Nvidia’s rumored RTX 3050 6GB spotted at retailer – and leaked specs may not worry AMD much
There's been quite a bit of talk about Nvidia's rumored new version of the RTX 3050 – with less video RAM, 6GB instead of 8GB – and now we've spotted this graphics card online.
VideoCardz picked up via product listings for Palit RTX 3050 6GB models at a Russian retailer, and of course, as with any rumor, you have to season all this with a lot of spice – although the leak comes complete with product codes and indeed specs.
The listings for the Palit RTX 3050 StormX and StormX OC, plus KalmX, show there's 6GB of VRAM on board (although there are inconsistencies here – the box still shows 8GB of memory, but that's probably just a placeholder) . Interestingly enough, the KalmX variant is a fanless model (for those who like a whisper-quiet PC).
Other shared specs include a base clock of 1042MHz, which is much lower than the current RTX 3050 8GB (at 1,552MHz) – so much so that we think this could be a mistake. The boost speed remains the same (1,777 MHz), and fortunately so does the number of CUDA Cores (2,560).
Analysis: Specsepticism
It's good to see that the core configuration has remained unchanged, as there were rumors that it might be shortened – and that would be really bad news for the performance levels of the new RTX 3050 6GB. Mind you, these retailer specs should be treated with skepticism as mentioned – they may be placeholders – so it would be foolish to read too much into this.
As for the big drop in base clock speed per the Russian retailer's specs, previous rumor has indicated it will be reduced by around 20% – not a third slower as indicated here – and we think the former, more modest throttling is a more realistic prospect seems. .
Anyway, shaky broadcast specs aside, the main point here is actually the graphics card models (complete with product codes) showing up at this store, which is evidence supporting the claim that the RTX 3050 6GB is coming soon.
According to the latest news from the rumor mill, we should see this refreshed graphics card from Nvidia in February, with an alleged asking price of $179 in the US (and price tags in line with those elsewhere, we can assume).
If the specs leaked here are more or less in the right ballpark, there's still doubt about how much of an impact the RTX 3050 6GB will make at the budget end of the market, if the rumored price is correct.
We keep our fingers crossed that this graphics card might be a little more affordable. It seems like Nvidia would be wise to consider that line of attack, as AMD's RX 6600 is a very attractive offering in the budget space, and is one of the best cheap GPUs on shelves right now.
Time will tell, but unfortunately it's quite easy to be disappointed with Nvidia's pricing tactics in general, and to believe that a cheaper product is unlikely.
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