As expected, Nintendo's lengthy Switch 2 presentation contained very little technical information—the upcoming hybrid console's feature set, software library and user experience were showcased extensively. A series of leaks and plenty of online speculation—going back to earlier in the decade—pointed to the highly-anticipated Switch successor being based on an NVIDIA hardware foundation. A mysterious "Tegra 239" chipset emerged as the "logical" choice for Nintendo's next-gen system, but company representatives will likely not comment on the exact nature of internal components. Several months after the launch of Wii U, independent analysis (by Chipworks) of the host console's "Latte" GPU core verified a Radeon 4650/4670-class design. To the surprise of many industry watchdogs, a Nintendo employee has officially confirmed Switch 2's support of NVIDIA graphics technologies.

As disclosed to IGN—during a press junket—Takuhiro Dohta (senior director of the firm's Planning & Development Division) stated: "we use DLSS upscaling technology and that's something that we need to use as we develop games. And when it comes to the hardware, it is able to output to a TV at a maximum of 4K. Whether the software developer is going to use that as a native resolution, or get it to upscale is something that the software developer can choose. I think it opens up a lot of options for the software developer to choose from. Yes, the GPU does support ray tracing. As with DLSS, I believe this provides yet another option for the software developers to use and a tool for them." When pressed about the exact origins of the console's beating heart, Dohta deflected responsibility in the direction of Team Green: "Nintendo doesn't share too much on the hardware spec...What we really like to focus on is the value that we can provide to our consumers. But I do believe that our partner—NVIDIA—will be sharing some information." As pointed out by VideoCardz, Nintendo's hardware technical manager only mentioned options for the development side of things, not end user features. Yesterday's Metroid Prime 4: Beyond preview segment indicated that the title's Switch 2 Edition will arrive with four profiles; VideoCardz theorizes that DLSS will be used for differing levels—quality/performance—in handheld or docked operation.

SoftBank Group Corp. today announced that it will acquire Ampere Computing, a leading independent silicon design company, in an all-cash transaction valued at $6.5 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, Ampere will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of SoftBank Group and retain its name. As part of the transaction, Ampere's lead investors—Carlyle and Oracle Corp.—are selling their respective positions in Ampere.

As SoftBank Group broadens its AI infrastructure investments in ventures such as Cristal intelligence and Stargate, the acquisition will help enhance SoftBank Group's capabilities in key areas and accelerate its growth initiatives. "The future of Artificial Super Intelligence requires breakthrough computing power," said Masayoshi Son, Chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group Corp. "Ampere's expertise in semiconductors and high-performance computing will help accelerate this vision, and deepens our commitment to AI innovation in the United States."

Take a look at the Steam Hardware & Software Survey for January 2025, and you'll find no fewer than three graphics cards from the now-venerable NVIDIA GeForce GTX 10-Series lineup. We mean no offense to these battle-proven units, but we suspect that if your machine is still rocking one of these cards, you're probably looking for an upgrade. While we won't deter you from leapfrogging into next-gen territory with a GeForce RTX 50 Series card, we understand that not every gamer's budget can cover one of these chart-topping models.

So here's a wallet-friendly alternative that's still very relevant in 2025: the ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 3060. Available for just about $300 (USD), equipped with 12 GB of VRAM, compatible with the most popular GeForce RTX features, and ready for a wide range of builds with its low wattage requirements and compact design, this is the best budget graphics card we offer in 2025 for gamers who prefer NVIDIA GPUs.

According to a recent report by Joost van Dreunen - founder of SuperData research firm - the Nintendo Switch 2 is expected to boast a price tag roughly around $399. This would make the highly awaited gaming handheld $100 more expensive than its direct predecessor, and $50 more expensive than the OLED variant of OG Switch. According to van Dreunen, the pricing would allow Nintendo to have a net positive margin on its hardware, while also undercutting other handhelds in price that are 'distinctly' a few tiers above the Switch 2 in terms of performance, as well as capabilities. Of course, considering Nintendo's primary selling point for the Switch - the ecosystem of family-friendly Switch games - the pricing is unlikely to hold back customers who are already knee-deep in Switch games.

