The July Steam Survey Is In: 16GB GPUs Have Officially Overtaken 8GB for the First Time

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David_Schroth

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The monthly Steam Hardware Survey rarely delivers genuine milestones, but Valve’s July 2026 data contains two that have been building for most of this year: graphics cards with 16GB of VRAM now account for 25.9% of surveyed Steam systems, edging past 8GB cards at 25.32% to become the most common VRAM configuration on the platform […]

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Out of context I am not sure it matters - till resolution comes into play.

I have been wondering if 16gb is enough for 4k - so far it seems so. Not that I have been pushing my system much. AARPG's (POE 1-2/GD/TQ 1-2) tend to be more CPU bottlenecked than GPU.

Hmmmm Copilot seems to think:

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16GB will work most of the time with no issues for 4K but I do occasionally see outliers of 18-20+ GB and I'm sure a 16GB will just load as needed so there could be more stutters or slightly lower FPS. I'm constantly checking stuff like this when gaming at 4K/70-115 FPS (my main displays are 120Hz G-sync), using DLSS performance, quality, or DLAA when able, but also MFG 2x or 3x, and of course everything usually set to max.
 
Ya I have a tendency to set things to ULTRA (Max) as well. And for some reason just dont like upscaling - I prefer everything native.

For what I play/do 60 fps is good and anything more is nifty. Still I miss the 24gb my 7900xtx had. The 16gb downgrade being balanced by improved Ray Trace is nice though.
 
Just don't forget DLAA, it's not the same as upscaling, it's native and then some. A lot of folks get this one mixed up.

Per Wiki (but accurate):

DLAA stands for Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing. It is an AI-powered anti-aliasing technology made by Nvidia that runs at your monitor's full native resolution. Unlike DLSS, which scales down resolution to boost frame rates, DLAA uses the AI core pipeline purely to clear up jagged edges and shimmering without any upscaling.
 
Peter_Brosdahl said:
Just don't forget DLAA, it's not the same as upscaling, it's native and then some. A lot of folks get this one mixed up.
Click to expand...
I've noticed with DLAA it causes ghosting of things like antennas on cars at high speed in Forza Horizon 6. That's JUST with DLAA. Also causes weird texture variance around the base of the car on some roadways as well. Over all the game looks better at 4k without those artifacts for me.
 
Interesting, don't have this game, but one I'm considering getting when it eventually gets discounted. Good to know.
 
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