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.

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:

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.