GeForce RTX 3050 With 6GB GDDR6 Launch And Affordable Pricing Details Breaks Cover
Where there's smoke you'll usually find fire, and there is a whole heck of a lot of smoke signals pointing to NVIDIA getting ready to launch several more GeForce SKUs in the near future. Most of the upcoming GPUs are rumored to be part of a Super refresh for some of its GeForce RTX 40 series graphics cards. However, there's also chatter of a revised GeForce RTX 3050 with less VRAM to replace the current model. The good news related to that part is that it's not just the specs getting slashed, so is the price.
If you haven't done so already, check out our previous coverage of the rumored GeForce RTX 3050 revision. The quick and dirty summary is that NVIDIA plans to discontinue the current iteration with 8GB of GDDR6 memory and replace it with a version wielding 6GB of VRAM. The downgrade in memory means NVIDIA may also constrict the bus width to 96-bit (down from 128-bit).
There's more intrigue beyond the memory specs, too. Unofficially, it's said the upcoming part may also build the card around NVIDIA's GA107 GPU as found in the mobile variant. Doing so would effectively reduce the number of CUDA cores to 2,048 (down from 2,560 in the current RTX 3050). And to top it off, previous leaks suggested we could see a 17% slower core clock.
One of the benefits of the downgraded specs is that the card should be able to pull all the necessary power it needs directly from the PCI Express slot, rather than needing to be plugged directly into the PSU. The bigger potential selling point, however, is the rumored price.
Citing details posted to Board Channels (which we don't have access to), Videocardz says NVIDIA is eyeballing a $179 MSRP. The site also caveats that final pricing could change when the card releases. Either way, it's reported that NVIDIA really wants the revised RTX 3050 to land south of $200, it's just a matter of how far below it can get.
In our opinion, it would really need to hit the rumored $179 price point to be a compelling option, or at least come fairly close. At least until inventories of the current 8GB card dry up. To that end, you can find a factory overclocked Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3050 Windforce OG 8GB for $219.99 on Amazon. We also found a model that already slides under the $200 mark, with the Yeston GeForce RTX 8GB going for $199.
