AMD Launches Budget Radeon RX 9050 Following ASRock Leak
ASRock has jumped the gun on revealing a surprise new entry-level addition to AMD's RDNA 4 graphics card family, the Radeon RX 9050, which is evidently being offered in both 4GB and 8GB variants. The add-in board (AIB) partner went live with a couple of product pages for its custom Challenger series models before AMD updated its own site.
Notably, the launch marks a return for 4GB VRAM options in modern budget configurations. It arrives at a time when PC gamers increasingly view 8GB as skimping, and is a clear signal that the ongoing memory crunch is affecting product releases. In AMD's defense, the Radeon RX 9050 is an entry-level card, though it will still be interesting to see how gamers react to a 4GB option, which will in part depend on pricing.
Both the 4GB and 8GB cards are built on AMD's latest-generation RDNA 4 architecture and feature 1,024 stream processors across 16 compute units. ASRock's Challenger configs also sport the same 1,920MHz base clock and up to a 2,600MHz boost clock.
The memory allotment is where the two cards become distinct, and not just in capacity. ASRock's Radeon RX 9050 Challenger model with 8GB of GDDR6 memory uses 18Gbps chips linked to a 128-bit bus, resulting in 288GB/s of memory bandwidth, while the 4GB variants employ the same speed GDDR6, but on a narrower 64-bit bus for what should be 144GB/s of memory bandwidth.
To put the specs into perspective, AMD's lowest-end RDNA 4 desktop GPU before today was the stealthily launched Radeon RX 9060 (non-XT) with 28 compute units, 1,792 stream processors, 1,700MHz base and 2,990MHz boost clocks, and 8GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus for up to 288GB/s of memory bandwidth.
AMD has since updated its Radeon landing page to reflect the new 9050 addition, though it doesn't explicitly outline specs for the 4GB model. According to AMD, the Radeon RX 9050 is capable of hitting 593 frames per second in Valorant at 1080p with high settings.
At medium settings, AMD claims the card can achieve 206 FPS in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege, 116 FPS in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, 227 FPS in Counter-Strike 2, 131 FPS in Forza Horizon 6, 96 FPS in Cyberpunk 2077, 85 FPS in Pragmata, and 60 FPS in 007: First Light.
No word yet on pricing or availability. For reference, the Radeon RX 9060 XT launched at $299 (MSRP) for the 8GB model and $349 (MSRP) for the 16GB model. No launch price was ever revealed for the non-XT model.
