Nvidia Is Finally Doing Something About the RAM Apocalypse

Over the past few months, Nvidia has let a RAM crisis spread on its coveted RTX 50-series graphics cards. Now, it’s finally offering a little more bang for your buck over lower-end GPUs, though—unfortunately—only for laptops. This is a small start to tackling the industry-wide problems that have made PC gaming too expensive.

Nvidia, still the world’s most valuable company thanks to its AI training chips, shared new plans for mobile version versions of its GeForce RTX 5070. Discrete GPUs originally had 8GB of VRAM. This limitation hinders the GPU’s ability to support higher resolutions in games like 1440p or 4K. In a blog post, Nvidia said it is introducing a 12GB VRAM configuration of the RTX 5070. That’s enough to push low-end gaming laptops beyond what you currently have on devices like the Razer Blade 14.

Here is the full statement:

“Demand for GeForce RTX GPUs remains strong, and memory supply is constrained. To maximize memory availability, we are releasing the GeForce RTX 5070 Laptop GPU 12GB configuration with 24Gb G7 memory. This gives our partners access to an additional pool of memory to complement the 16Gb G7 supply that currently comes with most GeForce GPUs. The 12GB configuration will exist alongside the current 8GB configuration and allows our partners to bring a “Wide range of GeForce RTX 5070 laptops for consumers.”

Additional memory is built on 24Gb GDDR7 memory modules. In February, semiconductor company Micron released this type of memory module to offer fast, high-bandwidth RAM for GPUs. Nvidia hasn’t mentioned anything about its desktop-level GPUs, though we can expect Nvidia to introduce improved versions of the RTX 5070 graphics card, even if we still have no word on the upgraded RTX 5070 Super.

The RTX 5070 has faced a price increase, though not as hard as 4K-ready GPUs like the RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5080, or RTX 5090. Gaming laptops have also become much more expensive as a result. By focusing on the lower end, Nvidia can ignore the plight of graphics cards with 16GB or 24GB of VRAM and still provide some better options for entry-level consumers.

Despite promoting the development of AI, Nvidia and all of its AIB (add-in board) partners have suffered losses due to the memory demands of AI data center projects. The GPU maker’s RTX 5060 Ti with its 16GB of VRAM sells for around $500, which is just a little more than its suggested retail price of $430. This is good enough for 1440p resolution. Nvidia’s cheapest 4K-ready card, the RTX 5070 Ti, now retails for close to $1,000 at most online stores, which is $250 more than its original suggested price. Something’s got to give, and Nvidia needs to provide more options for gamers on laptops and desktops.