We’ve still yet to see the highly-rumored GeForce RTX 4050 budget gaming GPU, but in the meantime, Nvidia is apparently bringing out a super cheap GPU that has “avoid” written all over it. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 6GB specs have just been leaked, showing a cut-down GPU based on last-gen tech that will struggle to play many of the latest games at decent settings.
Even with its purportedly low price of $179, these specs would make the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 6GB very unlikely to be one of the best graphics card options. If you’re on the lookout for a cheap entry-level gaming GPU, you’d be much better off trying to find a second-hand GeForce RTX 3060 on eBay or, even better, saving up a bit more to get the AMD Radeon RX 7600.
Rumors about the GeForce RTX 3050 6GB started to circulate last year, but now more of the specs have reportedly leaked from board partners. According to the leaked specs, the new cards will not only come with 2GB less memory than the standard card, but will also have just 2,304 Ampere CUDA cores, compared with 2,560 on the RTX 3050 8GB. Not only that, but the GeForce RTX 3050 6GB base and boost clock speeds will reportedly be just 1,042MHz and 1,470MHz respectively, compared with 1,552MHz and 1,777MHz on the 8GB card.
Not only that, but memory bandwidth will also be drastically reduced, as the drop in memory means Nvidia is reducing the width of the memory interface to just 96 bits, compared with 128 bits on the 8GB card. Even though both cards reportedly use the same 1,750MHz (14Gbps effective) memory, the tighter bus means the RTX 3050 6GB has a total memory bandwidth of just 168GB/s, against 224GB/s on the 8GB version.
We can also infer a few other details from the leaked specs, which come from VideoCardz. If the RTX 3050 6GB only has 2,304 CUDA cores, then that means it has 18 streaming multiprocessor units (SMs), as opposed to the 20 on the 8GB card. This gives the 6GB card 18 RT cores for ray tracing and 72 Tensor cores, compared with 20 and 80 respectively on the 6GB card. This means the RTX 3050 6GB will also have reduced power when it comes to processing features such as ray tracing and DLSS in games.
The reduced specs and clock speed also tie in with rumors that the GeForce RTX 3050 6GB total board power (TBP) is just 70W, which is much lower than the 130W of the 8GB card. It’s possible that the RTX 3050 6GB will have no extra power connectors
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 6GB specs
According to the latest rumors and speculation, the GeForce RTX 3050 6GB specs list is:
| CUDA cores | 2,304 |
| RT cores | 78 |
| Tensor cores | 72 |
| GPU architecture | Ampere |
| Memory | 6GB GDDR6 |
| Memory clock speed | 1,750MHz (14Gbps effective) |
| Memory interface | 96-bit |
| Memory bandwidth | 168GB/s |
| Total board power (TDP) | 70W |
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 6GB price
The best estimate for the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 6GB price is $179, based on rumor and speculation, as no official price has been announced by Nvidia.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 6GB release date
The best estimate for the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 6GB release date is February 2024, based on rumor and speculation, as no official release date has been announced by Nvidia.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 6GB benchmarks
No leaked benchmarks have been released for the GeForce RTX 3050 6GB yet, but it’s going to be slower than the RTX 3050 8GB, and that’s already a poor GPU for gaming. In my own testing, the GeForce RTX 3050 was one of the worst-performing cards of the last GPU generation, and I’ve shared the graphs for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Cyberpunk 2077 with ray tracing below to demonstrate this.
With massively reduced memory bandwidth and lower clock speeds, as well as fewer CUDA cores, RT cores, and Tensor Cores, the RTX 3050 6GB is going to be significantly slower.
While I wholeheartedly welcome the prospect of a new gaming GPU costing under $200, the GeForce RTX 3050 6GB looks like one to avoid. Hopefully, we’ll see a GeForce RTX 4050 based on the Ada architecture in the near future or, even better, see the price of current GPUs come down. In the meantime, check out our full GeForce RTX 4060 review if you’re looking to get an Nvidia Ada GPU for the cheapest price possible.