Inadvertently, the folks behind Folding@Home might have just confirmed the RTX 3050's existence, along with the GPU it is built on: the GA107. The information comes from a GPU support list that comes with the latest installation — information that was right on our PCs and may have flown under the radar if it weren't spotted by Redditor u/TrueTech0.
The following new / unreleased / unknown GPUs are listed in the file:
- TU106GLM [Quadro RTX 3000 Mobile / Max-Q]
- GA102 [GeForce RTX 3080 Ti]
- GA102 [GeForce RTX 3080 20GB]
- GA102 [GeForce RTX 3090 Engineering Sample]
- GA102 [GeForce RTX 3080 11GB / 12GB Engineering Sample]
- GA102GL
- GA103
- GA104 [GeForce RTX 3070 Ti]
- GA104M [GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile / Max-Q 8GB/16GB]
- GA104M [GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile / Max-Q]
- GA104M [GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile 16GB]
- GA104M [GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile / Max-Q]
- GA104 [GeForce RTX 30x0 Engineering Sample]
- GA104 [GeForce RTX 3060 Engineering Sample]
- GA104 [GeForce RTX 3070 Engineering Sample]
- GA104 [GeForce RTX 3070 Engineering Sample]
- GA106 [GeForce RTX 3060 6GB / 12GB]
- GA106
- GA106M [GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile / Max-Q]
- GA106 [GeForce RTX 3060 Engineering Sample]
- GA107 [GeForce RTX 3050]
- GA107 [GeForce RTX 3050 Engineering Sample]
- Navi 22
- Navi 23
In addition to a plethora of Nvidia GPUs, the list also mentions a few AMD GPUs. The most notable entries here are the RTX 3080 Ti, 20GB RTX 3080, RTX 3070 Ti, Mobile RTX 3070 Max-Q, RTX 3060, Mobile RTX 3070 16GB (Max-Q), RTX 3060, RTX 3060 Max-Q, and the RTX 3050. A Turing-based Quadro RTX 3000 mobile GPU also stands out as a bit of an oddity, along with a presumably placeholder GA103 (which as far as we know doesn't exist and likely never will). The only new AMD parts (besides the already launched Navi 21 chips) are the Navi 22 and Navi 23 entries.
We've already seen rumors about many of these GPUs, so it isn't too surprising. You could take this list as further confirmation, but note that they can also be placeholders. The two AMD Navi 22 entries don't have names on them yet, but these are expected to become the Radeon RX 6700 and RX 6700 XT.
When it comes to the Nvidia side, the GA107-based RTX 3050 is a relatively new leak, and we haven't seen too much about it yet. That card is expected to pack 2304 CUDA cores on a 90W TGP, bringing Nvidia ray tracing functionality to a card with a single 6-pin connector. It's unlikely that GA107 would only be used in a single SKU, so we'll probably see additional GPUs in the future. Perhaps it will be like the GTX 1060 6GB/3GB where a card with less memory and fewer GPU cores will slot in at a lower price?
Stepping up one tier, the RTX 3060 is supposed feature the GA106 GPU in both 6GB and 12GB variants. Currently missing from the list is the RTX 3050 Ti, which given all the other model numbers floating around in Nvidia land seems like a sure thing. It could feature a cut-back GA106 GPU that didn't make it to binning full RTX 3060s. Intriguingly, there's an RTX 3060 Engineering Sample listed as well, using the GA104 GPU. Depending on yields and other factors, we may see different RTX 3060 models in the future (e.g., similar to the RTX 2060 variants that used TU104).
For now, we wouldn't read too much into these entries. There's a lot to digest, but without any official word, there's a good chance that at least some of the information is simply a placeholder for potential future releases. AMD and Nvidia also do internal testing of GPUs that end up not getting a public release, which is particularly applicable to the Engineering Samples.
