Four-gigabyte graphics cards are back. In 2026, AMD has decided that what the entry-level GPU market really needs is another model with a memory capacity that was already inadequate four years ago.
The new Radeon RX 9050 comes in an 8GB configuration, but AMD has also created a 4GB version for OEM systems. That means you probably won't find the lesser model sitting on a retail shelf. Instead, it will appear in inexpensive prebuilt PCs aimed at less-informed buyers – the people most likely to assume that a new Radeon bearing a current-generation model number will be capable of playing current-generation games.
We've seen this strategy before. The obvious spiritual predecessor to the 4GB RX 9050 is the Radeon RX 6500 XT, launched in January 2022 at a nominal $200 MSRP. That was during the cryptocurrency-fueled GPU shortage, so in practice many buyers faced prices closer to $300. Even at the official price, it was one of the worst graphics card releases in recent memory.
The problems extended well beyond its 4GB VRAM buffer. AMD equipped the RX 6500 XT with only two display outputs – one DisplayPort and one HDMI – removed the hardware video encoder, and connected the GPU through a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface. If a game exceeded the local memory capacity and began moving data through system memory, that narrow interface could become another serious bottleneck, particularly in older PCIe 3.0 systems.
