Nvidia RTX 3050 6GB spotted at retailer – but specs can’t allay our fears this could be a flop of a GPU
Nvidia’s RTX 3050 6GB, a rumored new variant of Team Green’s budget graphics card, has been spotted online (not for the first time, we might add).
German tech site Computer basics noted that Austrian retailer E-Tec had an RTX 3050 6GB live on its website, but the product listing has since been removed. (That usually happens when these types of leaks—some of which cynics might argue are intentional—are reported.)
However, the listing was not deleted until all the details of this graphics card were picked up VideoCardz (through Tom’s hardware), including the all-important specs and price.
The MSI Ventus 2X OC (overclocked) version of the RTX 3050 with 6 GB of VRAM (the card normally has 8 GB) was found to work with 2,048 CUDA cores, a big reduction of 20% compared to the 2,560 cores of the existing ( 8 GB) sport model.
The Ventus 2X is also listed with a base clock of 1,552MHz and a boost of 1,807MHz, along with a TDP of 130W. As for the price, that requires a huge amount of spice, even more so than the specs – and we’ll get to that in a moment talk more about it later…
Analysis: A bewildering soup of rumors
At this point, the RTX 3050 6GB spec rumors seem pretty all over the place, to be honest. We’ve heard that it will keep the CUDA core count of the existing RTX 3050, or that it will be trimmed by around 10%, or that it will suffer a big drop of 20% as shown here – we have the latest theory heard it before (twice actually).
We’ve also seen speculation that the clock will potentially be lowered en masse, although that’s certainly not the case here. They’ll always be faster on an overclocked model like this Ventus OC, mind you, than an entry-level graphics card.
Even the rumored TDP varies widely, from 130W here to 115W and then to 70W (mind you, that’s for a leaked fanless model from Palit, which requires lower power consumption due to its lack of active cooling).
Be that as it may, with all the theories surrounding the specs and the leaks we’ve witnessed bouncing around all over the show, we’re tempted to say: just forget the hardware specs, really – and hope Nvidia doesn’t. a lot of cuts apart from the VRAM. (Although the drop in CUDA core numbers seems quite likely, unfortunately, or at least a more common idea).
The best thing to focus on in all of this is that given the weight of the rumors and more than one online retailer now jumping the gun, the RTX 3050 6GB appears to be coming – and in theory it will be available as early as next month arrive. , or probably in the first quarter (the latter is mentioned by the Austrian retailer). As for the price, the retailer set it too high (costs more than the 8GB model), so we can safely ignore that asking price (it’s a placeholder, no doubt).
The theory is that this graphics card will cost $179, or in that ballpark in the US, significantly less than the MSRP of the current RTX 3050, which was $249 at launch. (And the price of the new GPU will undoubtedly be in line with that 30% drop in other regions, compared to the respective recommended prices).
The problem is that this doesn’t look competitive (especially if this new twist on the RTX 3050 is as cut and dry as some suggestions make it seem) versus AMD. Team Red has a very competitive offering in the form of the RX 6600, which is undeniably one of the best cheap GPUs you can buy.
We’re struggling to see how some incarnations of the alleged RTX 3050 6GB will honestly compete unless Nvidia drops the price below what’s currently rumored to be in demand for the budget gamer’s wallet.