Featuring Nvidia’s Ampere architecture, the GeForce RTX 30 series is among the most successful graphics cards of its time. New images and benchmark results shared by Gok, known for hardware leaks, show that the GeForce RTX 3050 Ti model has actually reached a prototype level.

Nvidia released the GeForce RTX 3050 Ti model for laptops, but the desktop version of this card never hit the shelves. The cryptocurrency mining boom during the launch of the Ampere architecture and the supply problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic may have caused Nvidia to give up selling this model in the desktop segment.

Technical Specifications and Performance Details

The GeForce RTX 3050 Ti engineering sample, which is stated to be developed by a company called Robiny, uses the PG190 SKU 40 design card. The card is built on the GA106 graphics processor, which is also used in the GeForce RTX 3050 and GeForce RTX 3060 models.

While the full version of the GA106 silicon includes 30 Streaming Multiprocessors (SM), the GeForce RTX 3050 Ti model has 26 SMs enabled. This configuration allows the card to have 3,328 CUDA cores, placing it in the middle of the RTX 3050 and RTX 3060 in terms of performance.

On the memory side of the card, there are GDDR6 memory modules with a speed of 14 Gb / s. Thanks to the 192-bit memory interface, this model offers 50 percent higher memory bandwidth compared to the GeForce RTX 3050.

A Lost Opportunity in the Desktop Segment

GeForce RTX 3050 Ti stands out with its 6GB GDDR6 memory capacity. This measure lags behind the RTX 3060 with 12GB memory and the brand new RTX 3050 models with 8GB memory.

In benchmark tests, the card, with a 3DMark Time Spy score of 7,787 points, performs approximately 13 percent slower than the RTX 3060. Despite this, the fact that it offers a performance increase of up to 22 percent compared to the RTX 3050 shows that the card can be a stable option for the middle segment.

Nvidia launched the RTX 3050 and RTX 3060 models with a price tag of $ 249 and $ 329, respectively. GeForce RTX 3050 Ti had the potential to fill the gap between these two cards at a price of $ 289.

Nowadays, there is a lack of such an alternative for gamers looking for a budget-friendly graphics card.

What kind of impact do you think Nvidia would have in today’s entry-mid-range market if it had released this graphics card?