Hardware Unboxed's worst GPUs of 2025 list consists of RTX 5050, RX 9060 XT 8 GB, and more

As we look back on 2025 from a PC gamer’s perspective, the year has been bittersweet. Both AMD and Nvidia released next-generation RX 9000 and RTX 50 series GPUs, respectively, which was quite exciting. However, the excitement was quickly overshadowed by the bad stock situation that plagued the March 2025 launch of the RX 9070 series and AMD and Nvidia’s insistence on releasing desktop GPUs with 8 GB of VRAM.

Hardware Unboxed has now released its list of the worst GPUs of 2025, and, unsurprisingly, it is dominated by 8 GB VRAM GPUs. Per HU, the worst GPUs in 2025 are:

1. Nvidia GeForce RTX 5050
2. GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB
3. AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB
4. GeForce RTX 5080

Quietly released in June 2025, the RTX 5050 has almost nothing going for it. The GPU features only 2,560 CUDA cores, 8 GB of VRAM, and only 320 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The RTX 5050 also has only x8 PCIe lanes, which will have a performance impact for folks on PCIe 3.0 motherboards. Naturally, these specs also mean that the performance of the RTX 5050 is not great. Even Nvidia’s official benchmarks had the GPU lagging behind the RTX 4060, a GPU that launched back in 2023.

So, the only saving grace for the RTX 5050 was its $249 MSRP. The GPU can now be had for around $220 on Amazon. This is a reasonable price for gamers who need a card for 1080p gaming using low/medium settings. However, if you can spend a bit more, the RTX 5060 is a much better option that still retails for less than $300 on Amazon.

Where the 8 GB VRAM buffer might make sense for the RTX 5050, owing to its low price, the RX 9060 XT and the RTX 5060 Ti have absolutely no reason to pack only 8 GB of VRAM and cost more than $300. HU has been on a crusade against 8 GB VRAM GPUs in 2025. So, it is no surprise the outlet has labeled the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB and the RX 9060 XT 8 GB as two of the worst cards to come out in 2025.

While both the RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB and the RX 9060 XT 8 GB perform alright in games that don’t need more than 8 GB of VRAM, the performance becomes abysmal when games exceed the VRAM buffer. HU has demonstrated this time and again in different games.

Finally, the RTX 5080 also occupies a spot in HU’s inglorious list. HU calls the RTX 5080 the worst RTX 80-class GPU release to date. The reasons? It has half the VRAM of the RTX 5090, is difficult to find at $1,000 MSRP, and is much slower than the RTX 5090. Our testing shows that the RTX 5080 is even slower than the last-gen RTX 4090 to the tune of 15%.

Thankfully, there is a silver lining to all of this: Consumers seem to have finally started moving away from 8 GB VRAM GPUs. For instance, there is not a single desktop GPU with 8 GB of VRAM in Newegg’s top-20 best-selling desktop GPU list.