Whistleblower Edward Snowden calls Nvidia’s RTX 5000 series a crime against consumers, blasts paltry VRAM – TechSpot

What just happened? It really says something about how disappointing Nvidia’s RTX 5000 series is proving to be when Edward Snowden publicly criticizes it. The infamous whistleblower has slammed the cards’ poor value and low amounts of VRAM, calling Blackwell a “monopolistic crime against the consumer.” Snowden, the former NSA contractor who leaked classified documents in 2013 revealing the agency’s global surveillance programs, isn’t a fan of the RTX 5000 series.In a post to his official X account, Snowden blamed endless next-quarter thinking for reducing Nvidia’s brand to “F-tier value for S-tier prices.”Snowden went on to blast the other element of Blackwell consumer graphics cards that has upset gamers: the disappointing amount of VRAM found in the products. He writes that the RTX 5070 should have a minimum of 16GB instead of the 12GB of GDDR7 it offers.Endless next-quarter thinking has reduced the Nvidia brand to “F-tier value for S-tier prices”. 5070 should have had 16GB VRAM minimum, 5080 w 24/32 SKUs, 5090 32/48/+. Releasing a $1,000+ GPU in 2025 with a crippling 16GB is a monopolistic crime against the consumer.Snowden adds that the RTX 5080, which, like the RTX 5070 Ti, has just 16GB of VRAM, should be available in two SKUs offering 24GB and 32GB of memory. He also believes that the 32GB RTX 5090 should also have alternative versions with 48GB and more VRAM.We have to agree with Snowden on this one. Our review of the RTX 5080 highlighted the poor generational improvements of the $1,000 card, which has a cost-per-frame that is around 10% (at best) better than the RTX 4080 Super. We gave the card a score of 70.Also see: Nvidia’s RTX 5080 is Actually an RTX 5070While we acknowledged that the RTX 5090 is now at the top of the stack when it comes to raw gaming performance, the 30% uptick for what will be at least a 25% price increase certainly isn’t great.As for the VRAM, Nvidia no doubt limited the amount in the 5080 in the hopes of pushing people onto the $2,000 RTX 5090. The ungenerous amount of memory also leaves the door open for Nvidia to release RTX 5000 Super-series cards in the future with more VRAM and higher price tags.Despite the mostly negative press and consumer reaction, gamers (and scalpers) were camping out at stores for days ahead of the RTX 5090 and 5080 launch last week. There were also chaotic scenes in Japan as people queued to win a chance to buy one of the cards.The severe stock shortages of the Blackwell cards have led many people to label this a paper launch. Numerous Micro Center outlets were allocated only handfuls of GPUs, especially RTX 5090s. In some cases, just four or five of the flagships were available to purchase.TECHSPOT : Tech Enthusiasts, Power Users, GamersTechSpot is a registered trademark. About Us Ethics Statement Terms of Use Privacy Policy Change Ad Consent Advertise© 1998 – 2025 TechSpot, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Source: https://www.techspot.com/news/106614-whistleblower-edward-snowden-calls-nvidia-rtx-5000-series.html