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

hahahanoobs said:
You should probably look how AMD is marketing it on their website.
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It's being marketed as a card that can play AAA games at 1080p with medium quality presets.

That's for the 8GB model though, which sounds about right. The 4GB SKU isn't even listed, since it's OEM.

hahahanoobs said:
And it comes in a PC. It's not sold separately.
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I said I'm aware it's an OEM card in my comment you replied to.

In due time I guess we'll see Chinese brands selling it on AliExpress and eventually also on Amazon
 
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This article is a sad piece of AMD bashing. No surprise there is bias when articles are made here, if anything it is just AMD doing what Nvidia is doing.

Instead of going after one player suggesting they are out to scam consumers, then a piece on how companies use names for desktops and laptops despite the laptop versions being nothing like the desktop ones. That is a much bigger issue, only that would of course mean saying bad things about the green team.
 
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LordVile95 said:
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.
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It is not just 4GB vs 8GB. The 4GB 9050 has HALF the memory bandwidth of the 8GB version because the bus is also cut in half. I don't think they said it here, but they did in their podcast: The only acceptable way this product should exist is if it was called a RX 9040. Otherwise it is borderline criminal consumer deception.
 
disinfect8280 said:
It is not just 4GB vs 8GB. The 4GB 9050 has HALF the memory bandwidth of the 8GB version because the bus is also cut in half. I don't think they said it here, but they did in their podcast: The only acceptable way this product should exist is if it was called a RX 9040. Otherwise it is borderline criminal consumer deception.
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Not really? There’s been far worse examples of GPUs with the same name with different specs. At least it’s the same chip, though again this is an OEM product not something you can buy yourself
 
Kind of a bias review. While I agree 4 GB is way below what is needed nowadays, it’s works fine for many games, especially ones kids play. Fortnite? Minecraft? League of Legends? Geometry Dash? The list goes on.. almost every game here is an AAA game. A 4 GB card isn’t designed for your average viewer. It’s designed for their kids.
 
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It simply comes down to the game designer having texture sets that fit into 4GB. One solution is have an option that is smooth shading without textures. Then don't need to design the low quality texture sets at all. And it'll work on even older cards with only 2GB of VRAM as well.
 
arrowflash said:
It's being marketed as a card that can play AAA games at 1080p with medium quality presets.

That's for the 8GB model though, which sounds about right. The 4GB SKU isn't even listed, since it's OEM.



I said I'm aware it's an OEM card in my comment you replied to.

In due time I guess we'll see Chinese brands selling it on AliExpress and eventually also on Amazon
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Expand the details and the card is listed as: Max 8GB.

So, unless they're marketing the card for different uses depending on RAM, both are marketed for AAA gaming according to their product page.
 
This is so dishonest from Tim who brags to protect consumer rights by requesting lower GPU prices, but asking to double them on the low end just in memory cost...

Guess what Tim, go take a look at the memory prices and if you are not happy, just go buy GOODGUY Nvidia GPUs at inflated prices like the 5070 TI costing 50% more than a 9070XT.
 
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Inthenstus said:
Kind of a bias review. While I agree 4 GB is way below what is needed nowadays, it’s works fine for many games, especially ones kids play. Fortnite? Minecraft? League of Legends? Geometry Dash? The list goes on.. almost every game here is an AAA game. A 4 GB card isn’t designed for your average viewer. It’s designed for their kids.
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I have a laptop with 4050, 6GB. It was surprisingly able in fifa 23, in the original resolution of something weird between 4k and 2k. If anything, the worst enemy of this GPU is unoptimized unreal games.
 
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I think its a shame we cant buy the 4GB card separately. I work for a company that installs computers for dental implant planning. We need a 3D accelerator but we dont need much VRAM. I have never seen any 3D implant software using more than 2.1GB. So a 4GB card would be more than enough. Right now we are using RTX 3050s and they are overkill. I would love to charge our clients a bit less and supply only a 4GB card.

