This site asks for 1.5 Go of ram https://ubuntugnome.org/, Ubuntu 20.04 asks for 4 Go of ram. Compared to the 30 Mo for IceWM in the article (apple to oranges, I know, but still 3 orders of magnitude), or the 300 Mo for KDE. The author also notes that since XFCE switched to GTK3 they use more resources. That seems to be plenty of basis in reality. Perhaps you mean something else by "resource intensive"?
Keep in mind that the 1.5 GB number is the total amount of RAM you need to have a good time using the operating system, not the amount consumed by the window manager alone. Even OP consumes just about a gigabyte of RAM with all the programs on their Raspberry Pi.
That's not to say GNOME _isn't_ resource intensive -- it is, especially when compared to desktop environments that were either written to be lightweight or written 30 years ago -- that just isn't the best way to measure it.
> Keep in mind that the 1.5 GB number is the total amount of RAM you need to have a good time using the operating system, not the amount consumed by the window manager alone.
That's why I said apples to oranges initially, but you're right, I could have clarified that part.
