NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 and 5060 Ti: Are Variants with 9 GB of Memory Coming?

According to rumors from Chinese forums reported by Wccftech, NVIDIA is said to be working on new variants of the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti and RTX 5060. The main novelty would be the adoption of 9 GB of GDDR7 video memory, an increase of 1 GB over the current standard configuration of 8 GB, made possible by the introduction of new high-density 3 GB memory modules produced by Samsung and Micron.

NVIDIA would have instructed AIB (Add-in Board) partners to integrate these modules, which allow for increasing the overall VRAM capacity without necessarily expanding the memory bus. The goal from Santa Clara seems to be twofold: on one hand, to mitigate memory bottlenecks at higher resolutions and in workloads related to generative AI; on the other, to optimize production costs by using only three memory modules instead of four, as needed for the 8 GB versions.

Although greater VRAM capacity is a boost, the chosen technical implementation would entail a sacrifice on the memory performance front. The current 8 GB versions rely on a 128-bit interface, while the 9 GB configuration (based on three 3 GB modules) would require a shift to a 96-bit bus. This contraction of the interface should affect the overall bandwidth, dropping it from about 448 GB/s to 336 GB/s (assuming a speed of 28 Gbps).

Even if NVIDIA opted for faster 30 Gbps modules, the bandwidth would settle around 360 GB/s, a value that would represent a significant reduction compared to standard models. It remains to be seen how the Blackwell architecture will compensate for this lower bandwidth in actual gaming.

The specifications of the GPU and other technical characteristics should remain unchanged. The launch of these new variants is expected between the end of May and the beginning of June, a time frame that suggests an official presentation during Computex in Taipei. It is still unclear whether the production cost savings from using fewer modules will be reflected in the final suggested retail price. Lastly, it should not be forgotten that there have also been rumors about the arrival of an RTX 5050 with 9 GB of VRAM.