NVIDIA today is quietly launching a new entry-level graphics card for the retail market, the GeForce RTX 3050 6GB. Based on a cut-down version of their budget Ampere-architecture GA107 GPU, the new card brings what was previously an OEM-only product to the retail market. Besides adding another part to NVIDIA's deep product stack, the launch of the RTX 3050 6GB also comes with another perk: lower power consumption thanks to this part targeting system installs where an external PCIe power connector would not be needed. NVIDIA's partners, in turn, have not wasted any time in taking advantage of this, and today Palit is releasing its first fanless KalmX board in years: the GeForce RTX 3050 KalmX 6GB.
The GeForce RTX 3050 6GB is based on the GA107 graphics processor with 2304 CUDA cores, which is paired with 6GB of GDDR6 attached to a petite 96-bit memory bus (versus 128-bit for the full RTX 3050 8GB). Coupled with a boost clock rating of just 1470 MHz, the RTX 3050 6GB delivers tangibly lower compute performance than the fully-fledged RTX 3050 — 6.77 FP32 TFLOPS vs 9.1 FP32 TFLOPS — but these compromises offer an indisputable advantage: a 70W power target.
Palit is the first company that takes advantage of this reduced power consumption of the GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB, as the company has launched a passively cooled graphics card based on this part, the first in four years. The Palit GeForce RTX 3050 KalmX 6GB (NE63050018JE-1170H) uses a custom printed circuit board (PCB) that not only offers modern DisplayPort 1.4a and HDMI 2.1 outputs, but, as we still see in some entry-level cards, a dual-link DVI-D connector (a first for an Ampere-based graphics card).
The dual-slot passive cooling system with two heat pipes is certainly the main selling point of Palit's GeForce RTX 3050 KalmX 6GB. The product is pretty large though — it measures 166.3×137×38.3 mm — and will not fit into tiny desktops. Still, given the fact that fanless systems are usually not the most compact ones, this may not be a significant limitation of the new KalmX device.
Another advantage of Palit's GeForce RTX 3050 KalmX 6GB in particular and NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3050 6GB in general is that it can be powered entirely via a PCIe slot, which eliminates the need for an auxiliary PCIe power connectors (which are sometimes not present in cheap systems from big OEMs).
Wccftech reports that NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3050 6GB graphics cards will carry a recommended price tag of $169 and indeed these cards are available for $170 - $180. This looks to be a quite competitive price point as the product offers higher compute performance than that of AMD's Radeon RX 6400 ($125) and Radeon RX 6500 XT ($140). Meanwhile, it remains to be seen how much will Palit charge for its uniquely positioned GeForce RTX 3050 KalmX 6GB.
