NVIDIA is known for being a powerhouse in the computer world. With their latest RTX 3000 series, this 3050 GPU is wonderful for gamers on a budget looking to upgrade.
NVIDIA showed up to CES, known to be a highly influential tech conference hosted by the Consumer Technology Association. They announced two new GPUs, the RTX 3050 and the RTX 3090 Ti. They also announced that they would be making new laptop versions of the RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3070 Ti.
The new RTX 3050 was certainly the one to make the biggest headlines at CES for NVIDIA. A budget GPU starting at $249, it will provide more power than the GTX 1650, supporting NVIDIA DLSS–a highly beloved feature for many video games–and ray tracing. If you aren’t aware yet, ray tracing is an advanced technology utilized in GPUs made specially for video games. It allows for more realistic visuals and lighting, creating very cool reflections and visual quality.
Image credit to Cycu1 on YouTube
People with an older GTX GPU may find this switch to be very beneficial in order to maximize the quality of their video game visuals. This is especially nice to have in something like Minecraft, which has many amazing shaders and texture packs that allow for the game to be insanely realistic. Of course, once these GPUs release, we can see exactly just how good the performance will be in comparison to the RTX 3060 GPU, which was already the cheaper of the lineup.
It’s an amazing jump in visual quality with RTX’s capabilities.
NVIDIA also announced the RTX 3080 Ti, which will feature 24 GB of GDDR6X VRAM and 40 teraflops of GPU performance. This will be approximately 11% faster than the base RTX 3090.
The RTX 3050 will be releasing on January 27. However, no price or release date was given for the 3090 Ti. It’s safe to assume that the 3090 Ti will be much more expensive than the current RTX 3090.
Many online have already expressed concerns about scalpers increasing the price for the 3050 and jeopardizing its budget-friendly cost. Scalpers have been a significant problem in terms of much tech in gaming this year, propelling the prices of the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 all over the internet. Due to the microchip shortage, less consoles and GPUs are being produced. The demand is still there, but the supply is not.
However, it will be interesting to see just how powerful the new 3050 will turn out to be.
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Zainah Yousef
Zainah Yousef is the author of The Fallen Age Saga and specializes in gaming, social media advice, and reviews. She's been writing all her life and she probably won't stop anytime soon.
