According to this first benchmark leak, the Nvidia RTX 4050 will almost certainly be the most affordable GPU released with the Ada Lovelace architecture, but it will still pack some graphical power.
Someone appears to have tested an early version of the RTX 4050 laptop version on Puget Bench, a graphics productivity benchmark that focuses on speed tests using a variety of popular Adobe apps. Adobe Premiere Pro, one of the most popular video editing apps, was tested.
The results were impressive, with Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4050 scoring 57.4 and 51.3 points, respectively, compared to the previous generation RTX 3050, which scored 47.3 and 43.4 points. That’s a 21% increase on the high end and an 18% increase on the second run. The RTX 3050 is already a fast entry-level GPU, and its successor appears to be even faster.
A larger jump would have been preferable, but keep in mind that these early tests, which were first spotted on Twitter by Benchleaks, will use a less optimized version of the firmware, so the scores posted by the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 when it ships could be higher. To get a better sense of gaming performance, we’d like to see benchmarks that include ray tracing and frames per second, and we’ll keep an eye out for more leaks.
There must be some caveats with any benchmarks. Naturally, benchmarks may not correspond to your personal experience. We can’t be certain that this was an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050, but it appears to be a genuine graphics card that appeared in regulatory ECC listings. Given Nvidia’s slow pace of releasing 40-series GPUs, it may not be available until 2023, giving time for things to change, much like Nvidia “unlaunching” its 12GB RTX 4080.
You may also like Nvidia RTX 4090: Everything we know about next GPU
NVIDIA RTX 4050 ‘Expected’ Specifications
Based on NVIDIA’s decision to use a mix of AD106/AD107 or all AD107 in its RTX 4050 series lineup, we can expect up to 3072 cores. The AD107 GPU will include 16 MB of L2 cache as well as up to 48 ROPs.
The clock speeds have not been confirmed, but given that the TSMC 4N process is being used, we anticipate clock speeds in the 2.0-3.0 GHz range. The increased clock speed is due to NVIDIA making a two-node jump, as the Ampere GPUs with Samsung 8nm node were actually a 10nm process node with some optimizations. NVIDIA is skipping 7nm in favor of a 5nm node, and not just any 5nm node, but an optimized version of it. NVIDIA delivered a huge frequency jump with Pascal on the TSMC 16nm node, and we can expect a similar jump this time around.
In terms of memory specifications, the GeForce RTX 4050 is expected to have 8 GB of GDDR6X memory with 20+ Gbps speeds across a 128-bit bus interface for over 320 GB/s of bandwidth. The thing is, you can either go with an 8 GB graphics card in a 128-bit bus or a 96-bit bus for 6 GB or 12 GB configurations.
The GeForce RTX 4050 is also said to have a TGP of around 150W, which is a 30% increase over the RTX 3050 on the GA107 GPU. This is a significant TGP increase, and performance must be excellent for NVIDIA to maintain its efficiency numbers.
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 graphics cards will support all of the latest NV feature sets, including the latest 4th Gen Tensor Cores, 3rd Gen RT Cores, and the latest NVENC Encoder, NVCDEC Decoder, and support for the latest APIs. They will also include support for DLSS, Reflex, Broadcast, Resizable-BAR, Freestyle, Ansel, Highlights, Shadowplay, and G-SYNC.
NVIDIA RTX 4050 Graphics Cards Price & Availability
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 was released at a price of $249 USD. We can expect NVIDIA to keep the same prices for these cards, with the occasional $10-$20 US price adjustment.
NVIDIA desperately needs to attract more gamers in the $200-$300 US market, but they must deliver a product that is worth the price. The RTX 3050 was a reasonable upgrade path, and what made it particularly appealing was its extensive ‘GeForce RTX’ feature set. This time, NVIDIA should focus on both the feature and performance sides of things to entice more gamers into their ecosystem, as this is going to be a very competitive segment with Intel’s Arc lineup entering the space.
The RTX 40 Series
Nvidia’s RTX 40-series graphics cards will be available in a few weeks, but among all of the hardware, upgrades are what could be Nvidia’s golden egg, the NVIDIA DLSS 3. It’s much more than an update to Nvidia’s popular DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) feature, and it could define Nvidia’s next generation far more than the graphics cards themselves.
AMD has been working hard to get its FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) on par with DLSS, and it has been successful for several months. DLSS 3 appears to be changing that dynamic, and FSR may not be able to catch up anytime soon.
You may also like AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX vs. RX 7900 XT GPUs compared
How does DLSS 3 work?
You might think that DLSS 3 is a completely new version of DLSS, but it isn’t. Or, at the very least, it is not entirely novel. The same super-resolution technology that is currently available in DLSS titles serves as the foundation of DLSS 3, and Nvidia will presumably continue to improve it with new versions. According to Nvidia, the super-resolution portion of DLSS 3 will now be available as a separate option in the graphics settings.
Frame generation is a new feature. For every other frame, DLSS 3 will generate an entirely unique frame, essentially generating seven out of every eight pixels you see. The flow chart below shows an illustration of this. In the case of 4K, your GPU only renders 1080p pixels and uses that information not only for the current frame but also for the next frame.
According to Nvidia, frame generation will be a separate toggle from super-resolution. This is because frame generation is currently limited to RTX 40-series GPUs, whereas super-resolution will continue to work on all RTX graphics cards, including games that have been updated to DLSS 3. It should go without saying, but if half of your frames are completely generated, your performance will skyrocket.
But frame generation isn’t just some AI secret sauce. Motion vectors are an important input for upscaling in DLSS 2 and tools like FSR. Motion vectors describe where objects move from one frame to the next, but they only apply to geometry in a scene. To avoid visual artifacts, elements with no 3D geometry, such as shadows, reflections, and particles, have traditionally been masked out of the upscaling process.
When an AI generates an entirely unique frame, masking isn’t an option, which is where the Optical Flow Accelerator in RTX 40-series GPUs comes in. It’s similar to a motion vector, except the graphics card tracks the movement of individual pixels from frame to frame. The AI-generated frame includes this optical flow field, as well as motion vectors, depth, and color.
Although this appears to be all positive, there is a major issue with AI-generated frames: they increase latency. Because the AI-generated frame never passes through your PC — it’s a “fake” frame — you won’t see it on traditional fps readouts in games or tools like FRAPS. So, despite having so many extra frames, latency does not decrease, and in fact, due to the computational overhead of optical flow, latency increases. As a result, DLSS 3 requires Nvidia Reflex to compensate for the increased latency.
Normally, your CPU keeps a render queue for your graphics card to ensure that your GPU is never idle (that would cause stutters and frame rate drops). Reflex removes the render queue and syncs your GPU and CPU so that the GPU begins processing instructions as soon as your CPU can send them. Nvidia claims that when used on top of DLSS 3, Reflex can sometimes result in a latency reduction.
Would you like to read more about Nvidia RTX 4050 -related articles? If so, we invite you to take a look at our other tech topics before you leave!
