Nvidia has a trio of fresh graphics cards which are going on sale in January, according to the latest from the GPU grapevine, and that includes an RTX 3050 which might be unveiled at CES 2022 at the start of January.
This comes from VideoCardz, which notes that Twitter-based hardware leaker hongxing2020 recently asserted that the RTX 3050 will be out on January 27, and that it reached out to its own sources who have confirmed that the GPU should indeed arrive on that date.
That’s when the budget graphics card will be available to buy, in theory, but Nvidia will reveal the new GPU before then at CES 2022, possibly at its keynote (that would make sense, after all) on January 4.
At least, this is the apparent plan, and VideoCardz further contends that it has received an embargo document from Nvidia which lists January 27 as the on-sale date for the rumored RTX 3090 Ti, too. Meaning it could hit shelves at the same time as the RTX 3050, and it’d seem to be a fair assumption that this GPU may also be unveiled at CES 2022.
That said, VideoCardz stresses that the embargo details for the RTX 3090 Ti don’t provide an announcement date, only stating when it’ll be out. So, that seems a little odd, but we need to take large helpings of condiments with all these details anyhow.
The final piece of the rumors provided here is that Nvidia has another trick up its sleeve with a revamped RTX 3070 Ti coming that doubles up the VRAM to 16GB, and this might be announced on December 17 – so next week, in fact. It’ll theoretically go on sale come January 11, and all this lines up with a previous rumor.
This GPU is thought to run with the same spec in terms of CUDA cores and clock speeds as the existing 3070 Ti (unlike the revamped RTX 2060 which didn’t just double the video memory, but upped the core count to the level of the 2060 Super).
Analysis: Exactly how might Nvidia’s budget GPUs pan out next month?
The big one we’re keenly awaiting here is the RTX 3050, simply because we desperately need more products at the low-end of the GPU market. Wallet-friendly options are thin on the ground, and have been for quite some time, and as we recently discussed, budget buyers are stuck with something like the GTX 1650 Super right now, an aging card.
This is exactly why Nvidia has rereleased the RTX 2060, or a somewhat beefed-up version as noted above – but while this revamped GPU has now been officially launched, it was done so in a very quiet manner (Nvidia said very little indeed). While a number of third-party card makers do have new RTX 2060 12GB models now listed on their websites, you can’t actually find one to buy (yet). Plus there are worrying (and somewhat mystifying) rumors swirling about miners grabbing these cards.
Whatever the case, even if the RTX 2060 12GB does start to arrive with some availability for gamers, it’ll likely need more backup, and hopefully that’s where the RTX 3050 will step in next month. The RTX 3050 will supposedly be built on the GA106-150 GPU, with 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM, but we haven’t heard the rumored CUDA core count yet. What we have heard is speculation that it could be slightly slower than the refreshed RTX 2060 12GB, which would be somewhat disappointing.
That said, we don’t know that for sure, and the 3050 would have other benefits anyway – like DLSS support. Plus the truth is, even if the RTX 2060 12GB does start emerging in bigger numbers, we need yet more products at the budget end, so the RTX 3050 will very much be welcome no doubt, however the relative specs stack up.
We’re still skeptical about the kind of availability which might be witnessed with these GPUs, though, given Nvidia’s talk of stock shortages through to 2023. Of course, we’re also expecting something new from AMD in terms of a low-end offering, namely the RX 6500 XT which is supposedly ready to come out mid-January.
In short, we finally have some reasonable semblance of hope that at least some pressure will be relieved at the budget end of the GPU market pretty soon.
- CES 2022: what will we see at the big show in January?
