New GeForce RTX 3050 variant offers the same performance but lower power use - Ars Technica

1 year ago 41

low-key update for a low-key GPU —

GA107 dice has conscionable the close fig of CUDA cores for an RTX 3050.

- Dec 27, 2022 9:03 p.m. UTC

New GeForce RTX 3050 variant offers the aforesaid  show  but little   powerfulness  use

MSI

Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3050 is nary one's thought of a powerhouse, but it's a decent 1080p GPU and it's inactive the cheapest mode to bargain into Nvidia's RTX 3000-series ecosystem if you privation DLSS 2.0 enactment oregon Nvidia's ray-tracing implementation. MSI has published specs for a revised version of one of its RTX 3050 GPUs (via VideoCardz), advertizing the aforesaid wide features and show levels but lowering the powerfulness depletion estimation by 15 W.

The little powerfulness depletion appears to travel from the GPU's usage of a smaller graphics die, called GA107. Older RTX 3050s usage the aforesaid GA106 dice arsenic the RTX 3060 series, but with galore of that die's 3,840 CUDA cores switched off. This tin let Nvidia to reuse partially defective GA106 dies, but arsenic spot yields amended and the fig of defective dies decreases, it either means shipping less RTX 3050s oregon putting perfectly bully chips successful cheaper GPUs. The GA107 dice includes a maximum of 2,560 CUDA cores, and it seemingly needs a spot little powerfulness than a GA106 dice with the nonstop aforesaid fig of cores enabled.

The 2 MSI cards successful question different person astir precisely the aforesaid specs, powerfulness depletion aside: an 1807 MHz boost clock, 14 Gbps of representation bandwidth acknowledgment to GDDR6 connected a 128-bit representation interface, and 2,560 CUDA cores. One different alteration is that the newer revision has 2 DisplayPorts and 2 HDMI ports, alternatively than 3 DisplayPorts and 1 HDMI port, a tiny alteration that astir apt has thing to bash with the GPU change. Another is that the paper present requires a 6-pin powerfulness plug, alternatively than an 8-pin plug.

Slightly little powerfulness usage is simply a bully thing, but this caller RTX 3050 paper inactive requires up to 115 W of power, which is good supra the 75 W max magnitude of powerfulness that tin beryllium provided to immoderate enlargement paper done a PCI Express slot without requiring an other powerfulness connector. GPUs without a powerfulness connector are vanishingly rare, but they're inactive of involvement for radical upgrading a super-small PC oregon a inexpensive container from HP oregon Dell with a low-capacity powerfulness proviso and nary 6- oregon 8-pin powerfulness connector.

Usually, these quiescent GPU refreshes yet go the default configurations, and older revisions are phased retired implicit clip arsenic supplies adust up—this has happened with the "lite hash rate" (LHR) versions of RTX 3080 and 3070 GPUs, the GDDR6 mentation of the GTX 1650, and the RTX 2060 with 12GB of RAM alternatively of 6GB, among others. We'd expect this to hap with the RTX 3050, eventually, but for present expect astir cards to proceed utilizing the partially-disabled GA106 die.

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