NVIDIA RTX 3050 with GA106-160 GPU

Included with the Inno3D’s press materials were high-resolution photos of the GeForce RTX 3050 Twin X2 PCB. This is actually the first time we get to see this new GA106 GPU up close.

After numerous changes to the RTX 3050 specs, NVIDIA finally settled with GA106 GPU. Despite using GA107 for its mobile RTX 3050 series, the GPU simply wasn’t up for this task in the competitive desktop space. This is especially important as AMD releases its Radeon RX 6500 XT and Intel hopefully will deploy its Arc A350 in the next few months.

Inno3D GeForce RTX 3050 Twin X2, Source: Inno3D

The RTX 3050 features 2560 CUDA cores and technically there is still room for RTX 3050 Ti. By using GA106 GPU instead of GA107, NVIDIA let AIB repurpose existing designs at a very low engineering effort. This will technically save a lot of development resources that can then translate into lower prices.

Inno3D GeForce RTX 3050 Twin X2, Source: Inno3D

NVIDIA’s RTX 3050 is to feature 8GB GDDR6 memory clocked at 14 Gbps. This model will compete with the Radeon RX 6500XT which only offers half of this capacity, but also comes with a much faster 18 Gbps memory. Both SKUs will represent the slowest current-gen desktop GPUs that are soon to commercially be available: RX 6500XT launches on January 19th while RTX 3050 on January 27th.