB model in a side by side as it doesn’t fit your agenda. The limitation is the narrow Bud and the x4 connection as you stated in the review when it launched, you’ve literally dug through every 4GB GPU to find the worst one.

Why don’t you test like the 1050 and 1050ti rather than expecting every GPU to perform like a 5070Ti or better? Maybe you’re just out of touch.

Techspot has an obsession with Trump, Musk and VRAM. It's one of those things as a reader you just have to accept.

 

[toooooot]

Sometimes you look at certain products and their price and just think what the hell they were thinking of.
It is made to lie on the shelves and then to be sold with 40% discount. Why not start with that?

 

[Mr Majestyk]

I'm shocked, absolutely shocked by these results.

 

[yRaz]

Your issue is that it’s not 2016 anymore and $100 then is like 140 now not counting hardware increases like VRAM and even then the cards you should be comparing it to would be the 1050 or 460 which started at 110 which would be 150 now for the 2GB model again not factoring in hardware inflation. 200 is about as low as they could feasibly go for this and still make profit.

My concern isn’t really the VRAM is the 64 bit bus, doesn’t matter how much VRAM or GPU you have a 64 bit bus is going to cause issues. Sub 150gBps over a PCIE 5 x16 connection isn’t great. The 1060 3GB model was around 200.

I have a lot of the same problem now. This is mostly used as a basic display adapter that can play older games. The price is fine, actually probably pretty cheap considering inflation and the market we are in. I remember my 1080ti died during COVID and I had to pay $300 for a 1050ti4gb. There just wasnt anything available at the time, people forget that 3060s we're going for almost $1000 for a little bit.

 

[hahahanoobs]

No it doesn’t and your testing is flawed. It’s an esports GPU...

Try again?

 

[hahahanoobs]

Techspot has an obsession with Trump, Musk and VRAM. It's one of those things as a reader you just have to accept.

Do you accept that he did no research before that long rant?

 

[hahahanoobs]

While I do find the current situation concerning just like everyone else, I don't think people purchasing a video card with 4GB vram in 2026 are going to use it to play AAA slop, much less so at 1440p or above. It's a 1080p GPU for indie games (not counting the unoptimized UE5 indieslop asset flips ofc), e-sports and older titles released the past decade, that's still far ahead of the most powerful desktop iGPUs. So I do think that the testing methodology, mostly using triple-A slop games at 1440p, is a bit flawed since it feels tone deaf.

The biggest issue, of course, is that its MSRP in 2026 shouldn't be more than $100 for the 4GB version (if it was released in retail and not only OEM), and $150 for the 8GB model. At this price point it would've been a nice little card.

You should probably look how AMD is marketing it on their website.

And it comes in a PC. It's not sold separately.