Nvidia RTX 5050 for Desktop Rumored to Launch In July
Following the launch of its maligned RTX 5060 graphics card , Nvidia is said to be working on an even more affordable RTX 50 card, the RTX 5050. The Nvidia XX50-series cards are usually reserved for mobile, but Nvidia is reportedly planning this one for desktop and could launch it as soon as July.
Nvidia has been hit by a lot of negative feedback for this generation of graphics cards, most notably surrounding pricing and availability . Although its RTX 5060 has been more widely available and affordable, that's largely been put down to a lack of public interest. Nvidia may be trying to correct that with an even less expensive version of the card, but with cut down CUDA cores making its performance weaker in turn.
The rumored specifications for the RTX 5050 give it 2560 CUDA cores—33% less than the RTX 5060—8GB of VRAM on a 128-bit bus, with a TDP of 130W, according to VideoCardz . Earlier rumors suggested the VRAM would be GDDR6, rather than the GDDR7 used in the other RTX 50 cards. That would make it notably slower, reducing overall memory bandwidth. However, more recent rumors suggest Nvidia is considering the use of GDDR7 instead, so that's up in the air for now.
All RTX 50 cards support the latest features, but they often work best with higher native frame rates.Credit: Nvidia
With a 130W TDP, this card could end up as the most efficient of the RTX 50 generation, offering a leaner inroad to Blackwell technologies like the latest DLSS support, including multi-frame generation. However, the limited VRAM would likely run into problems in current games outside of 1080p resolution and minimum settings, and future games would struggle further.
Although this card could potentially offer something much more affordable for Nvidia fans, it's also unlikely to have impressive performance. With 33% fewer CUDA cores than the RTX 5060, the performance could be substantially lower. Even if we just make it 20% less in real-world gaming, that card would be equivalent to an Intel Arc A750, a card that launched at $280 three years ago.
That would be a hard sell, even in the current GPU climate where affordable GPUs are very hard to come by.
All of this remains unofficial with no announcements from Nvidia at the time of writing, though VideoCardz seems confident in its sourcing. Watch this space for more news in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, AMD has launched the RX 9060 XT 16GB and 8GB versions , to strong acclaim for the former and derision for the latter. Those may be better options for affordable gaming in 2025.
