NVIDIA launches three new budget laptop GPUs, including an Ampere-based RTX 2050

The entry-level gaming laptop segment has been calling out for some new graphics cards for awhile now. While NVIDIA had launched the GeForce RTX 3050 and RTX 3050 Ti awhile back, perhaps due to the global chip shortage laptops with these are still somewhat priced a little high for budget gamers all around. As such, a number of entry level gaming laptops still offer configurations with 2019’s last gen GeForce 1650, like the Acer Nitro 5. NVIDIA though looks set to change that, offering a nice middle ground between the two with the new GeForce RTX 2050 for laptops.

Before we get into it, it’s perhaps wise to first explain that this isn’t based on the Turing architecture that was used in other RTX 20 series cards. Instead, it uses the Ampere architecture from the RTX 30 series and has 2048 CUDA cores, which is even more than the laptop GeForce RTX 2060 card. In fact, it has the same number of CUDA cores as the GeForce RTX 3050, however will still perform worse than its RTX 30 series cousin and the laptop RTX 2060 for that matter, due to just having a 64-bit memory interface width. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2050 will also come with 4GB of GDDR6 VRAM, and will use between 30-45W of power. You should still get features like DLSS and ray tracing too.

These entry level mobile graphics cards typically aren’t only found in gaming laptops of course, as they also tend to find themselves in laptops for content creators thanks to the low power consumption. But NVIDIA has also introduced two other productivity-focused graphics cards, the GeForce MX550 and GeForce MX570. They’ll likely replace the MX450 currently on laptops now, but its specs are still a mystery for now. NVIDIA calls the MX570 the fastest MX GPU they have, and says that both new MX graphics cards have more CUDA cores and faster memory speeds than before, but don’t offer any more details than that.

These laptop graphics cards won’t be on sale by themselves of course. Instead, you’ll need to wait for NVIDIA’s hardware partners to manufacture and release laptops with these graphics cards inside them. With CES 2022 coming up in just a few weeks, there’s little doubt that we’ll see at least a few machines with these GPUs in them. For more information on NVIDIA’s new graphics laptop cards, you can check out their announcement post here.