The Nintendo Switch 2 is almost confirmed to launch on the 2nd of April, with a larger display and improved magnetic, hall-effect Joy Cons. Like its predecessor, the Switch 2 does not intend to be a powerhouse, and will settle for an NVIDIA Tegra T239 SoC with an Ampere iGPU that should be good for up to 3.1 TFLOPS of raw performance. With the help of DLSS, the Switch 2 should be able to pull off a decent gaming experience at 1080p, or perhaps even at 4K. A fee patents and rumors have indicated that the Joy Cons will have some sort of mouse-like functionality, which was also hinted at by the device's trailer, although no confirmations exist for now. Of course, all of this is mere speculation at this point, but van Dreunen is a respected name in the industry, and his reasoning certainly does make sense.

Well, unless someone has been living under a rock for the past four years, freshly launched gaming hardware getting scalped to oblivion should hardly come as a surprise. We witnessed this just recently with the launch of the NVIDIA RTX 50-series GPUs, considering the multiple-thousand-dollar premiums that the cards were sold for on platforms such as eBay. One might foresee a similar predicament for the much-awaited Nintendo Switch 2, but if Nintendo President Furakawa's recent statements are anything to go by, that might not be the case after all.

According to Furakawa, Nintendo is well-aware of the potential stock shortages that the Switch 2 may face, taking lessons from the OG Switch launch back in 2017, and is taking "all possible measures" to make sure the Switch 2 launch plays out smoothly. Of course, what this essentially means, is that Nintendo will be attempting its best to produce as many units of the Switch 2 as possible in order to meet customer demand at launch. This is exactly what Furakawa mentioned in his interview with Nikkei, citing that the supply chain constraints that hindered production in 2024 and 2023 no longer exist in 2025. As such, there should not be any further hurdles that hold back Nintendo from its production targets.

It is a known fact that the Switch 2 is by no means planning on being a performance beast. Nintendo's focus has always been on their ecosystem, and not on raw performance, which will continue being the case. As such, the Switch 2 is widely expected to sport an NVIDIA Tegra SoC paired with 12 GB of LPDDR5 system memory and an Ampere-based GPU. Now, a fresh leak has detailed the docked and handheld mode performance that can be expected from the widely anticipated Switch successor, and the numbers seem to fall right around what was initially expected.

The leak, sourced from a Nintendo forum, reveals that in docked mode, the Nintendo Switch 2's GPU will be clocked at 1000 MHz, up from 768 MHz for the soon-to-be previous generation Switch, allowing for 3.1 TFLOPS of performance. In handheld mode, unsurprisingly, the GPU clock will be limited to 561 MHz, allowing for 1.71 TFLOPS of raw performance. These numbers are far from impressive for 2025, although Nintendo will likely make up for the lack of raw horsepower using upscaling technologies similar to DLSS, allowing for a vastly improved experience than what its otherwise unimpressive hardware could have afforded.

NVIDIA is taking the wraps off a new compact generative AI supercomputer, offering increased performance at a lower price with a software upgrade. The new NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit, which fits in the palm of a hand, provides everyone from commercial AI developers to hobbyists and students, gains in generative AI capabilities and performance. And the price is now $249, down from $499.

Available today, it delivers as much as a 1.7x leap in generative AI inference performance, a 70% increase in performance to 67 INT8 TOPS, and a 50% increase in memory bandwidth to 102 GB/s compared with its predecessor. Whether creating LLM chatbots based on retrieval-augmented generation, building a visual AI agent, or deploying AI-based robots, the Jetson Orin Nano Super is an ideal solution to fetch.

Even more versatile in the second revision: Developed on the basis of its proven predecessor model, the new version of the Freezer 4U-M offers optimised cooling performance, not only for powerful server CPUs from AMD and Intel, but also for the ARM processors of the Ampere Altra series.

Multi-compatible with additional flexibility
The 2nd revision of the Freezer 4U-M also impresses with its case and socket compatibility. In addition, it has been specially adapted to support Ampere Altra processors with 32 to 128 cores.

