8GB VRAM once extreme, now it is time to move on
Sapphire’s Radeon R9 290X 8GB was ahead of its time and AMD did not like the company’s stunt to launch it.
© ComputerBase The first single-GPU gaming graphics card with 8GB of VRAM is now 12 years old. ComputerBase has recalled its 2014 test of the Sapphire Radeon R9 290X Vapor-X Tri-X OC 8GB, a limited card that doubled the memory capacity of AMD’s Hawaii GPU from 4GB to 8GB.
This was not a standard product launch at first. Sapphire announced the 8GB model in March 2014, then cancelled it after AMD reportedly did not approve the memory upgrade. The card later appeared in retail anyway, with AMD allowing around 250 already-produced units to be sold through retailers such as Overclockers UK and Caseking.
At the time, 8GB was hard to justify for most games. ComputerBase had to test at 3840×2160 with heavy AA and AF settings to expose clear differences between the 4GB and 8GB models. In normal cases, GPU performance was still the bigger limit. In selected tests, the 4GB card ran out of memory and performance collapsed, while the 8GB card kept running. Not to mention that the successor, the RX 390X, which was essentially a Hawaii GPU Refresh, formally offered 8GB models.
12 (!) years ago, we tested the first gaming GPU with 8 GB memory — the limited edition 290X Tri-X 8 GB from @SapphireTech . At first, @AMD tried to stop it, but eventually gave the go-ahead. Here’s our review from 2014: https://t.co/AZ07AKRyY8
And now: 8 GB, please retire! pic.twitter.com/Vqe2NbJ2cI
— ComputerBase (@ComputerBase) May 15, 2026
It’s time to retire 8GB VRAM cards
Twelve years later, the situation has changed. 8GB is no longer an enthusiast-class memory configuration. It is still used on current gaming GPUs such as GeForce RTX 5060, GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8GB, GeForce RTX 5050, and Radeon RX 9060 XT 8GB. Some of these cards target 1080p gaming, but modern games can already exceed 8GB with higher texture settings, ray tracing, or upscaling features enabled.
Source: ComputerBase
