The -50 series of graphics cards from Nvidia has always been a prime offering to budget gamers. The best thing about these graphics cards is that they can run the latest AAA titles at medium to high settings at a decent 40-ish FPS. But, unlike their beefier siblings, the -60 or -70 series, they tend to show their age pretty soon. Games are getting more and more demanding by the day, and these already weak graphics cards just cannot keep up with them. Thus, they require refreshes every year or so, and Nvidia has delivered consistently on that front.
GTX 1050 Ti and GTX 1650 are still massively popular. The latest December 2021 Steam Hardware Survey shows almost 11.7% of gamers are using one of these two cards. But, both the GTX 1050 Ti and the GTX 1650 are quite old today, and they are struggling to keep up with most of the latest titles. The case is more so with the GTX 1050 Ti, and they desperately needed a refresh.
Nvidia delivered yet again. In their CES 2022 keynote, Nvidia just announced an all-new -50 series. It is called the RTX 3050, and it will be the first -50 series card to come with RT cores. The previous generation, RTX 20 series, had no -50 series card. Instead, Nvidia launched the -50 series card as a part of the GTX 16 series, which was supposedly more powerful than the GTX 10-series but weaker than the RTX 20 series. These GTX 16 series had no RT cores and no Tensor cores. That meant no ray tracing or DLSS.
However, the brand new RTX 3050 is going to come with both. Although we question the ray tracing performance on these cards, DLSS is going to help a bunch. Ray Tracing shouldn’t be considered a feature of this upcoming card if you ask us. It is more of a marketing gimmick and strictly meant for 1080p gaming with compromises. Additionally, at a price tag of $249, it does sound to be a good deal. But, good luck finding one of these cards at MSRP (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price).
Anyway, let’s have a look at the detailed specifications of this upcoming product.
Basic Information
| Feature Name | RTX 3050 |
|---|---|
| GPU Name | GA106 |
| GPU Variant | GA106-140-A1 |
| Architecture | Nvidia Ampere |
| Process Node | Samsung 8nm |
| Transistors | 13,250 million |
| Release Date | 27th January 2022 |
| Launch Price | US$249 |
| Bus Interface | PCIe 4.0 x16 |
Memory
| Feature Name | RTX 3050 |
|---|---|
| Memory Size | 8 GB and 4 GB |
| Memory Type and Generation | GDDR6 |
| Memory Bus | 128-bit |
| Memory Interface Bandwidth | 224.0 GB/s |
Hardware Specs
| Feature Name | RTX 3050 |
|---|---|
| Shading Units (CUDA Cores) | 2304 |
| Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) | 72 |
| Render Output Units (ROPs) | 40 |
| Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs) | 18 |
| Tensor Cores | 72 |
| RT Cores | 18 |
Physical Size and System Requirements
| Feature Name | RTX 3050 |
|---|---|
| Card Length | 242 mm (9.5 inches) |
| Card Width | 112 mm (4.4 inches) |
| Slot Width | Dual Slot Design |
| TDP | 90 W |
| Suggested System Power Supply | 250 W |
| Power Connectors | 1x 6 pin |
| Outputs | 1x HDMI 2.1 3x Display Port 1.4 |
| DirectX Version | 12 Ultimate (12_2) |
Our Thoughts
RTX 3050 seems solid with 72 tensor cores that will push DLSS performance. However, the paltry 18 RT cores might not be enough to give a respectable performance in ray tracing enabled games. Thus, we can conclude that Nvidia marketing this as an RTX card is more of a gimmick. Although there’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding whether Nvidia will release a 4 GB variant of the card, the fact the company pushed 8 GB in one of its models is appreciated. With large textures games are pushing these days, this extra VRAM will give make the card a bit future-proof.
However, Nvidia finally has something RTX for budget gamers. The card is supposed to launch later this month, and we can’t wait for it!