A retail listing of Nvidia's upcoming RTX 3050 6GB has finally surfaced, and it seems to have all the details you could ever want to know for the low-end card (via ComputerBase). The retail listing not only describes every single specification for the 3050 6GB, but even includes pricing info and a rough launch date.
Initial rumors for the RTX 3050 6GB expected a regular 3050 but with just 6GB of memory, which would simply mean 2GB less memory and a 25% decrease in memory bandwidth, since losing 2GB of memory means only populating 96 bits of the 128-bit wide memory bus. Others have since claimed that the 3050 6GB would have significant reductions in both core count and clock speed.
This new retail listing from Austrian retailer e-tec.at however presents a third set of specifications, featuring even fewer cores than previously suggested. The clock speed is also significantly higher, but the listing indicates that this is thanks to a factory overclock, as the RTX 3050 6GB in question is MSI's Ventus 2X OC model. MSI has raised the boost clock by 337MHz and the base by 510MHz, making it significantly faster in terms of clock speed than other rumors have reported.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | RTX 3050 6GB (Initial Rumor) | RTX 3050 6GB (VC Rumor) | RTX 3050 6GB (Retail Leak) |
| SMs | 20 | 18 | 16 |
| Cores | 2,560 | 2,304 | 2,048 |
| Base Clock | 1,042MHz | 1,042MHz | 1,552MHz |
| Boost Clock | 1,777MHz | 1,470MHz | 1,807MHz |
| VRAM | 6GB | 6GB | 6GB |
| VRAM Bus Width | 96-bit | 96-bit | 96-bit |
| VRAM Bandwidth | 168GB/s | 168GB/s | 168GB/s |
| TFLOPs FP32 | 9.1 | 6.7 | 6.0 |
| TDP | 130W | 70W | 130W |
| Price | N/A | $179 | $179 |
| Release Date | 2024 | February 2024 | Q1 2024 |
Despite Videocardz saying in its coverage that it suspects the retail listing must be mistaken, it's not clear if that's really the case. The description seems to be a simple copy and paste from MSI's German website, featuring not just extremely detailed specifications but even hyperlinks to MSI's German language website and Nvidia's developer page.
In fact, the listing is so detailed that it even mentions the price and release date for the RTX 3050 6GB. The recommended retail pricing (RRP) of the 3050 6GB is said to be $179, and with a "presentation" to be made in Q1 of this year, which lasts from January to March. Videocardz similarly claimed a price of $179 and a launch date in February, which strongly implies both may be correct on at least this point.
MSI's RTX 3050 6GB Ventus 2X OC is the second 3050 6GB model to have surfaced so far, and it implies there may be quite a bit of variety to the 3050 6GB. The Ventus 2X OC has a significantly higher clock speed than the reference 3050 6GB, boosting its performance to 7.4 TFLOPs from 6 on the reference model. Meanwhile, there is apparently also a fanless 3050 6GB being made by Palit, which would likely mean a much lower TDP and clock speed than MSI's higher-clocked model.
Given this is a late-cycle release of a previous architecture, it could be that Nvidia will enable a variety of different configurations. Fewer cores and higher clocks, more cores with lower clocks, plus whatever variations the graphics card partners care to offer. This is going to be a relatively low performance GPU in the modern era, but with a sub-$200 price point, that might be okay for some people.
