The GeForce RTX 3050 could earn a different GPU and a lower TDP according to new rumors. According to the German site Igor’s LabNVIDIA would be preparing a variant of the RTX 3050 equipped with a GPU GA107.
The new rumor actually draws back an indiscretion of the previous months, when many speculated that the RTX 3050 could debut immediately with a GA107 GPU. The latter has in fact 3072 CUDA cores, while the entry level Ampere solution stops at 2560 units. Using the GA107 would therefore have been the best option, but NVIDIA has instead chosen to more heavily castrate the GA106 which provides 3840 units in its full form.
The choice probably has to do with production and resource allocation logics, in order to cover the demand from the desktop and notebook sectors. And probably in the wake of that decision, NVIDIA would be “cooking” an RTX 3050 practically identical to the current one, but with a different GPU that should file something in terms of consumption, doing drop the TDP from 130 to 115 Watts.
The two GPUs are indeed “pin compatible”, so video card manufacturers are not required to change the design, if not installing a different firmware. It is not clear when the new variant will arrive on the market, but it should be a process in continuity with the spread of the RTX 3050, therefore without any announcement from the company.
The effect of this move could be an improvement in card availability and a reduction in prices, but it is only a good luck hypothesis. At the moment the indiscretion does not speak of a change in the amount of memory, but in the past months there have been rumors of a 4 GB RTX 3050 which, at the moment, has not yet revealed itself.