It appears that AMD is prepping a new entry-level graphics card in the form of the Radeon RX 9050 using the same Navi 44 die as its RX 9060 XT. It’s been said that nature abhors a vacuum, and in the absence of any new budget-oriented graphics cards, that market is ripe for a new release, although the term budget may end up being highly subjective given the current state of things in the tech sector. According to an exclusive report by VideoCardz via an undisclosed AMD AIB partner, the specifications for the RX 9050 show a card capable of 1080p gaming and perhaps some options at 1440p as well.
To begin with, it is said to have 2,048 stream processors, the same as the RX 9060 XT, which is the full amount of the Navi 44 XT GPU. It has been paired with 8 GB GDDR6 18.0 Gbps memory running on a 128-bit bus with 288 GB/s of bandwidth. This VRAM configuration places the new card more in line with the RX 9060 than the 9060 XT.
Another big difference between the RX 9050 and RX 9060 XT is their clock speeds. According to the report, the base clock of the RX 9050 will be 610 MHz, or 24% lower at 1,920 MHz, whereas the RX 9060 XT is 2,530 MHz. Its boost clock will be 530 MHz, or ~17% lower at 2,600 MHz compared to 3,130 MHz of the RX 9060 XT.
Other specifications for the AMD Radeon RX 9050 include PCIe 5.0 x16 support, a single HDMI 2.1 port, and 2x DP 2.1a ports. TDP remains unknown, although a 450W PSU is recommended, as does availability and pricing, but with Computex right around the corner, it’s possible that AMD will do an official reveal in Taipei. Board power is likely to be less than 150W (9060 XT) and might be lower than 132W (9060). However, the elephant in the room, and the biggest hurdle to this card’s success, will be pricing, which is most assuredly to be an issue given the current DRAM/NAND shortage.