A new unannounced gaming GPU called the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5050 has just appeared as part of the spec for an LG laptop, suggesting that there will at least be a budget RTX 5000 GPU in the mobile world. The laptop appeared on a South Korean retailer’s website, and it also appears to come equipped with a 144Hz screen.
Even so, the LG Gram Pro 16 AI isn’t a gaming laptop in the slightest and is instead mainly aimed at a professional audience. However, the Nvidia GPU inside it is drawing attention. At CES 2025, Nvidia announced its RTX 5000 series laptop graphics cards, but there was no mention of the RTX 5060, let alone the RTX 5050.
This apparent strategy echoes the last generation of Nvidia gaming GPUs, where the RTX 4050 was quietly released on laptops considerably later than the rest of the roster. The laptop is priced at 3.42 million South Korean won, or around $2,342. However, the high cost not only pertains to its GPU, but also the screen, 32GB of RAM, and Intel Core Ultra 7 processor.
According to a post by tech leaker BullsLab Jay on X (formerly Twitter), the RTX 5050 will have 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM, which is at least more than the RTX 4050, and more in line with the RTX 4060. We’re still not talking about blistering gaming performance, however.
Where it might thrive is in casual games, esports, or more demanding games with a heavy emphasis on AI upscaling and frame generation. Nvidia’s low-powered GPU should be able to access DLSS 4, meaning it can run Multi Frame Gen to improve performance further, but you might be starting from a lower tier of settings, reducing the image quality further.
It should be noted that the last line of LG Gram Pro 16 laptops didn’t come with an RTX 4050. When we saw LG in July 2024, the company explained that the RTX 4050 was actually too big to fit in the slimline laptops. This indicates that the RTX 5050 has slimmed down between generations.
While we wait for the first RTX 5050 laptops to drop so we can test them properly, make sure you read our current best gaming laptop guide for the moment, where we run you through all our current favorite portable gaming rigs at a range of prices.