Amid the growing memory shortage crisis, Nvidia is reportedly planning to focus its 2026 consumer graphics card production on the GeForce RTX 5060 and 5060 Ti 8GB.
As VideoCardz reports, citing Board Channels, this move will see a reduced supply of other RTX 50-series cards, including popular models like the 5070 and 5070 Ti. Top models, like the RTX 5080 and 5090 have already exploded in price, and that’s likely to continue this year.
The memory shortage problem has been growing for several months, as tech giants buy up high-end GPUs to outfit their AI data centers. Nvidia is now looking to focus its constrained production efforts on its more affordable graphics cards. “Nvidia and AIC [add-in-card] brand manufacturers will readjust the RTX 5060 and RTX 5060 Ti 8G series as the main products with significant logistics impact,” Board Channels says.
An uptick in supply of those cards will make it possible for Nvidia to fulfill its obligations to board partners and retailers in various markets. That could help avoid price rises for those more affordable cards, but Nvidia reportedly isn’t ruling it out.
You’ll have 8GB of VRAM, and you’ll like it. (Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
It certainly can’t do that for higher-end cards. The flagship RTX 5090 almost made it back down to its MSRP around the middle of 2025, but as the hardware shortages have grown more acute, its price has skyrocketed. At the time of writing, we can’t find one online for less than $3,500, and many models are now selling in excess of $5,000. The RTX 5080 isn’t as negatively affected, but finding one for less than $1,500 is also difficult.
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This comes at a terrible time for gamers as newer titles demand more VRAM than ever before. Cards sporting 8GB are largely seen as ineffective for playing the latest games at anything above 1080p and low settings. And yet with Nvidia’s reprioritization on more affordable and VRAM-limited GPUs, that may be all that’s available before long.
Especially since Nvidia is also reportedly restarting production of its two-generation-old RTX 3060 graphics card, which may also come with just 8GB of VRAM. Although it originally launched with 12GB, an 8GB version it released later on seems a more likely candidate for a memory-shortage-inspired resurrection.
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Jon Martindale
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Jon Martindale is a tech journalist from the UK, with 20 years of experience covering all manner of PC components and associated gadgets. He’s written for a range of publications, including ExtremeTech, Digital Trends, Forbes, U.S. News & World Report, and Lifewire, among others. When not writing, he’s a big board gamer and reader, with a particular habit of speed-reading through long manga sagas.
Jon covers the latest PC components, as well as how-to guides on everything from how to take a screenshot to how to set up your cryptocurrency wallet. He particularly enjoys the battles between the top tech giants in CPUs and GPUs, and tries his best not to take sides.
Jon’s gaming PC is built around the iconic 7950X3D CPU, with a 7900XTX backing it up. That’s all the power he needs to play lightweight indie and casual games, as well as more demanding sim titles like Kerbal Space Program. He uses a pair of Jabra Active 8 earbuds and a SteelSeries Arctis Pro wireless headset, and types all day on a Logitech G915 mechanical keyboard.
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