Palit is said to be working on a new GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card featuring 6 GB of memory and passive cooling. This particular model would see Palit’s fanless KalmX line return. The KalmX line was last seen with Palit’s GeForce 1650 (pictured above) which had been released back in 2020. The 1600-series graphics cards were also the last of the non-RTX GPUs to be released by NVIDIA. It was during this time that NVIDIA introduced its SUPER line of GPUs which was also included in the 1600-series and coincidentally it’s been said that it’s bringing back RTX 3050 GPUs with 6 GB of memory in February, following the launches of its new RTX 40-series SUPER graphics cards this month. Palit is said to already have two other GeForce RTX 3050 models that have appeared on a Russian website.
VideoCardz has reached out to its sources where it learned of the KalmX version. Complete specifications were not provided but per the previous GeForce RTX 3050 launch, of which we have a review of a PNY GeForce RTX 3050 VERTO Dual 8 GB that be found here, there are some reasonable guesses regarding hardware specs that can be made.
Potential GeForce RTX 3050 KalmX 6 GB specs
- Display connectivity: Some combination of DP1.4 and HDMI 2.1 is likely. The current standard is usually 3x Display ports and one HDMI. Even if this card has a reduced number it could be a good solution for a UHD media playback device. The GeForce RTX 3050 OC STORMX model has 1x DP, 1x HDMI, and 1x DVI listed.
- Power Connectors: If this card follows the path of the previous KalmX line it’s possible the GPU TGP could be limited to allow it to be exclusively powered by the motherboard PCIe slot. This would also work hand-in-hand with its fanless design. The previous GeForce RTX 1650 KalmX (per Palit) had a power draw of 75W and Palit’s GeForce RTX 3050 STORMX OC model tops at 115W (per the Russian retail listing). If this card does indeed end up needing an external power connector it should be, at most, a single 6-pin.
- Memory: GGDR6 6 GB / 96-bit instead of the previous GDDR6 8 GB / 128-bit. While this is cutting it incredibly close to being a limiting factor for the RTX 3050 GPU it may not make much of a difference if gaming at 1080p or 720p when using the lower settings needed to achieve 60 FPS with many modern games.
- Interface: PCIe 4.0
- RT and DLSS: Dedicated 2nd generation RT cores and 3rd gen tensor cores. Gamers are going to need this for playing any current demanding games at 1080p, as seen in our review of the previous version.
- Core/Boost Clocks: The factory overclocked STORMX version is listed at 1042 MHz / 1777 MHz which would seem to indicate that this GPU die has similar specifications as the previous Ampere model. NVIDIA did not release a Founders Edition for the previous version and while it does list core base/boost clock specs on its website most board partners stuck to overclocking it to ~ 1400-1550 MHz / 1700 -1845 MHz (MSI). It will be interesting to see what both the power draw and final specs for the passively cooled GPU end up being.
- Price: Prices for the previous models began at around $229-249. The overclocked STORMX version listed on the Russian retail site converts to around $316.