Entry-level GeForce: RTX 5050 with 8 GB of memory for 249 US-$ from mid-July

Nvidia announces the GeForce RTX 3050 as the weakest graphics card to date based on the current Blackwell architecture. The card will be available with 8 GB of graphics memory from board partners from the second half of July 2025 and will cost 249 US dollars.

In addition to the conversion rate into euros, VAT will be added to this sum, i.e. 19 percent for Germany. With a bit of luck and without further surcharges, the cards could theoretically be available from 255 euros.

According to familiar schemes, the RTX 5050 completes the RTX 5000 series, which started on January 30, 2025 with the sinfully expensive RTX 5090 from 2329 euros and the RTX 5080 from 1169 euros; in practice, the prices were often much higher. Nvidia subsequently topped up the series with the RTX 5070 Ti (20.2.25, 879 euros), 5070 (4.3.25, 619 euros), 5060 Ti (16.4.25, 399-449 euros) and most recently on 19.5.2025 with the 5060 for 319 euros.

However, the prices for RTX 5000 graphics cards have been falling significantly for some time, probably also due to the strong competition from AMD's Radeon RX 9070 XT, 9070 and RX 9060 XT.

Based on the key data of the specifications, the raw performance of the RTX 5050 in 3D applications should be roughly on a par with an Intel Arc B570, which is available with 10 GB instead of 8 GB from 220 euros; however, its power consumption is also slightly higher.

Like Nvidia itself, most Nvidia partners already have their product pages for the RTX 5050 online, such as Asus, Gigabyte, Inno3D and Zotac. Others such as Gainward, Manli, MSI, Palit, PNY or KFA2 are still missing. The models on offer also include particularly short cards or those with half the height for particularly flat housings. However, all of them require an eight-pin PCI Express power connection; we have not yet been able to find a card with six pins on the PCIe.

Tightly dimensioned

The key technical data of the RTX 5050 is not particularly surprising considering the 5060. Two thirds of the shader arithmetic units, which Nvidia likes to call CUDA cores, deliver one third less performance in line with the nominal clock rates. However, the thermal design power, i.e. the nominal power consumption, only drops from 145 to 130 watts compared to the RTX 5060. If the 5050s make full use of this limit, they are unlikely to become efficiency monsters.

The memory transfer rate also declines by almost 30 percent to 320 GBytes per second compared to the RTX 5060. This means that supplying the GPU with data from the memory should not be a bottleneck. At 41.2 flops/byte, the RTX 5050 has a more favorable ratio than any other desktop Blackwell.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5050 im Generationenvergleich
	RTX 5050	RTX 4060²	RTX 3050
Architektur	Blackwell GB207	Ada Lovelace AD107	Ampere GA106
Shader-Rechenkerne / Shader-Multiprozessoren	2560 / 20	3072 / 24	2560 / 20
Basis- / Boost-Taktrate	2,31 / 2,57 GHz	1,83 / 2,46 GHz	1,55 / 1,78 GHz
Durchsatz Shaderkerne (FP32)	13,2 TFLOPS	15,11 TFLOPS	9,1 TFLOPS
Speicheranbindung / -datenrate	128 Bit / 14 Gbps	128 Bit / 17 Gbps	128 Bit / 14 Gbps
Speichermenge / -typ	8 GByte GDDR6	8 GByte GDDR6	8 GByte GDDR6
Speichertransferrate	320 GByte/s	272 GByte/s	224 GByte/s
Video	1 x NVENC9, 1 x NVDEC6	1 x NVENC8, 1 x NVDEC5	1 x NVENC7, 1 x NVDEC5
PCIe-Version / -Lanes	5.0 / x8	4.0 / x8	4.0 / x8
TDP	130 Watt	115 Watt	130 Watt
Marktstart	01.07.25	29.06.23	27.01.22
Preis (US-Dollar, zzgl. Steuern)	249 $	299 $	249 $
² Eine Desktop-RTX-4050 gab es nicht

Whether the overall performance is satisfactory, however, is another matter. Even the nominally 50 percent faster RTX 5060 did not manage 60 frames per second in Full HD resolution at the highest detail level in many titles, which most people consider to be smooth. With the RTX 5050, gamers will probably have to make do with the second or third highest detail level or rely on upscalers with intermediate image calculation such as DLSS4, although these are not a panacea either.