Nintendo has officially announced that its next-generation Switch console will feature backward compatibility, allowing players to use their existing game libraries on the new system. However, those eagerly awaiting the console's release may need to exercise patience as launch expectations have shifted to early 2025. On the official X account, Nintendo has announced: "At today's Corporate Management Policy Briefing, we announced that Nintendo Switch software will also be playable on the successor to Nintendo Switch. Nintendo Switch Online will be available on the successor to Nintendo Switch as well. Further information about the successor to Nintendo Switch, including its compatibility with Nintendo Switch, will be announced at a later date."

While the original Switch evolved from a 20 nm Tegra X1 to a more power-efficient 16 nm Tegra X1+ SoC (both featuring four Cortex-A57 and four Cortex-A53 cores with GM20B Maxwell GPUs), the Switch 2 is rumored to utilize a customized variant of NVIDIA's Jetson Orin SoC, now codenamed T239. The new chip represents a significant upgrade with its 12 Cortex-A78AE cores, LPDDR5 memory, and Ampere GPU architecture with 1,536 CUDA cores, promising enhanced battery efficiency and DLSS capabilities for the handheld gaming market. With the holiday 2024 release window now seemingly off the table, the new console is anticipated to debut in the first half of 2025, marking nearly eight years since the original Switch's launch.

Giga Computing, a subsidiary of GIGABYTE and an industry leader in servers for x86 and ARM platforms as well as advanced cooling technologies, today announced its initial wave of GIGABYTE servers that support the full stack of AmpereOne family of processors. Last year, AmpereOne processors were announced and there were GIGABYTE servers in support of the platform available for select customers. Now, GIGABYTE servers have general availability with single and dual socket servers already in production, and more coming in late Q4. GIGABYTE servers for Ampere Altra and AmpereOne processors will be showcased at the GIGABYTE booth and Ampere pavilion at Yotta 2024 in Las Vegas on Oct. 7-9.

The AmpereOne family of processors, designed for cloud-native computing, features up to 192 custom designed Ampere cores, DDR5 memory, and 128 lanes of PCIe Gen 5 per socket. Overall, this line of processors target cloud instances with incredible VM density to boot, all while excelling at performance per watt. Delivering more cores, more IO, more memory, more performance, and more cloud features, this full stack of CPUs has additional applications in AI inference, data analytics, and more.

Nintendo's next-generation Switch 2 handheld gaming console is nearing its release. As leaks intensify about its future specifications, we get information about its planning stages. According to Moore's Law is Dead YouTube video, we learn that Nintendo didn't choose AMD APU to be the powerhouse behind Switch 2 due to poor battery life. In a bid to secure the best chip at a mere five watts of power, the Japanese company had two choices: NVIDIA Tegra or AMD APU. With some preliminary testing and evaluation, AMD APU wasn't reportedly power-efficient at 5 Watt TDP, while the NVIDIA Tegra chip was maintaining sufficient battery life and performance at target specifications.

Allegedly the AMD APU was good for 15 W design, but Nintendo didn't want to place a bigger battery so that the device remains lighter and cheaper. The final design will likely carry a battery with a 20 Wh capacity, which will be the main power source behind the NVIDIA Tegra T239 SoC. As a reminder, the Tegra T239 SoC features eight-core Arm A78C cluster with modified NVIDIA Ampere cores in combination with DLSS, featuring some of the latest encoding/decoding elements from Ada Lovelace, like AV1. There are likely 1536 CUDA cores paired with 128-bit LPDDR5 memory running at 102 GB/s bandwidth. For final specifications, we have to wait for the official launch, but with rumors starting to intensify, we can expect to see it relatively soon.

NVIDIA has reportedly been hit with a US Department of Justice (DOJ) antitrust probe over the tactics the company allegedly employs to sell or lease its AI GPUs and data-center networking equipment, "The Information" reported. Shares of the NVIDIA stock fell 3.6% in the pre-market trading on Friday (08/02). The main complainants behind the probe appear to be a special interest group among the customers of AI GPUs, and not NVIDIA's competitors in the AI GPU industry per se. US Senator Elizabeth Warren and US progressives have been most vocal about calling upon the DOJ to investigate antitrust allegations against NVIDIA.

