It looks like even NVIDIA's entry-level lineup in its Ampere stack, including the GeForce RTX 3050, will be featuring ray-tracing support as the latest rumor from Kopite7kimi (via Videocardz) seems to suggest.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Entry-Level Graphics Card To Feature GA107 GPU, 2304 Cores, Ray Tracing Support & 90W TGP?
According to the rumor, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 will be utilizing the GA107 GPU core. This means that even the entry-level parts will indeed feature raytracing support, unlike the GTX 1650 and 1660 series cards which didn't come with the necessary tensor or raytracing cores to enable hardware-accelerated raytracing and DLSS features in games.
RTX 3050, GA107-300, 2304FP32, 90W TGP
— kopite7kimi4virgil (@kopite7kimi) November 9, 2020
The GeForce RTX 3050 is suggested to feature the GA107-300 GPU which seems to be the most entry-level Ampere GPU at this point in desktop graphics cards. Only time will tell if we will see something even lower-end like the GA108 GPU but the RTX 3050 leaves little room for that. The card is expected to feature 2304 FP32 cores in a total of 18 SM units and is suggested to feature a 90W TGP.
This would mean that the GeForce RTX 3050 will require an external 6-pin connector to boot unlike its predecessor, the GeForce GTX 1650, which conformed to a 75W TGP and didn't require any plug to boot in several custom variants. The GeForce RTX 3050 should feature a 128-bit bus interface & up to 4 GB of GDDR6 memory. We are likely to see speeds of 14 Gbps on the card but that remains to be confirmed.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series 'Ampere' Graphics Card Specifications:
| Graphics Card Name | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU Name | Ampere GA107 | Ampere GA107 | Ampere GA106-300 | Ampere GA104-200 | Ampere GA104-300 | Ampere GA104-400 | Ampere GA102-200 | Ampere GA102-225 | Ampere GA102-300 |
| Process Node | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm | Samsung 8nm |
| Die Size | TBA | TBA | TBA | 395.2mm2 | 395.2mm2 | 395.2mm2 | 628.4mm2 | 628.4mm2 | 628.4mm2 |
| Transistors | TBA | TBA | TBA | 17.4 Billion | 17.4 Billion | 17.4 Billion | 28 Billion | 28 Billion | 28 Billion |
| CUDA Cores | 2048? | 2560? | 3584 | 4864 | 5888 | 6144 | 8704 | 10240 | 10496 |
| TMUs / ROPs | 64 / 40 | 80 / 48 | 112 / 64 | 152 / 80 | 184 / 96 | 192/ 96 | 272 / 96 | 320 / 112 | 328 / 112 |
| Tensor / RT Cores | 64 / 16 | 80 / 20 | 112 / 28 | 152 / 38 | 184 / 46 | 192/ 48 | 272 / 68 | 320 / 80 | 328 / 82 |
| Base Clock | TBA | TBA | 1320 MHz | 1410 MHz | 1500 MHz | 1575 MHz | 1440 MHz | 1365 MHz | 1400 MHz |
| Boost Clock | TBA | TBA | 1780 MHz | 1665 MHz | 1730 MHz | 1770 MHz | 1710 MHz | 1665 MHz | 1700 MHz |
| FP32 Compute | TBA | TBA | 12.7 TFLOPs | 16.2 TFLOPs | 20 TFLOPs | 22 TFLOPs | 30 TFLOPs | 34 TFLOPs | 36 TFLOPs |
| RT TFLOPs | TBA | TBA | 25.4 TFLOPs | 32.4 TFLOPs | 40 TFLOPs | 42 TFLOPs | 58 TFLOPs | 67 TFLOPs | 69 TFLOPs |
| Tensor-TOPs | TBA | TBA | 101 TOPs | 129.6 TOPs | 163 TOPs | 174 TOPs | 238 TOPs | 273 TOPs | 285 TOPs |
| Memory Capacity | 4 GB GDDR6? | 4 GB GDDR6? | 12 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6X | 10 GB GDDR6X | 12 GB GDDR6X | 24 GB GDDR6X |
| Memory Bus | 128-bit | 128-bit | 192-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 320-bit | 384-bit | 384-bit |
| Memory Speed | TBA | TBA | 15 Gbps | 14 Gbps | 14 Gbps | 19 Gbps | 19 Gbps | 19 Gbps | 19.5 Gbps |
| Bandwidth | TBA | TBA | 360 Gbps | 448 Gbps | 448 Gbps | 608 Gbps | 760 Gbps | 912 Gbps | 936 Gbps |
| TGP | ~75W | ~100W | 170W | 200W | 220W | 290W | 320W | 350W | 350W |
| Price (MSRP / FE) | $149? | $199? | $329 | $399 US | $499 US | $599 US | $699 US | $1199 | $1499 US |
| Launch (Availability) | 2021? | 2021? | February 2021 | December 2020 | 29th October 2020 | 10th June 2021 | 17th September 2020 | 3rd June 2021 | 24th September 2020 |
In terms of performance, the GeForce RTX 3050 should land somewhere around GeForce RTX 2060 performance. It will be ahead of the GeForce RTX 1660 SUPER which was a $229 US graphics card. Pricing wise, the RTX 3050 should be positioned around $150 US, and NVIDIA could throw in a game bundle to sweeten the deal. The card would be a great solution for 1080p gaming but AMD won't be coming slowly in this segment with its own RDNA 2 based solution such as the Radeon RX 6500.
