Nvidia has just officially announced a new 'budget-friendly' graphics card for those who can't afford the RTX 5060 but still want to experience smooth DLSS4 frames and other benefits of the Blackwell architecture. Called the RTX 5050, this is the first 50-series desktop graphics card since the RTX 3050 launched in January 2022.
The RTX 5050 is expected to hit shelves with a list price of $249 ($50 cheaper than the RTX 5060) and will be available in the second half of July. The card features 8GB of video memory on a 128-bit bus, 2,560 CUDA cores (same as the RTX 3050 8GB), and the latest generation of RT cores (40 TFLOPS) and Tensor cores (421 AI TOPS). Interestingly, this is the only card in the RTX 50-series to use GDDR6 memory - the rest of the series uses the more modern GDDR7 standard.
Despite the significant memory downgrade, the RTX 5050 still supports all the high-end features found on more expensive Blackwell cards, including multi-frame DLSS4, NVENC Gen 9 encoder, NVDEC Gen 6 decoder, PCIe Gen5, and more.
In terms of power consumption, the total power draw (TGP) is rated at 130W via a single 8-pin power connector. Nvidia also recommends using at least a 550W power supply (PSU).
Nvidia skipped the 50-tier graphics card in the Ada Lovelace generation (RTX 40 Series). While there is an RTX 4050 for laptops, the cheapest desktop graphics card in the RTX 40 series is the RTX 4060. Now, with growing pressure from AMD with its RX 9000 series GPUs, Nvidia is expanding its options at the low end.
RTX 5050, RTX 3050 and RX 9060 XT comparison
*(Note: VND conversion price is based on exchange rate ~25,300 VND/USD, for reference only)*
Here are the key aspects to look out for on the RTX 5050:
- Expected performance: RTX 5050 has 45% higher clock speeds than RTX 3050, combined with DLSS 4 to significantly improve FPS.
- Power: TGP 130W is equivalent to RTX 3050 but requires higher PSU (550W vs 300W), possibly due to thermal design or increased instantaneous performance.
- AMD Rival: RX 9060 XT has the highest clock speed and larger TGP (150W), priced $50 higher than RTX 5050.
- Limitations: All three cards use a 128-bit bus and 8GB of VRAM - which can be a bottleneck in 1440p gaming.
You can find more details about the RTX 5050 on Nvidia's official website .