After all, gamers can choose from all the Nvidia Blackwell technologies of their larger desktop siblings with the RTX 5050 –, including four modern display connections and the latest video decoders and encoders, which also reduce the load on the CPU with AV1.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5000 im Vergleich
	RTX 5050	RTX 5060	RTX 5060 Ti	RTX 5070	RTX 5070 TI	RTX 5080	RTX 5090
Architektur	Blackwell GB207	Blackwell GB206	Blackwell GB206	Blackwell GB205	Blackwell GB203	Blackwell GB203	Blackwell GB202
Shader-Rechenkerne / Shader-Multiprozessoren	2560 / 20	3840 / 30	4608 / 36	6144 / 48	8960 / 70	10752 / 84	21760 / 170
Basis- / Boost-Taktrate	2,31 / 2,57 GHz	2,28 / 2,5 GHz	2,41 / 2,57 GHz	2,16 / 2,51 GHz	2,30 / 2,45 GHz	2,30 / 2,62 GHz	2,01 / 2,41 GHz
Durchsatz Shaderkerne (FP32)	13,2 TFLOPS	19,2 TFLOPS	23,7 TFLOPS	30,8 TFLOPS	43,90 TOPS	56,3 TFLOPS	104,9 TFLOPS
Durchsatz Tensor-^1 / RT-Cores	421 TOPS / 40 TFLOPS	614 TOPS / 58 TFLOPS	759 TOPS / 72 TFLOPS	988 TOPS / 94 TFLOPS	1406 TOPS / 133 TFLOPS	1801 TOPS / 171 TFLOPS	3352 TOPS / 318 TFLOPS
Speicheranbindung / -datenrate	128 Bit / 20 Gbps	128 Bit / 28 Gbps	128 Bit / 28 Gbps	192 Bit / 28 Gbps	256 Bit / 28 Gbps	256 Bit / 30 Gbps	512 Bit / 28 Gbps
Speichermenge / -typ	8 GByte GDDR6	8 GByte GDDR7	8-16 GByte GDDR7	12 GByte GDDR7	16 GByte GDDR7	16 GByte GDDR7	32 GByte GDDR7
Speichertransferrate	320 GByte/s	448 GByte/s	448 GByte/s	672 GByte/s	896 GByte/s	960 GByte/s	1792 GByte/s
Display	3 :x DP 2.1b (UHBR20), 1 :x HDMI 2.1b	3 :x DP 2.1b (UHBR20), 1 :x HDMI 2.1b	3 :x DP 2.1b (UHBR20), 1 :x HDMI 2.1b	3 :x DP 2.1b (UHBR20), 1 :x HDMI 2.1b	3 :x DP 2.1b (UHBR20), 1 :x HDMI 2.1b	3 :x DP 2.1b (UHBR20), 1 :x HDMI 2.1b	3 :x DP 2.1b (UHBR20), 1 :x HDMI 2.1b
Auflösung / Refreshraten	4k480 (DSC), 8k165 (DSC)	4k480 (DSC), 8k165 (DSC)	4k480 (DSC), 8k165 (DSC)	4k480 (DSC), 8k165 (DSC)	4k480 (DSC), 8k165 (DSC)	4k480 (DSC), 8k165 (DSC)	4k480 (DSC), 8k165 (DSC)
Video	1 :x NVENC9, 1 :x NVDEC 6	1 :x NVENC9, 1 :x NVDEC 6	1 :x NVENC9, 1 :x NVDEC 6	1 :x NVENC9, 1 :x NVDEC 6	2 :x NVENC9, 1 :x NVDEC 6	2 :x NVENC9, 2 :x NVDEC 6	3 :x NVENC9, 2 :x NVDEC 6
PCIe-Version / -Lanes	5.0 / x8	5.0 / x8	5.0 / x8	5.0 / x16	5.0 / x16	5.0 / x16	5.0 / x16
TDP	130 Watt	145 Watt	180 Watt	250 Watt	300 Watt	360 Watt	575 Watt
Marktstart	01.07.25	20.05.25	16.04.25	04.03.25	20.02.25	30.01.25	30.01.25
Preis	k.A. € (249 US-Dollar zzgl. Steuern)	319 €	399-449 €	619 €	879 €	1.169 €	2.329 €

The RTX 5050 comes with 8 gigabytes of graphics memory. Nvidia relies on the older GDDR6 memory here. The 8 gigabyte dilemma also applies to the RTX 5050 in its entirety: at the highest detail level, the frame rates of many titles plummet and AI applications run out of memory right from the start with desirable, extensive large-language models.

However, the low price and the need to select a lower detail level or do without ray tracing due to the general performance level, even without a memory bottleneck, makes the bottleneck in the RTX 5050 class appear somewhat less threatening.

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