'Revenue per gigabyte': Nvidia's possible plan revealed as chipmaker set to reduce percentage of mid-tier RTX 50-series GPUs thanks to RAM crisis

Nvidia has been in the spotlight amid the ongoing RAM crisis, with the supply of its RTX 50-series GPUs in question despite Team Green stating it will "continue to ship" its graphics cards. Now, we may have further insight into the company's plans.

The memory shortage is already raising the price of consumer RAM, and it's set to affect tech across the board, including laptops, phones, consoles and more. That also includes GPUs and their video memory (VRAM), putting Nvidia in focus. In fact, to the extent that the RTX 5070 Ti with 16GB VRAM and others were tipped to be put into an EoL (End of Life) status.

However, the tech giant responded to Tom's Guide with the following:

"Demand for GeForce RTX GPUs is strong, and memory supply is constrained. We continue to ship all GeForce SKUs and are working closely with our suppliers to maximize memory availability."

This confirms that all RTX 50-series GPUs will be sticking around, but Nvidia will still struggle with the short supply of RAM. According to Gigabyte CEO Eddie Lin, in an interview with our sister site Tom's Hardware, the company may prioritize certain graphics cards over other popular choices — and it's all to do with "how much revenue contributes per gigabyte of memory."

A plan of GPU action

With RAM in short supply, GPUs with higher VRAM are set to be a premium, and that includes popular mid-tier graphics cards with 16GB video memory. While Nvidia claims these will still be in development, it's looking to shift focus to other GPUs that will gain more revenue.

"They cannot produce only high-end or low-end [products]... but they can, for example, they have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, five segments," Lin states to Tom's Hardware. "They focus on 1, 3, and 5, and reduce the percentage on 2 and 4, because on 2 and 4, the revenue contribution per gigabyte of memory is lower. They will calculate how much revenue [each segment] contributes per gigabyte of memory."

For context, this means that instead of pushing the supply of all its graphics cards, Nvidia's strategy is to focus on GPUs that offer the most revenue per gigabyte.

Lin continues to explain, starting with a $300 GPU like the RTX 5060 with 8GB GDDR7 VRAM: "The memory contributes $35 per GB of revenue, whereas for a $400 8GB GPU, that product would contribute $50 per GB of memory. For a $500 [card] with 16GB of memory, that puts you at only $32 of revenue per GB, then the [contribution] is lower."

As an example, since the RTX 5060 with 8GB VRAM delivers $35 per gigabyte in revenue and the RTX 5060 Ti with 8GB offers $50, then Nvidia will allocate more production of the latter, seeing as there will be a bigger return.

With this in mind, we expect certain RTX 50-series GPUs to be in greater supply compared to others, and that's bad news for those looking for an RTX 5060 Ti with 16GB and RTX 5070 Ti with 16GB.

Shorter supply

From Gigabyte's comments, Nvidia's GPU strategy will see many popular GPUs be harder to find on shelves this year, even though they will still be in the works. If anything, it's likely that we'll see 8GB VRAM become the norm, with 16GB VRAM on its last legs.

According to a chart of revenue per gigabyte from Tom's Hardware, here are the numbers on what we can expect. This will paint a better picture of the GPUs that will be in focus:

In the entry-level GPU category, you'll find the RTX 5060 Ti with 8GB GDDR7 VRAM offers the most revenue compared to its siblings, the RTX 5060 with 8GB and RTX 5060 Ti with 16GB. So, expect to find plenty more 8GB RTX 5060 Ti models around.

As for the mid-range, the RTX 5070 Ti with 16GB obviously uses more video memory, which will increase its price in production. The RTX 5070 with 12GB, however, delivers similar revenue, so this is likely to be prioritized over the more popular Ti model (sadly).

In the higher range, there's the RTX 5080 with 16GB and RTX 5090 with a whopping 32GB. Following the mid-tier, the RTX 5080 is looking to see more of a focus, considering it's largely reduced use of RAM.

It's unfortunate, but the RTX 5060 Ti with 16GB and RTX 5070 Ti with 16GB may be a precious purchase down the line, following this strategy. The RTX 5090 is already tough to get, with prices going well over MSRP. So, expect to see more RTX 5060 Ti with 8GB, RTX 5070 with 12GB and RTX 5080 with 16GB at retailers more often than not.

As the RAM crisis continues, we'll start to see how the market for all upcoming tech plays out, and Nvidia GPUs will certainly be in the spotlight. Who knows, we may even be renting a PC from the cloud in the future.

Follow Tom's Guide on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds.

More from Tom's Guide

• I don’t like it, but the RAM crisis might force gamers to play on the cloud
• Asus rep says memory shortage should 'start to normalize' by 2027, but 'nobody wants to be the first one to lower prices'
• 'That's not going to last': Jeff Bezos believes AI will force you to rent your PC from the cloud, and the RAM crisis is accelerating it