Meanwhile, US officials are reportedly reaching out to NVIDIA's competitors, including AMD and Intel, to gather information about the complaints. NVIDIA holds 80% of the AI GPU market, while AMD, and to a much lesser extent, Intel, have received spillover demand for AI GPUs. "The Information" report says that the complaint alleges NVIDIA pressured cloud customers to buy "multiple products". We don't know what this means, one theory holds that NVIDIA is getting them to commit to buying multiple generations of products (eg: Ampere, Hopper, and over to Blackwell); while another holds that it's getting them to buy multiple kinds of products, which include not just the AI GPUs, but also NVIDIA's first-party server systems and networking equipment. Yet another theory holds that it is bundle first-party software and services to go with the hardware, far beyond the basic software needed to get the hardware to work.

Ampere has announced a significant update to its product roadmap, highlighting the upcoming 512-core AmpereOne Aurora processor. This new chip is specifically designed to address the growing demands of cloud-native AI computing.

The newly announced AmpereOne Aurora 512 cores processor integrates AI acceleration and on-chip High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), promising three times the performance per rack compared to current AmpereOne processors. Aurora is designed to handle both AI training and inference workloads, indicating Ampere's commitment to becoming a major player in the AI computing space.

NVIDIA may be working on a new RTX 3050 A laptop GPU using an AD106 (Ada Lovelace) die, moving away from the Ampere chips used in other RTX 30-series GPUs. While not officially announced, the GPU is included in NVIDIA's latest driver release and the PCI ID database as GeForce RTX 3050 A Laptop GPU. The AD106 die choice is notable, as it has more transistors and CUDA cores than the GA107 in current RTX 3050s and the AD107 in RTX 4050 laptops. The AD106, used in RTX 4060 Ti desktop and RTX 4070 laptop GPUs, boasts 22.9 billion transistors and 4,608 CUDA cores, compared to GA107's 8.7 billion transistors and 2,560 CUDA cores, and AD107's 18.9 billion transistors and 3,072 CUDA cores.

While this could potentially improve performance, it's likely that NVIDIA will use a cut-down version of the AD106 chip for the RTX 3050 A. The exact specifications and features, such as support for DLSS 3, remain unknown. The use of TSMC's 4N node in AD106, instead of Samsung's 8N node used in Ampere, could potentially improve power efficiency and battery life. The performance of the RTX 3050 A compared to existing RTX 3050 and RTX 4050 laptops remains to be seen, however, the RTX 3050 A will likely perform similarly to existing Ampere-based parts as NVIDIA tends to use similar names for comparable performance levels. It's unclear if NVIDIA will bring this GPU to market, but adding new SKUs late in a product's lifespan isn't unprecedented.

The latest update of Ghost of Tsushima lets you use DLSS 2 super-resolution and FSR 3 Frame Generation simultaneously, so you have the unique benefit of having the NVIDIA DLSS 2 handle super resolution and image quality, while letting the AMD FSR 3 nearly double frame-rates of the DLSS 2 output. All this, without the need for any mods, it's part of the game's original code. It's crazy when you think about it—you now have two performance enhancements running in tandem, with gamers reporting over 170 FPS at 4K with reasonably good image quality. This could particularly benefit those on older GeForce RTX 30-series "Ampere" and RTX 20-series "Turing" graphics cards, as those lack support for DLSS 3 Frame Generation.

Ampere Computing today released its annual update on upcoming products and milestones, highlighting the company's continued innovation and invention around sustainable, power efficient computing for the Cloud and AI. The company also announced that they are working with Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. to develop a joint solution for AI inferencing using Qualcomm Technologies' high-performance, low power Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 inference solutions and Ampere CPUs.

