New GeForce RTX 3050 variant offers same performance but lower power consumption

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Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3050 isn't the idea of a powerhouse, but it's a decent 1080p GPU and it's still the cheapest way to buy in the market. Nvidia's RTX 3000-series ecosystem whether you want DLSS 2.0 support or Nvidia's radius-tracing implementation. MSI has released specs for a revised version of one of its RTX 3050 GPUs (via VideoCardz), announcing the same general specs and performance levels but lowering the power consumption estimate by 15W.

The low power consumption seems to come from the GPU's use of a smaller graphics die, called GA107. Older RTX 3050s use the same GA106 die as the RTX 3060 series, but with most of that die's 3,840 CUDA cores turned off. This may allow Nvidia to reuse partially defective GA106 dies, but as chip yields improve and the number of defective dies decreases, that means either shipping fewer RTX 3050s or putting perfectly good chips in Cheaper GPUs. The GA107 die features a maximum of 2,560 CUDA cores, and it apparently needs a little less power than a GA106 die with the exact same number of cores enabled.

The two MSI cards in question have otherwise almost exactly the same specifications, power consumption aside: a boost clock of 1807 MHz, a memory bandwidth of 14 Gbit/s thanks to GDDR6 on a memory interface of 128 bits and 2560 CUDA cores. Another change is that the new revision has two DisplayPorts and two HDMI ports, rather than three DisplayPorts and one HDMI port, a small change that probably has nothing to do with the GPU change. Another is that the board now requires a 6-pin power socket, rather than an 8-pin socket.

Slightly lower power consumption is good, but this new RTX 3050 card still requires up to 115W of power, which is well above the maximum amount of 75W power that can be supplied to any expansion card through a PCI Express slot without requiring an additional power connector. GPUs without a power connector are extremely rare, but they're still great for people upgrading a very small PC or a cheap case from HP or Dell with a low capacity power supply and no power connector at 6 or 8 pins.

Usually these silent GPU refreshes end up becoming the default configurations, and older revisions are removed over time as supplies dry up. This has happened with the "lite hash rate" (LHR) versions of the RTX 3080 and 3070 GPUs, the GDDR6 version of the GTX 1650, and the RTX 2060 with 12 GB of RAM instead of 6 GB, among others. We expect this to happen with the RTX 3050, but for now we expect most cards to continue to use the partially disabled GA106 die.

Technology Dec 28, 2022 0 30 Add to Reading List

New GeForce RTX 3050 variant offers same performance but lower power consumption

The new GeForce RTX 3050 variant offers the same performance but lower power consumption

Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3050 isn't the idea of a powerhouse, but it's a decent 1080p GPU and it's still the cheapest way to buy in the market. Nvidia's RTX 3000-series ecosystem whether you want DLSS 2.0 support or Nvidia's radius-tracing implementation. MSI has released specs for a revised version of one of its RTX 3050 GPUs (via VideoCardz), announcing the same general specs and performance levels but lowering the power consumption estimate by 15W.

The low power consumption seems to come from the GPU's use of a smaller graphics die, called GA107. Older RTX 3050s use the same GA106 die as the RTX 3060 series, but with most of that die's 3,840 CUDA cores turned off. This may allow Nvidia to reuse partially defective GA106 dies, but as chip yields improve and the number of defective dies decreases, that means either shipping fewer RTX 3050s or putting perfectly good chips in Cheaper GPUs. The GA107 die features a maximum of 2,560 CUDA cores, and it apparently needs a little less power than a GA106 die with the exact same number of cores enabled.

The two MSI cards in question have otherwise almost exactly the same specifications, power consumption aside: a boost clock of 1807 MHz, a memory bandwidth of 14 Gbit/s thanks to GDDR6 on a memory interface of 128 bits and 2560 CUDA cores. Another change is that the new revision has two DisplayPorts and two HDMI ports, rather than three DisplayPorts and one HDMI port, a small change that probably has nothing to do with the GPU change. Another is that the board now requires a 6-pin power socket, rather than an 8-pin socket.

Slightly lower power consumption is good, but this new RTX 3050 card still requires up to 115W of power, which is well above the maximum amount of 75W power that can be supplied to any expansion card through a PCI Express slot without requiring an additional power connector. GPUs without a power connector are extremely rare, but they're still great for people upgrading a very small PC or a cheap case from HP or Dell with a low capacity power supply and no power connector at 6 or 8 pins.

Usually these silent GPU refreshes end up becoming the default configurations, and older revisions are removed over time as supplies dry up. This has happened with the "lite hash rate" (LHR) versions of the RTX 3080 and 3070 GPUs, the GDDR6 version of the GTX 1650, and the RTX 2060 with 12 GB of RAM instead of 6 GB, among others. We expect this to happen with the RTX 3050, but for now we expect most cards to continue to use the partially disabled GA106 die.