It looks like even NVIDIA’s entry-level lineup in its Ampere stack, including the GeForce RTX 3050, will be featuring ray-tracing support as the latest rumor from Kopite7kimi (via Videocardz) seems to suggest.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Entry-Level Graphics Card To Feature GA107 GPU, 2304 Cores, Ray Tracing Support & 90W TGP?
According to the rumor, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 will be utilizing the GA107 GPU core. This means that even the entry-level parts will indeed feature raytracing support, unlike the GTX 1650 and 1660 series cards which didn’t come with the necessary tensor or raytracing cores to enable hardware-accelerated raytracing and DLSS features in games.
The GeForce RTX 3050 is suggested to feature the GA107-300 GPU which seems to be the most entry-level Ampere GPU at this point in desktop graphics cards. Only time will tell if we will see something even lower-end like the GA108 GPU but the RTX 3050 leaves little room for that. The card is expected to feature 2304 FP32 cores in a total of 18 SM units and is suggested to feature a 90W TGP.
This would mean that the GeForce RTX 3050 will require an external 6-pin connector to boot unlike its predecessor, the GeForce GTX 1650, which conformed to a 75W TGP and didn’t require any plug to boot in several custom variants. The GeForce RTX 3050 should feature a 128-bit bus interface & up to 4 GB of GDDR6 memory. We are likely to see speeds of 14 Gbps on the card but that remains to be confirmed.
NVIDIA also has several GA106 GPUs planned for launch in the coming months that will include the RTX 3050 Ti and RTX 3060 which we detailed here.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series ‘Ampere’ Graphics Card Specifications:
| Graphics Card Name | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti? | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti? | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU Name | Ampere GA107 | Ampere GA106? | Ampere GA106? | Ampere GA104-200 | Ampere GA104-300 | Ampere GA102-150 | Ampere GA102-200 | Ampere GA102-250 | Ampere GA102-300 |
| Process Node | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm |
| Die Size | TBA | TBA | TBA | 395.2mm2 | 395.2mm2 | 628.4mm2 | 628.4mm2 | 628.4mm2 | 628.4mm2 |
| Transistors | TBA | TBA | TBA | 17.4 Billion | 17.4 Billion | 28 Billion | 28 Billion | 28 Billion | 28 Billion |
| CUDA Cores | 2304 | 3584 | 3840 | 4864 | 5888 | 7424 | 8704 | 10496 | 10496 |
| TMUs / ROPs | TBA | TBA | TBA | 152 / 80 | 184 / 96 | 232 / 80 | 272 / 96 | 328 / 112 | 328 / 112 |
| Tensor / RT Cores | TBA | TBA | TBA | 152 / 38 | 184 / 46 | 232 / 58 | 272 / 68 | 328 / 82 | 328 / 82 |
| Base Clock | TBA | TBA | TBA | 1410 MHz | 1500 MHz | TBA | 1440 MHz | TBA | 1400 MHz |
| Boost Clock | TBA | TBA | TBA | 1665 MHz | 1730 MHz | TBA | 1710 MHz | TBA | 1700 MHz |
| FP32 Compute | TBA | TBA | TBA | 16.2 TFLOPs | 20 TFLOPs | TBA | 30 TFLOPs | TBA | 36 TFLOPs |
| RT TFLOPs | TBA | TBA | TBA | 32.4 TFLOPs | 40 TFLOPs | TBA | 58 TFLOPs | TBA | 69 TFLOPs |
| Tensor-TOPs | TBA | TBA | TBA | TBA | 163 TOPs | TBA | 238 TOPs | TBA | 285 TOPs |
| Memory Capacity | 4 GB GDDR6? | 6 GB GDDR6? | 6 GB GDDR6? | 8 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 | 10 GB GDDR6X? | 10 GB GDDR6X | 20 GB GDDR6X | 24 GB GDDR6X |
| Memory Bus | 128-bit | 192-bit? | 192-bit? | 256-bit | 256-bit | 320-bit | 320-bit | 320-bit | 384-bit |
| Memory Speed | TBA | TBA | TBA | 14 Gbps | 14 Gbps | TBA | 19 Gbps | 19 Gbps | 19.5 Gbps |
| Bandwidth | TBA | TBA | TBA | 448 Gbps | 448 Gbps | TBA | 760 Gbps | 760 Gbps | 936 Gbps |
| TGP | 90W? | TBA | TBA | 180W? | 220W | 320W? | 320W | 320W | 350W |
| Price (MSRP / FE) | $149? | $199? | $299? | $399 US? | $499 US | $599 US? | $699 US | $899 US? | $1499 US |
| Launch (Availability) | 2021? | 2021? | 2021? | November 2020? | 29th October | Q4 2020? | 17th September | January 2021? | 24th September |
In terms of performance, the GeForce RTX 3050 should land somewhere around GeForce RTX 2060 performance. It will be ahead of the GeForce RTX 1660 SUPER which was a $229 US graphics card. Pricing wise, the RTX 3050 should be positioned around $150 US, and NVIDIA could throw in a game bundle to sweeten the deal. The card would be a great solution for 1080p gaming but AMD won’t be coming slowly in this segment with its own RDNA 2 based solution such as the Radeon RX 6500.