Semiconductor industry veteran and Ampere CEO Renee James said the increasing power requirements and energy challenge of AI is bringing Ampere's silicon design approach around performance and efficiency into focus more than ever. "We started down this path six years ago because it is clear it is the right path," James said. "Low power used to be synonymous with low performance. Ampere has proven that isn't true. We have pioneered the efficiency frontier of computing and delivered performance beyond legacy CPUs in an efficient computing envelope."

All-in-one computers are often traditionally seen as lower-powered alternatives to traditional desktop workstations. However, a new offering from Alafia AI, a startup focused on medical imaging appliances, aims to shatter that perception. The company's upcoming Alafia Aivas SuperWorkstation packs serious hardware muscle, demonstrating that all-in-one systems can match the performance of their more modular counterparts. At the heart of the Aivas SuperWorkstation lies a 128-core Ampere Altra processor, running at 3.0 GHz clock speed. This CPU is complemented by not one but three NVIDIA L4 GPUs for compute, and a single NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada GPU for video output, delivering a combined 28,416 CUDA cores for accelerated parallel computing tasks. The system doesn't skimp on other components, either. It features a 4K touch display with up to 360 nits of brightness, an extensive 2 TB of DDR4 RAM, and storage options up to an 8 TB solid-state drive. This combination of cutting-edge CPU, GPU, memory, and storage is squarely aimed at the demands of medical imaging and AI development workloads.

The all-in-one form factor packs this incredible hardware into a sleek, purposefully designed clinical research appliance. While initially targeting software developers, Alafia AI hopes that institutions that can optimize their applications for the Arm architecture can eventually deploy the Aivas SuperWorkstation for production medical imaging workloads. The company is aiming for application integration in Q3 2024 and full ecosystem device integration by Q4 2024. With this powerful new offering, Alafia AI is challenging long-held assumptions about the performance limitations of all-in-one systems. The Aivas SuperWorkstation demonstrates that the right hardware choices can transform these compact form factors into true powerhouse workstations. Especially with a combined total output of three NVIDIA L4 compute units, alongside RTX 4000 Ada graphics card, the AIO is more powerful than some of the high-end desktop workstations.

NVIDIA's recent launch of a "new" entry-level gaming GPU has not set pulses racing—their return visit to Ampere City arrived in the form of custom GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB graphics cards. The absence of a reference model sometimes signals a low expectation, but Team Green's partners have pushed ahead with a surprisingly diverse portfolio of options. Early last month, Galax introduced a low-profile white design—the custom GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB card's slot-powered operation presents an ideal solution for super compact low-power footprint builds. ASUS is readying its own dual-fan low-profile models—as evidenced by official product pages. The listings do not reveal release dates or recommended price points for the reference-clocked GeForce RTX 3050 LP BRK 6 GB card, and its OC sibling. ASUS believes that both models offer "big productivity in a small package."

Low-profile card enthusiasts have warmly welcomed new-ish GeForce RTX 4060 GPU-based solutions—courtesy of ASUS and GIGABYTE, but reported $300+ MSRPs have likely put off budget-conscious buyers. A sub-$200 price point is a more palatable prospect, especially for system builders who are not all bothered about cutting-edge gaming performance. A DVI-D connector ensures legacy compatibility, alongside modern port standards: HDMI 2.1 and DP 1.4a. As mentioned before, ASUS has not publicly disclosed its pricing policy for the GeForce RTX 3050 LP BRK 6 GB card (and its OC variant)—the manufacturer's Dual and Dual OC models retail in a range of $170 - $180. Graphics card watchdogs reckon that the LP BRK designs will warrant a small premium over normal-sized products.

February saw community mods bring resizable BAR support to several older platforms; and now we come across a mod that brings it to some older GPUs. The NVStrapsReBAR mod by terminatorul, which is forked out of the ReBarUEFI mod by xCurio, brings resizable BAR support to NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20-series and GTX 16-series GPUs based on the "Turing" graphics architecture. This mod is intended for power users, and can potentially brick your motherboard. NVIDIA officially implemented resizable BAR support since its RTX 30-series "Ampere" GPUs in response to AMD's Radeon RX 6000 RDNA 2 GPUs implementing the tech under the marketing name Smart Access Memory. While AMD would go on to retroactively enable the tech for even the older RX 5000 series RDNA GPUs, NVIDIA didn't do so for "Turing."

