Home / NVIDIA / NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050: Performance and Specs

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050: The Perfect Choice for Gamers and Professionals in 2025

Overview of Architecture, Performance, and Practical Aspects

Architecture and Key Features

Ada Lovelace Next Gen: Evolution of Efficiency

The RTX 4050 is built on an updated version of the Ada Lovelace architecture, using a 5nm TSMC process. This results in a 15% increase in the number of transistors compared to its predecessor (the RTX 3050) and improved energy efficiency.

RTX and DLSS 4: The Magic of Artificial Intelligence

The card supports third-generation ray tracing and DLSS 4—a technology that utilizes neural networks to enhance FPS without compromising quality. For instance, in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, DLSS 4 boosts rendering by 70% while maintaining detail.

FidelityFX Super Resolution 3: A Bridge to Cross-Platform Compatibility

Despite the exclusivity of DLSS, the RTX 4050 is compatible with AMD's FSR 3, which is beneficial for games like Starfield 2, where FSR dominates.

Memory: Speed and Volume

GDDR6X: 8 GB for Balance

The graphics card is equipped with 8 GB of GDDR6X memory with a bandwidth of 288 GB/s (128-bit bus). This is sufficient for gaming at 1440p, but there may be limitations in 4K for projects with Ultra textures (such as Horizon Forbidden West Remastered).

Why Not GDDR7?

NVIDIA retained GDDR6X to lower costs, focusing on the budget segment. However, for 4K video editing in DaVinci Resolve, 8 GB is the minimum comfortable level.

Gaming Performance: Numbers and Realities

1080p: The King of High FPS

- Apex Legends 2025: 144 FPS (Ultra, no RT).

- The Elder Scrolls VI: 85 FPS (High, RT Medium + DLSS 4).

- Call of Duty: Black Ops 6: 120 FPS (Ultra, DLSS Balanced).

1440p: A Compromise for Multi-Platform

With DLSS 4, the card maintains above 60 FPS in most AAA games. For example, Assassin’s Creed Nexus delivers 68 FPS (Ultra, RT Off).

4K: Only with Caveats

In Forza Horizon 6 (High, DLSS Performance)—45-50 FPS. For smooth gameplay in 4K, it’s better to choose the RTX 4070 or higher.

Ray Tracing: Beauty Comes at a Cost

Activating RT reduces FPS by 30-40%. However, DLSS 4 compensates for these losses, restoring smoothness. In Alan Wake 3 (RT Ultra, DLSS Quality)—55 FPS at 1440p.

Professional Tasks: Not Just Gaming

CUDA and OptiX: Rendering Acceleration

With 2560 CUDA cores, the RTX 4050 is 20% faster than the RTX 3050 in Blender (Cycles). Rendering a BMW scene takes 8.5 minutes compared to 10.3 for the previous generation.

Video Editing: 4K Without Lag

In Premiere Pro 2025, the card handles 4K 60FPS in real time thanks to AV1 hardware decoding. Exporting a 10-minute video takes 3.2 minutes.

Scientific Calculations: Modest but Useful

For machine learning on TensorFlow, the card is suitable for training models (e.g., image classification), but large neural networks require the RTX 4090 with its 24 GB of memory.

Power Consumption and Heat Generation

TDP 130 W: Savings on the Power Supply

The RTX 4050 consumes 10% less power than the RTX 3060 due to architecture optimization. A 450W power supply is sufficient for a build (550W recommended for headroom).

Cooling: Silence is Key

Dual-fan models (ASUS Dual, MSI Ventus) maintain temperatures below 70°C under load. Versions with a heatsink (Zotac Solo) are suitable for compact cases.

Comparison with Competitors

AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT: The Budget Battle

The RX 7600 XT offers 10 GB of GDDR6 but lags behind in ray tracing (FPS in Cyberpunk 2077 with RT: 28 versus 35 for the RTX 4050). However, it is cheaper ($249 vs $299).

Intel Arc A580: The Dark Horse

The A580 wins on price ($230), but its drivers are still unstable for DirectX 12 Ultimate.

Practical Tips

Power Supply: Don’t Skimp!

Even a modest build needs a quality PSU. Consider Corsair CX550 or Be Quiet! Pure Power 11 600W models.

Compatibility: PCIe 4.0 is a Must

While the card works on PCIe 3.0, full GDDR6X speed requires PCIe 4.0. Ensure your motherboard supports this standard (relevant for PC owners from 2019-2020).

Drivers: AI Optimization

Regularly update GeForce Experience—each release improves DLSS performance and stability in new games.

Pros and Cons

✅ Pros:

- Best-in-class RT and DLSS 4 support.

- Low power consumption.

- Affordable price ($299).

❌ Cons:

- 8 GB of memory limits 4K gaming.

- No support for PCIe 5.0.

Final Conclusion: Who Is the RTX 4050 For?

This graphics card is the ideal choice for:

1. Gamers at 1080p/1440p looking to play with RT without major expense.

2. Content creators working with 4K editing or basic 3D modeling.

3. Owners of compact PCs valuing silence and energy efficiency.

If your budget is limited to $300, and upgrading from a GTX 1660 or RX 580 has been long overdue, the RTX 4050 will be a sensible step toward the future of gaming and creativity.

Basic

Label Name

NVIDIA

Platform

Desktop

Launch Date

January 2023

Model Name

GeForce RTX 4050

Generation

GeForce 40

Base Clock

2505MHz

Boost Clock

2640MHz

Bus Interface

PCIe 4.0 x8

Transistors

Unknown

RT Cores

Tensor Cores

Tensor Cores are specialized processing units designed specifically for deep learning, providing higher training and inference performance compared to FP32 training. They enable rapid computations in areas such as computer vision, natural language processing, speech recognition, text-to-speech conversion, and personalized recommendations. The two most notable applications of Tensor Cores are DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) and AI Denoiser for noise reduction.

120

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

5 nm

Architecture

Ada Lovelace

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

6GB

Memory Type

GDDR6

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

96bit

Memory Clock

2250MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

216.0 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

84.48 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

211.2 GTexel/s

FP16 (half)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy.

13.52 TFLOPS

FP64 (double)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

211.2 GFLOPS

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

13.25 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

SM Count

Multiple Streaming Processors (SPs), along with other resources, form a Streaming Multiprocessor (SM), which is also referred to as a GPU's major core. These additional resources include components such as warp schedulers, registers, and shared memory. The SM can be considered the heart of the GPU, similar to a CPU core, with registers and shared memory being scarce resources within the SM.

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

2560

L1 Cache

128 KB (per SM)

L2 Cache

32MB

TDP

150W

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

1.3

OpenCL Version

3.0

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 Ultimate (12_2)

CUDA

8.9

Power Connectors

1x 12-pin

Shader Model

6.7

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.

Suggested PSU

450W