Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 8GB vs. 16GB Tested Across PCIe 3.0, 4.0 and 5.0

Recently we examined how PCI Express bandwidth influences the performance of the 8 GB Radeon RX 9060 XT when local video memory (VRAM) is exceeded. The entire purpose of that testing was to push past the VRAM limit, which, unfortunately for 8 GB graphics cards, is a relatively easy task in 2025. This can happen even when using settings that would otherwise be highly playable, as demonstrated by the 16 GB model.

This is an interesting test for several reasons, the most notable being that PCIe bandwidth becomes a primary bottleneck when required VRAM is exceeded. Increasing bandwidth can help reduce the performance penalty of moving game assets into local system memory (RAM).

Understanding VRAM and PCIe Bandwidth

To briefly explain, when VRAM runs out, game assets are shifted to system RAM. The data must pass through the PCI Express bus to the CPU's memory controller and then out ...