NVIDIA Intros The GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB GPU At $169 – Designed For 1080p Budget Gaming, No Power Plug Required

NVIDIA has finally introduced its brand new budget offering, the GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB GPU, that targets 1080p budget gamers for $169 US.

NVIDIA's Newest GeForce RTX 3050 GPU Is A Budget Gaming Solution That Packs An Ampere GPU Architecture, 6 GB Memory, $169 Price And Requires No Power Connector To Boot

Today's launch is the second GeForce RTX 3050 GPU to hit the market but the new variant is more tuned for budget PC gamers. The purpose of the 6 GB model is to expand the RTX experience to a wide range of gamers and bring capabilities such as RTX Ray Tracing and AI computing to them as there are still a huge amount of gamers who are still relying on older GTX 1650 and GTX 1050 GPUs as evident from Steam's Hardware Survey.

The RTX 3050 6GB is a great upgrade for GeForce GTX 1650 and GTX 1050 users wanting to experience RTX. The RTX 3050 6GB is up to 4x faster than its predecessors at the same power and it also supports DLSS Super Resolution for superb performance and image quality. It can be powered exclusively by the PCI-E slot, removing the need to think about a PSU upgrade and fitting into even smaller systems, it is an instant plug-and-play upgrade.

The GeForce RTX 3050 6GB is available starting today from our partners ASUS, Colorful, Gainward, GALAX, GIGABYTE, INNO3D, KFA2, MSI, Palit, PNY and ZOTAC. Please contact our AIC partners for specific model pricing and specifications.

NVIDIA to Wccftech

The existing NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 8 GB GPU retails for $250-$280 US at Newegg so a $100 US lower price point for the RTX 3050 6 GB GPU is definitely going to attract a lot of gamers who have been using older GPUs. NVIDIA has mentioned a 4x performance improvement for the RTX 3050 6 GB versus its predecessors while supporting the latest features such as DLSS Super Resolution.

The best part is that just like the other cards, gamers will plug and play with the 3050 6 GB & not worry about power requirements since it is powered directly by the PCIe slot, requiring no extra connectors. A few models have already been listed by Newegg which can be found below:

• MSI RTX 3050 6 GB Gaming X - $179.99 US
• MSI RTX 3050 6 GB Ventus 2X - $169.99 US
• MSI RTX 3050 6 GB LP OC - $179.99 US
• ASUS RTX 3050 6 GB Dual OC - $179.99 US
• ASUS RTX 3050 6 GB Dual - $169.99 US

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB GPU Specifications

As for the specifications, the new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 GPU will be based on the GA107-325-Kx SKU and will utilize the PG173 SKU16 PCB. The GPU will be configured with 2304 cores and that's a reduction of 10% compared to the 8 GB model. The core clock will be maintained at 1470 MHz which is 17% lower than the 8 GB model. Regarding memory, we are looking at 6 GB VRAM & a 96-bit bus interface which is a reduction compared to the 8 GB VRAM & 128-bit featured on the original model.

The cut-down in specs will lead to certain designs that won't require any external power input and the overall power draw will also see a slight reduction. You are mostly looking at a GPU that operates between 70 and 100W (depending on the model). The card will retain its quad display output featuring three DP and 1 HDMI output.

Once again, the official MSRP of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB GPU is $169 US with OC models priced at a slight extra. My personal thoughts are that while the card might seem like a decent upgrade to gamers who are accustomed to the NVIDIA GeForce ecosystem from their older PCs, the market currently has other great options too such as the Intel Arc A580 which costs the same as the 3050 6 GB model but competes with the 3050 8 GB models in terms of performance. The AMD alternative is the RX 6600 8 GB at $200 US. Mainly for budget gamers, 6 GB memory won't matter at 1080p since they are coming from 3 GB or 4 GB cards and anything above that will be looking like an upgrade however I would personally prefer an 8 GB card for entry-level 1080p PC gamers.

