Seriously People, It's Fine The Steam Machine Has Just 8 Gb Of...

But I'll eat my words if that price tag is too high.

Valve's Steam Machine has been received generally quite well so far. Judging by online commentary, there's plenty of excitement for it, although pretty much everything of course rests on its pricing. But apart from the over-abundance of still-somehow-funny 'GabeCube' comments, what I've seen perhaps the most is people questioning why the Steam Machine has just 8 GB of VRAM.

It's not a new phenomenon; people have been complaining about graphics cards having just 8 GB of VRAM for years now. The problem really rose to the forefront with the RTX 4060 Ti, which initially launched with just 8 GB of VRAM to the chagrin of some. Nvidia then released a 16 GB version with a much higher price tag, which people also didn't like—many seemed to just want a 16 GB version with the 8 GB's price tag.

The complaint is that 8 GB of VRAM isn't enough for gaming in 2025 in many cases. And this much is true for at least some games to run at higher settings, such as Hogwarts Legacy and The Last of Us Part 1—this was resolved in The Last of Us Part 2, though. Even when games don't seem to be trying to use more than 8 GB of VRAM, that might be because they're choosing not to stream as many or higher-resolution textures, for example, meaning you're not getting the full graphical experience.

But on the other hand, there are plenty—and I mean plenty—of games that run well with just 8 GB of video memory, especially on restricted settings and lower resolutions. Not everything is about new games at max settings. I think there's a good argument to be made for 8 GB of VRAM being fine for a budget rig but not ideal for a mid-range build and especially not a high-end one.

And therein lies the question: What should we expect from the Steam Machine? Is it a budget gaming PC or something more? We, of course, won't know the full answer to this until pricing is released, but given its specs, I think 8 GB of VRAM makes sense.

We're talking about a GPU that seems to be something akin to the RX 7600M, a previous-gen mobile GPU with 28 compute units (CUs). That's fewer, older CUs than even the current-gen RX 9060 XT, which might I remind you also has an 8 GB variant with an MSRP of $300.

The RX 7600M's Navi 33 GPU has a 128-bit bus width, and we can expect the Steam Machine to have the same, which will make 16 GB of VRAM difficult. Assuming 2 GB memory modules are used, four of them can run across a 32-bit lane each, making for 8 GB total. W

Source: PC Gamer