Summary created by Smart Answers AI
In summary:
- PCWorld reports a leak suggesting AMD’s Radeon RX 9050 desktop graphics card with 8GB VRAM may be the sole new consumer GPU option in 2026.
- The entry-level RX 9050 would use the Navi 44 chip with slower clock speeds, potentially competing with Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5050 around $250-$300.
- Graphics card shortages persist as AMD and Nvidia prioritize lucrative data center markets over consumer GPUs, leaving desktop gamers with limited options.
RAM and storage shortages are making the headlines, but it’s pretty bleak out there if you’re looking for a new graphics card, too. With data centers gobbling up all the manufacturing capacity, neither Nvidia nor AMD seem interested in making new desktop cards, at least this calendar year. But there’s one new possibility from Team Red—a rumored entry-level card that would slide beneath the Radeon RX 9060.
According to a purported leak from VideoCardz, the Radeon RX 9050 would be an 8GB GPU based on the Navi 44, the same chip powering the RX 9060 XT and the 9060 (which technically doesn’t have a retail price since it’s exclusive to OEM pre-builts). Though the proposed 2,048 cores are boosted over the current bottom-level card, both the 1,920MHz base clock and 2,600MHz boost clock are considerably slower. It’s using the same 128-bit memory bus as both 9060 cards. The 9060 was released in August of last year (again, not directly to consumers) while the 9060 XT came in June, almost a full year ago.
The specs roughly align with Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5050 (July, if you’re wondering), which retails for $250 but is hovering around the $300 mark right now. The 8GB version of the Radeon 9060 XT is supposed to be around $300 but is running considerably higher, even if its 16GB alternate is much more popular with PC gamers.
Normally we would’ve expected to see refreshed versions of desktop graphics cards about a month or two ago, or maybe rumors of a summer boost. Not so in 2026, when Nvidia’s RTX 50-series Super variants are no-shows and Intel hasn’t released a new Arc consumer desktop card since the B570 last January. The RTX 5070 12GB upgrade for laptops is the single, solitary release since last summer. At least GPUs are easy to find on the shelves—possibly because DIY desktop upgrades have slowed to a crawl—though prices remain elevated as GDDR memory output remains low.
But don’t cry for AMD. It reported over $10 billion in revenue in the first quarter of this year, more than half of it pure profit, most of which came from data centers. As for Nvidia? Good lord. Nvidia recorded $44 billion in revenue in the first three months of this year, a 69 percent rise year-over-year, and it wasn’t exactly eating lean in 2025 either. Almost all of that was from data center sales. That puts Nvidia’s 2026 projected income at more than the GDP of most countries on the planet.
AMD’s revenue purely from gaming was just $720 million in the first quarter while Nvidia’s was $3.8 billion. No wonder consumer-level graphics cards aren’t exactly a priority anymore.