Another aspect of the RTX 3050 6 GB is once again its low-power and low-profile design which will be available in plenty of variants. This is something that the original RTX 3050 8 GB nor any of the above-mentioned cards offer. If you want something similar, you'd have to search for something that's less powerful such as the Arc A380 or the RX 6500/6400 series.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series Graphics Card Specifications

Graphics Card Name	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB
GPU Name	Ampere GA102-350?	Ampere GA102-300	Ampere GA102-225	Ampere GA102-220	Ampere GA102-200	Ampere GA104-400	Ampere GA104-300	Ampere GA104	Ampere GA104-200 Ampere GA103-200	Ampere GA106-300	Ampere GA106	Ampere GA106-150	Ampere GA107-325
Process Node	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm
Die Size	628.4mm2	628.4mm2	628.4mm2	628.4mm2	628.4mm2	395.2mm2	395.2mm2	395.2mm2	395.2mm2 (GA104)	276mm2	276mm2	276mm2 (GA106)	200mm2 (GA107)
Transistors	28 Billion	28 Billion	28 Billion	28 Billion	28 Billion	17.4 Billion	17.4 Billion	17.4 Billion	17.4 Billion (GA104)	13.2 Billion	13.2 Billion	13.2 Billion (GA106)	8.7 Billion (GA107)
CUDA Cores	10752	10496	10240	8960	8704	6144	5888	4864	4864	3584	3584	2560	2048
TMUs / ROPs	336 / 112	328 / 112	320 / 112	280 / 104	272 / 96	184 / 96	184 / 96	152 / 80	152 / 80	112 / 64	112 / 64	80 / 32	TBD
Tensor / RT Cores	336 / 84	328 / 82	320 / 80	280 / 70	272 / 68	184 / 46	184 / 46	152 / 38	152 / 38	112 / 28	112 / 28	80 / 20	TBD
Base Clock	1560 MHz	1400 MHz	1365 MHz	TBA	1440 MHz	1575 MHz	1500 MHz	1410 MHz	1410 MHz	1320 MHz	1320 MHz	1552 MHz	TBD
Boost Clock	1860 MHz	1700 MHz	1665 MHz	TBA	1710 MHz	1770 MHz	1730 MHz	1665 MHz	1665 MHz	1780 MHz	1780 MHz	1777 MHz	1470 MHz
FP32 Compute	40 TFLOPs	36 TFLOPs	34 TFLOPs	TBA	30 TFLOPs	22 TFLOPs	20 TFLOPs	16 TFLOPs	16 TFLOPs	13 TFLOPs	13 TFLOPs	9.1 TFLOPs	TBD
RT TFLOPs	74 RFLOPs	69 TFLOPs	67 TFLOPs	TBA	58 TFLOPs	44 TFLOPs	40 TFLOPs	32 TFLOPs	32 TFLOPs	25 TFLOPs	25 TFLOPs	18.2 TFLOPs	TBD
Tensor-TOPs	TBA	285 TOPs	273 TOPs	TBA	238 TOPs	183 TOPs	163 TOPs	192 TOPs	192 TOPs	101 TOPs	101 TOPs	72.8 TOPs	TBD
Memory Capacity	24 GB GDDR6X	24 GB GDDR6X	12 GB GDDR6X	12 GB GDDR6X	10 GB GDDR6X	8 GB GDDR6X	8 GB GDDR6	8 GB GDDR6X	8 GB GDDR6	12 GB GDDR6	8 GB GDDR6	8 GB GDDR6	6 GB GDDR6
Memory Bus	384-bit	384-bit	384-bit	384-bit	320-bit	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit	192-bit	128-bit	128-bit	96-bit
Memory Speed	21 Gbps	19.5 Gbps	19 Gbps	19 Gbps	19 Gbps	19 Gbps	14 Gbps	19 Gbps	14 Gbps	16 Gbps	15 Gbps	14 Gbps	14 Gbps
Bandwidth	1008 GB/s	936 GB/s	912 Gbps	912 Gbps	760 GB/s	608 GB/s	448 GB/s	608 GB/s	448 GB/s	384 GB/s	240 GB/s	224 GB/s	168 GB/s
TGP	450W	350W	350W	350W	320W	290W	220W	175W	175W	170W	150W	130W (GA106) 115W (GA107)	70W
Price (MSRP / FE)	TBD	$1499 US	$1199	$999 US?	$699 US	$599 US	$499 US	$399 US	$399 US	$329 US	TBD	$249 US	TBD
Launch (Availability)	29th March 2022?	24th September 2020	3rd June 2021	11th January 2022	17th September 2020	10th June, 2021	29th October 2020	October 2022	2nd December 2020	25th February 2021	October 2022	27th January 2022	2024

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