What you need to know
- NVIDIA announced the GeForce RTX 3050 desktop GPU, as well as the RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 3080 Ti laptop GPUs, at CES 2022.
- The RTX 3050 has 8GB of VRAM, can ray trace, and will start at just $249. Available January 27.
- The RTX 3070 Ti is 70% faster than the RTX 2070 Super GPU; the RTX 3080 Ti is faster than the Titan RTX desktop GPU.
- New Ti laptops are expected as early as February 1, starting at $1,499.
It's been 10 years since NVIDIA launched the first 50-series desktop GPU, and now at CES 2022 it has unveiled the Ampere-powered GeForce RTX 3050. This is the first 50-series desktop GPU with ray tracing capabilities, and NVIDIA claims it can hit more than 60 frames per second (FPS) with DLSS enabled. That might make it good enough to claim a spot on our list of the best graphics cards.
The RTX 3050 uses second-gen RT cores for ray tracing, as well as third-gen Tensor cores for DLSS. It has a whopping 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM, which is respectable considering the price you're looking at (before any scalping and stock shortages). The RTX 3050 — which grants you access to a lot of NVIDIA goodies like Reflex, Broadcast, and Studio — starts at $249 and is expected to launch January 27, 2022.
NVIDIA also unveiled laptop versions of its RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 3080 Ti GPUs. This comes with the news that NVIDIA RTX 30-series GPUs are now in 160 new laptops, complete with 4th Gen Max-Q advancements that bring better battery life, overall efficiency, and performance. You can expect the CPU Optimizer to better share power between the CPU and GPU, while Rapid Core Scaling can sense real-time demand of GPU cores. Battery Boost 2.0 with a new architecture is also ready to balance the system more optimally for better battery life without sacrificing performance.
NVIDIA says the new RTX 3080 Ti laptops are the "fastest laptops ever," with performance that bests a desktop-class RTX Titan GPU. That's … insane. The RTX 3080 Ti laptop GPU has 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM, it can handle more than 120FPS at 1440p with in-game settings cranked up to Ultra, and it will be available in laptops starting February 1. Models will start at about $2,499.
If you don't need quite as much power as the 3080 Ti, NVIDIA is claiming the RTX 3070 Ti is still 70% faster than the RTX 2070 Super. NVIDIA suggests it should be able to push 100FPS at 1440p with in-game settings turned up to Ultra. New laptops with the RTX 3070 Ti laptop GPU are also expected February 1 and should start at about $1,499.
To help you test out your new RTX system, NVIDIA revealed a bunch of games coming with ray tracing, DLSS, and Reflex support. These include The Day Before, Rainbow Six Extraction, Escape from Tarkov, Super People, Dying Light 2, Hitman 3, Voidtrain, The Anacrusis, Phantasy Star Online 2, Ratten Reich, and Midnight Ghost Hunt.