NVStrapsReBAR is a motherboard UEFI firmware mod. It modifies the way your system firmware negotiates BAR size with the GPU on boot. There are only two ways to go about modding a platform to enable resizable BAR on an unsupported platform—by modding the motherboard firmware, or the video BIOS. Signature checks by security processors in NVIDIA GPUs make the video BIOS modding route impossible for most users; thankfully motherboard firmware modding isn't as difficult. There is an extensive documentation by the author to go about using this mod. The author has tested the mod to work with "Turing" GPUs, however, it doesn't work with older NVIDIA GPUs, including "Pascal." Resizable BAR enables the CPU (software) to see video memory as a single contiguously addressable block, rather than through 256 MB apertures.

KFA2, the EU-focused brand of graphics cards by Galax, today released the GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB EX, a somewhat premium take on the recently released entry-level GPU by NVIDIA. The KFA2 EX features a spruced up aluminium fin-stack heatsink that uses a flattened copper heatpipe to make broader contact with the GPU, and spread the heat better across the fin-stack. The 22.4 cm long card also has a couple of premium touches, such as a metal backplate, and RGB LED lighting. The lighting setup includes physical switch on the tail end of the card, with which you can turn it off. Also featured is idle fan-stop. The card offers a tiny factory overclock of 1485 MHz boost, compared to 1475 MHz reference. It sticks with PCIe slot power, there are no additional power connectors.

NVIDIA launched the GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB as its new entry level GPU. It is based on the older "Ampere" graphics architecture, and the 8 nm "GA107" silicon. It enables 18 out of 20 streaming multiprocessors physically present, which work out to 2,304 CUDA cores, 72 Tensor cores, 18 RT cores, 72 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The 6 GB of 14 Gbps GDDR6 memory is spread across a narrower 96-bit memory bus than the one found in the original RTX 3050 8 GB. KFA2 is pricing the RTX 3050 6 GB EX at €199 including taxes.

Palit Microsystems Ltd., a leading graphics card manufacturer, proudly announces the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB KalmX and StormX Series graphics cards. The GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB GPU is built with the powerful graphics performance of the NVIDIA Ampere architecture. It offers dedicated 2nd gen RT Cores and 3rd gen Tensor Cores, new streaming multiprocessors, and high-speed G6 memory to tackle the latest games.

GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB KalmX: Passive Cooling. Silent Gaming
Introducing the Palit GeForce RTX 3050 KalmX, where silence meets performance in perfect harmony. The KalmX series, renowned for its ingenious fan-less design, redefines your gaming experience. With its passive cooling system, this graphics card operates silently, making it ideal for both gaming and multimedia applications. Available on shelves today—2nd February 2024.

NVIDIA today formally launched the GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB as its new entry-level discrete GPU. The RTX 3050 6 GB is a significantly different product from the original RTX 3050 that the company launched as a mid-range product way back in January 2022. The RTX 3050 had originally launched on the 8 nm GA106 silicon, with 2,560 CUDA cores, 80 Tensor cores, 20 RT cores, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs; with 8 GB of 14 Gbps GDDR6 memory across a 128-bit memory bus; these specs also matched the maximum core-configuration of the smaller GA107 silicon, and so the company launched the RTX 3050 based on GA107 toward the end of 2022, with no change in specs, but a slight improvement in energy efficiency from the switch to the smaller silicon. The new RTX 3060 6 GB is based on the same GA107 silicon, but with significant changes.