Techspot doesnt understand what people use computers for. Its not just games. If this site were called "gamespot" then I would give them a pass. But hating on a graphics card because it only has 4GB of VRAM is just bad journalism.

Get it together TS.
 
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I owned a RX580 with 8GB of RAM. I remember doing tests myself on Doom Eternal; dialing up all possible to 7.8GB of VRAM. Not a big difference in performance nor visuals really compared to 3.5GB. You can add hundreds of extra's MB's of VRAM but if the GPU is not capable of actually using it it's a dead end.

Above card sounds more like a 720p based E-sports card, and should not be used in modern day 1080P with visuals all cranked up anyway.

There's a big difference in between allocating vs actually using VRAM. Most use it for caching or storing large textures - to prevent claiming them from disk in between scenes and so on. And yes as tech or software is improving, or consoles now streamlining things as you go.

manowar51 said:
I think its a shame we cant buy the 4GB card separately. I work for a company that installs computers for dental implant planning. We need a 3D accelerator but we dont need much VRAM. I have never seen any 3D implant software using more than 2.1GB. So a 4GB card would be more than enough. Right now we are using RTX 3050s and they are overkill. I would love to charge our clients a bit less and supply only a 4GB card.

Techspot doesnt understand what people use computers for. Its not just games. If this site were called "gamespot" then I would give them a pass. But hating on a graphics card because it only has 4GB of VRAM is just bad journalism.

Get it together TS.
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Exactly. It's sold as a OEM card; gamers have no business in OEM anyway; you buy a "gaming RGB PC!!!!111" off the shelves if you need one or assemble one your own. AMD is just filling the gaps and leaves no silicon to waste really.
 
manowar51 said:
I think its a shame we cant buy the 4GB card separately. I work for a company that installs computers for dental implant planning. We need a 3D accelerator but we dont need much VRAM. I have never seen any 3D implant software using more than 2.1GB. So a 4GB card would be more than enough. Right now we are using RTX 3050s and they are overkill. I would love to charge our clients a bit less and supply only a 4GB card.

Techspot doesnt understand what people use computers for. Its not just games. If this site were called "gamespot" then I would give them a pass. But hating on a graphics card because it only has 4GB of VRAM is just bad journalism.

Get it together TS.
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Micro Center near me sells GeForce GT 1030 4GB for $119. I've used less for basic 3D modeling so I bet it's more than enough.
 
Theinsanegamer said:
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.
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No, it' absolutely won't. If your game is being streamed, you could have a 256MB card and it'd be more than enough.

That said... what a joke. I'd rather have the integrated graphics and some extra cash in my pocket than to pay for a 4GB card with a restricted bus like this. I have a GTX1650 4GB, and it's holding on fine, but I sure as hell wouldn't buy one today.

Secondly, it does draw 98W. It's too bad they couldn't strip it down to use 75W, at least then you'd have a GPU that can run purely off the PCIe slot (my GTX1650 can.)

I feel bad for people who get a 'gaming PC' and end up with one of these things; yes, it can play esports I guess, and whatever that people in the comments making excuses for this thing say it can play. But, then after they've spent all that money (I'm sure $1000+) on a new PC, to find out those games are playing like they are because they shaved like $50-100 off the GPU? That would be very disappointing.
 
I was playing CP2077 kind of fine until last year in a Radeon RX470 4GB from Sapphire, yes the 4GB version (will not tell what CPU I use, but 24 GB of RAM is what I still have). a card buyed in 2016. the game I played that taxed it the most was Metro Exodus.
1080p, FSR and tweaked settings and CP2077 was above 30 fps all the time, so for me, it was fine, anything above 30 is good to me (I even lock some games to 30).
then moved to a RTX3060ti, 8GB, and Im happy, training some AI models several times faster, using some local LLMs, and playing with better settings (CP2077 almost maxed). maybe in 8 or 10 years I may need another card
 
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