Nvidia quietly announced the new GeForce RTX 5050 yesterday. This budget-friendly Blackwell-powered graphics card is the highly anticipated successor to the GeForce RTX 3050 and will rival the best graphics cards. Gigabyte has taken the opportunity to reveal the GeForce RTX 5050 OC Low Profile 8G for compact systems.
The GeForce RTX 5050 OC Low Profile 8G has a dual-slot form factor and measures 7.2 inches (182mm) long. Gigabyte provides a low-profile bracket for compatibility with SFF (Small Form Factor) cases. Although the PCIe 5.0 graphics card's design is compact, a single-slot card would have been preferable.
The heatsink on the GeForce RTX 5050 OC Low Profile 8G incorporates a copper plate that effectively disperses heat from the Blackwell silicon. Gigabyte again uses its server-grade thermal conductive gel to cool memory chips and MOSFETs. Although this gel initially received criticism for slipping out of the graphics card, Gigabyte has addressed and resolved this problem. As a result, it should no longer occur on newer models, such as the GeForce RTX 5050 OC Low Profile 8G.
Although the GeForce RTX 5050 OC Low Profile 8G is compact, it is equipped with a triple-fan cooling system. Gigabyte states that these small fans use graphene nano lubricant, which extends their lifespan by 2.1 times and also reduces noise during operation.
The GeForce RTX 5050 OC Low Profile 8G has 2,560 CUDA cores. While the reference specifications point to a 2.31 GHz base clock and a 2.57 GHz boost clock, Gigabyte did not disclose the clock speeds for this model. The only details provided are the 8GB of 20 Gb/s GDDR6 memory. It has a 128-bit memory interface, resulting in a memory bandwidth of up to 320 GB/s—43% more than the GeForce RTX 3050.
The GeForce RTX 5050 is a 130W graphics card, requiring only an additional 8-pin PCIe power connector for proper operation. Consequently, Gigabyte advises using a power supply with at least 550W when pairing it with the GeForce RTX 5050 OC Low Profile 8G. Gigabyte's graphics card also offers multiple outputs. It includes one DisplayPort 2.1b output, one DisplayPort 1.4a output, and two HDMI 2.1b ports. Enabling up to four displays at the same time.
The GeForce RTX 5050 will arrive on the retail market in late July, with a starting price of $249. This pricing is consistent with the launch price of the GeForce RTX 3050 at its release three years prior, which was also $249. It will be interesting to see if Gigabyte keeps the GeForce RTX 5050 OC Low Profile 8G at the MSRP level or sells it for a small premium because of the whole low-profile gimmick.
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