To begin with, the most obvious change is memory. The new SKU features 6 GB of 14 Gbps GDDR6, across a narrower 96-bit memory bus, for 168 GB/s of memory bandwidth. That's not all, the GPU is significantly cut down, with just 16 SM instead of the 20 found on the original RTX 3050. This works out to 2,048 CUDA cores, 64 Tensor cores, 16 RT cores, 64 TMUs, and an unchanged 32 ROPs. The GPU comes with lower clock speeds of 1470 MHz boost, compared to 1777 MHz on the original RTX 3050. The silver lining with this SKU is its total graphics power (TGP) of just 70 W, which means that cards can completely do away with power connectors, and rely entirely on PCIe slot power. NVIDIA hasn't listed its own MSRP for this SKU, but last we heard, it was supposed to go for $179, and square off against the likes of the Intel Arc A580.

Specifications for NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB GPU leaked midway through the month—fueling further speculation about cutdown Ampere cards hitting retail outlets within the first quarter of 2024. The super budget-friendly alternative to existing GeForce RTX 3050 8 GB graphics card models is tipped to be weakened in many areas (not just a reduction in memory capacity)—according to the last set of leaks: "performance could lag behind the (two years old) RTX 3050 8 GB SKU by up to 25%, making it weaker competition even for AMD's budget Radeon RX 6500 XT."

ComputerBase.de has uncovered an interesting E-Tec shop listing—now removed thanks to global news coverage—MSI is likely preparing a 6 GB variant of its RTX 3050 VENTUS 2X OC design. A screenshot of the Austrian e-tailer's listing has been preserved and circulated—leaked pricing was €245.15, while the model's manufacturer code is V812-015R. A Google search of the latter generates a number of hits—we see information that aligns with TPU's database entry. Specification sheets probably originate from distributors, so are subject to change closer to launch time. VideoCardz points out that a 130 W TDP has appeared online, although some older leaks indicate that the MSI part is targeting NVIDIA's alleged reference figure of 70 W.

Alleged full specifications leaked for NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB graphics card show extensive reductions beyond merely reducing memory size versus the 8 GB model. If accurate, performance could lag the existing RTX 3050 8 GB SKU by up to 25%, making it weaker competition even for AMD's budget RX 6500 XT. Previous rumors suggested only capacity and bandwidth differences on a partially disabled memory bus between 3050 variants, which would reduce the memory to 6 GB and 96-bit bus, from 8 GB and 128-bit bus.. But leaked specs indicate CUDA core counts, clock speeds, and TDP all see cuts for the upcoming 6 GB version. With 18 SMs and 2304 cores rather than 20 SMs and 2560 cores at lower base and boost frequencies, the impact looks more severe than expected. A 70 W TDP does allow passive cooling but hurts performance versus the 3050 8 GB's 130 W design.

Some napkin math suggests the 3050 6 GB could deliver only 75% of its elder sibling's frame rates, putting it more in line with the entry-level 6500 XT. While having 50% more VRAM helps, dramatic core and clock downgrades counteract that memory advantage. According to rumors, the RTX 3050 6 GB is set to launch in February, bringing lower-end Ampere to even more budget-focused builders. But with specifications seemingly hobbled beyond just capacity, its real-world gaming value remains to be determined. NVIDIA likely intends RTX 3060 6 GB primarily for less demanding esports titles. Given the scale of cutbacks and the modern AAA title's recommended specifications, mainstream AAA gaming performance seems improbable.

The GeForce RTX 3050 has been around since January 2022, and formed the entry level of the company's RTX 30-series. It had its moment under the Sun during the crypto GPU shortage as a 1080p gaming option that sold around the $300 mark. With the advent of the RTX 40-series, NVIDIA is finding itself lacking an entry-level discrete GPU that it can push in high volumes. Enter the RTX 3050 6 GB. Cut down from the original RTX 3050, this SKU has 6 GB of memory across a narrower 96-bit GDDR6 memory interface, and fewer shaders. Based on the tiny GA107 "Ampere" silicon, it gets 2,048 CUDA cores compared to the 2,560 of the RTX 3050, a core-configuration NVIDIA refers to as the GA107-325. The card has a tiny typical graphics power (TGP) of just 70 W, and so we should see graphics cards without additional power connectors. The company plans to give the RTX 3050 6 GB a formal retail channel launch in February 2024, at a starting price of $179.