A new Nvidia GPU leak hints at there being a new version of the laptop RTX 3050 incoming that uses a new Ada Lovelace (RTX 40 series) GPU instead of the older Ampere GPU in the current version. If true, it could mean a meaningful upgrade in performance and potentially would mark the first time a non-RTX 4000 branded Nvidia GPU gets access to the latest Nvidia features, such as DLSS 3.
Complicating is that there is a desktop version of the RTX 3050 and a laptop RTX 4050 but there isn’t yet a desktop RTX 4050. Such a card would probably struggle to find a place on our best graphics card guide but it might make Nvidia‘s low-end graphics card stack a bit more appealing.
The new leak, then, comes directly from an Nvidia driver release, with references being spotted in the driver files to an “RTX 3050 A”, which the PCI ID database claims refers to a new version of the RTX 3050. The site includes a post that says simply “AD106M [GeForce RTX 3050 A Laptop GPU]… 3050 is no typo.”
There are a few key details here. The first is the A at the end of the RTX 3050 name in Nvidia’s driver (as pictured – image courtesy Videocardz), which is believed to refer to the Ada architecture. This alone suggests there’s a new version of the RTX 3050 that uses an Ada architecture GPU. Meanwhile, the post on PCI ID explicitly claims that new GPU is the AD106M, where the M refers to it being a mobile chip, rather than desktop.
What’s really confusing here is that the current RTX 3050 desktop card uses the GA106 GPU, which is based on the previous-gen Ampere architecture and features 2,560 CUDA cores. Meanwhile, the RTX 3050 laptop version uses the smaller GA107 GPU, though it still houses up to 2,560 CUDA cores. However, while there is currently no desktop RTX 4050, there is a mobile RTX 4050 that uses the AD107 GPU that again houses 2,560 CUDA cores.
All of which means that we would naturally expect any RTX 3050 A to use at most the AD107 GPU with perhaps even fewer cores/features enabled than the RTX 4050. Instead, the leak suggests it will use the larger AD106 GPU that also powers the RTX 4060 desktop card (3,072 CUDA cores) and RTX 4070 mobile chips (4,608 CUDA cores).
So, going by the chip name side of this leak, it would suggest there’s a more powerful laptop graphics card in the works, but going by the RTX 3050 A graphics board name, it would make sense that the new chip is slower and less capable than the RTX 4050.
Whatever the case, it will probably be some time before you can pick up a laptop featuring this mystery new GPU, so in the meantime you might as well have a gander at our current best gaming laptop recommendations as they’ll stay the best for a while yet.