16 GB of video memory has become the new standard for gamers on Steam
The bar for a "normal" amount of video memory has quietly moved up. Just a couple years ago, 8GB counted as a comfortable minimum for most games, but cards with that same amount are no longer the favorite pick today.
Fresh statistics from the Steam Hardware Survey caught the moment when 16GB overtook 8GB and became the largest share among players.
This is specifically about VRAM, not system RAM, and that distinction led to some amusing confusion.
Because the post description left out that detail, plenty of people initially figured 16GB of RAM had suddenly become rare, wondering who on earth was running 22GB of system memory. The actual explanation is simpler: the 22GB VRAM entry in the survey comes from modified RTX 2080 Ti cards out of the Chinese market, which had their memory resoldered from 11GB to double that amount.
It's worth not mixing up the terms here. Largest share doesn't mean majority, since 16GB only grabbed about a third of the pie, while cards with 11GB or less combined still cover more than half of all systems. Cards at 8GB or below still account for over 40 percent of participants. So calling this a full victory for high-capacity cards is a bit premature.
The category below 8GB lives its own life and doesn't look like it's dying out at all.
The 512MB entry comes from integrated graphics on desktop Ryzen 7000 and 9000 chips, which reserve that amount for the iGPU and pull the rest from system memory. Owners of 6GB and 4GB cards, meanwhile, run hundreds if not thousands of titles without issue, even if textures have to sit on low settings.
The most entertaining part is the lineup of 12GB options, where Nvidia seems to go out of its way to confuse buyers.
Twelve gigabytes shows up on the RTX 4070 and its Super version, the RTX 3060, the standard RTX 3080 12GB, the 3080 Ti, plus the 5070, a whole zoo of Radeon cards from the 6700 XT to the 9070 GRE, and old Titan cards on the Maxwell and Pascal architectures. Adding a bit of extra flavor to the situation: the RTX 3060 carries more VRAM than the newer 5060.
