Nvidia announced the RTX 2050 and the MX 550 graphics processors a few days back. While the former card is meant for ultra-affordable RTX gaming, the latter will focus on users with modest graphics-heavy workloads. The RTX 2050 is going to be a turned-down version of the already-out RTX 3050, and the MX 550 is going to be a scraped-down version of the GTX 1650. This might be a good move on Nvidia’s part. The RTX 2050 can be a viable replacement for the aging GTX 1650. Also, the MX 550 can be a good option for casual gamers who are not into AAA games.
The Disappointing Part
However, recently, the Time Spy scores of the RTX 2050 and the MX 550 leaked on the internet. We have been able to get these pictures from the Chinese question-and-answer website, Zhihu.
The images show the RTX 2050 pulling a graphics score of a meager 3369. The MX550 is even farther behind with a score of 2510. The CPU scores suggest they might have been coupled with a comparatively new Hexa-core processor like the Ryzen 5 5600H or equivalent.
Okay, so for a bit of contrast here, I benched the GTX 1650 (MSI’s Ventus XS OC variant) with a Ryzen 5 3600 a while back. The card was able to pull off a score of 4,038 here. Although this is a desktop variant with a higher TDP, the laptop variant will see a performance dip of 10% tops. That means the performance figures should be somewhere in the upper 3000s, around 3600-3800. However, the RTX 2050, which is supposed to replace the GTX 1650 with better performance, fails to catch up with this score, let alone beat it.
We are not taking these performance metrics as a final word. But, these provide a much-required insight into what we should expect from these upcoming GPUs. If this is the final product, we cannot recommend any gamer to go for a mobile device with an RTX 2050 graphics processor in it.
The performance metrics of the MX550 are acceptable because it is not a gaming GPU in the first place. Although the performance is nothing crazy (it is quite disappointing too), we can recommend this to users who are looking for a media PC that is capable of the high-resolution display, along with some light productivity workloads like photo editing, etc.
We will still wait for the official launch of laptops with these GPUs before giving a verdict, but it does not seem like Nvidia will be able to make a day-and-night difference at this point. The fact that these leaks exist might mean that mobile devices packing these GPUs might have entered mass production already.