Rumors have made it clear that the RTX 5050 might use older GDDR6 memory rather than speedier GDDR7 (or even GDDR6X for that matter). Benchlife.info reports that Nvidia add-in board partners have confirmed the RTX 5050 will use GDDR6 memory from two suppliers, Samsung and SK hynix.
The news puts to rest any inkling that the RTX 5050 might use GDDR7, at least for the launch version (assuming there will be multiple variants in the future). Moving to GDDR6 will inevitably improve production costs for the RTX 5050 and improve any potential supply chain issues that might impact GPU production (on the memory side). GDDR6 is a very mature and popular memory type at this point in time, and is being produced by a variety of manufacturers (not just SK hynix and Samsung).
Having two suppliers (for the RTX 5050) not only boosts the overall number of GDDR6 chips Nvidia can purchase but also helps alleviate any potential supply chain bottlenecks that might occur. Nvidia can bounce between the two manufacturers, relying on one more than the other if one manufacturer can’t keep up with orders.
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- Nvidia reportedly sources GDDR7 chips from SK hynix for RTX 50-series GPUs
- SK hynix GDDR7 modules hit 34 Gbps on the RTX 5070 Ti — similar OC performance to Samsung
- RTX 5080 Super rumored with 24GB of memory — Same 10,752 CUDA cores as the vanilla variant with a 400W+ TGP
What has still not been confirmed is the performance of the GDDR6 modules used on the RTX 5050. GDDR6 has been around for so long that multiple speed bins exist (not even counting GDDR6X), ranging from 12 Gbps, all the way up to 20 Gbps. Nvidia could use any version between these two ranges for the RTX 5050, though more recent video cards have been taking advantage of 16 Gbps, 18 Gbps, and 20 Gbps versions of GDDR6. (The RTX 4070 GDDR6 and RX 9070 series use 20 Gbps GDDR6.)