Article 779HY Leaked Radeon RX 9050 hints at the return of 4GB VRAM GPUs in 2026 — new budget RDNA 4 card also spotted in 8GB config with half the power of an RX 9060

Leaked Radeon RX 9050 hints at the return of 4GB VRAM GPUs in 2026 — new budget RDNA 4 card also spotted in 8GB config with half the power of an RX 9060

by
editors@tomshardware.com (Hassam Nasir)
from Latest from Tom's Hardware on (#779HY)

A few months ago, reports of AMD working on a new entry-level GPU began making the rounds, and today we've just got our clearest look yet at the rumored cards. ASRock has just listed the rumored Radeon RX 9050 on its website in two different configurations, 4GB and 8GB, but we have no word on pricing or availability. AMD hasn't made any official announcements yet, so we only have a limited amount of info to dissect, and it should naturally be taken with a grain of salt. However, the leaked specs from an official vendor, which have since been taken down, would herald the return of 4GB VRAM GPUs in 2026, not seen since 2022.

amd hasnt updated the radeon 9000 series family listed on the wesite.asrock rx 9050 4g & rx 9050 8g64bit vs 128biti guess the 8gb card has four 2g chips to reach the full 128bit, while the 4gb card has only two 2g chips, so its only 64bit. would it be better if the 4gb card... https://t.co/yYATuPnioT pic.twitter.com/jX0geYO6uMJuly 28, 2026

The RX 9050 seems to be using a cut-down Navi 44 GPU from the RX 9060 series, with 1,024 cores spread across 16 Compute Units. The leak from May claimed it had 32 CUs instead. ASRock's Challenger variant lists a 1,920 MHz base clock and a 2,600 MHz boost clock. The listing also recommends a 450W power supply, which is 50W less than the RX 9060's 500W recommendation, though we don't know the board power for the RX 9050 yet.

SKU

GPU

Cores

Memory (GDDR6)

Memory Bus

Bandwidth

Board Power

AMD Radeon
RX 9060 XT 8GB

Navi 44

2,048

8 GB

128-bit

320 GB/s

150W

Intel Arc
B580

BMG-G21

2,560

12 GB

192-bit

456 GB/s

190W

NVIDIA GeForce
RTX 5060

GB206

3,840

8 GB (GDDR7)

128-bit

448 GB/s

145W

AMD Radeon
RX 9060

Navi 44

1,792

8 GB

128-bit

288 GB/s

132W

NVIDIA GeForce
RTX 5050

GB207

2,560

8 GB

128-bit

320 GB/s

130W

AMD Radeon
RX 9050 8GB

Navi 44

1,024

8 GB

128-bit

288 GB/s

?

AMD Radeon
RX 9050 4GB

Navi 44

1,024

4 GB

64-bit

144 GB/s

?

Intel Arc
A310

ACM-G11

768

4 GB

64-bit

124 GB/s

30W

NVIDIA GeForce
GTX 1630

TU117

512

4 GB

64-bit

96 GB/s

75W

Those were the mutual specs between both variants - the only difference lies in the memory config. The 4GB variant listing notes 4GB of GDDR6 VRAM operating over a 64-bit bus, giving us a bandwidth of 144 GB/s. We haven't seen a 4GB memory pool in GPUs since 2022, when Intel's Arc A310 and Nvidia's GTX 1630 came out. All current-gen cards have adopted 8GB as a baseline, which already gets criticized for not being future-proof.

The 8GB variant specs listed would double the bandwidth to 288 GB/s thanks to its 128-bit-wide bus. There's a chance AMD is planning to sell the 8GB to consumers directly while keeping the 4GB variant limited to OEMs. We can't say for sure since ASRock is listing it as a Challenger card on its website, but things could always change. We did find the 4GB RX 9050 already included in a CyberPower prebuilt on Best Buy, though, currently listed for $900.

MhFjkyFaonyoQFzrSEmRhJ.png

(Image credit: Future)

The design in the leaked images appears rather generic: a black shroud with silver accents and some RGB lighting. They show two DisplayPort 2.1a and one HDMI 2.1b ports, and the card is powered via a single 8-pin PCIe connector. In terms of performance, the 8GB model should cruise through 1080p gaming, especially with the help of FSR 4. Since this is an RDNA 4 GPU, you get the full benefits of the architecture, including better ray tracing and upscaling tech.

As mentioned earlier, the last GPUs to ship with 4GB of VRAM were released four years ago. The industry is going through a turbulent period given the ongoing component crisis and memory shortage, but this would be another level of desperation.

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