First GeForce RTX 5050 GPU Goes Up For Preorder With A Surprise Release Date
Given that NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5050 only officially emerged from the shadows less than a week ago, it's only fitting that the first one to show up at retail is MSI's Shadow 2X OC variant. And it's not surprising that the card is already available to preorder. What IS mildly surprising, however, is that the listed release date on Amazon indicates the card will come out on July 1, 2025.
Why is that slightly surprising? If we look back at the original announcement last week, NVIDIA clearly stated that desktop GeForce RTX 5050 models will be available "starting in the second half of July," including both stock-clocked and factory-overclocked models from ASUS, Colorful, Gainward, Galaxy, Gigabyte, Inno3D, MSI, Palit, PNY, and Zotac.
Over on Amazon, however, MSI Gaming's GeForce RTX 5050 Shadow 2X OC is up for preorder at $279.99, which is $30 above the baseline $249.99 MSRP. According to the listing, it will release on July 1, which is well ahead of the second half of July. It's the only retail listing that we've seen so far, though it will be interesting to see if tomorrow (July 1st) brings with it a barrage of options from other add-in board (AIB) partners as well.
The listed release date on Amazon is line line with pre-launch rumors that suggested we'd see NVIDIA's newest budget gaming GPU at retail on July 1st—multiple reliable leakers on X had pointed to the same date before NVIDIA formally introduced the RTX 5050, including MEGAsizeGPU (@Zed__Wang) and hongxing2020 (@hongxing2020).
In case you missed the announcement, this is the first desktop GeForce RTX xx50 model since the GeForce RTX 3050. NVIDIA never released a GeForce RTX 4050 model for the desktop, and instead the GeForce RTX 4060 served as the entry-level discrete (and most affordable) GPU option for Ada Lovelace.
What's also interesting is that NVIDIA opted to equip the desktop GeForce RTX 5050 with 8GB of GDDR6 memory instead of GDDR7, while the laptop variant uses faster GDDR7 memory chips. When asked why, NVIDIA's Director of Global PR, Ben Berraondo, explained on X that it boiled down to GDDR7 being a better fit for mobile because of its power efficiency gains versus GDDR6.
"The RTX 5050 notebook GPU has been optimized for the best power efficiency for portable laptops with great battery life. Therefore G6 is the best choice for desktops an the more power efficient G7 is the best choice for laptops," Berraondo wrote.
In a follow-up post, he added, "In this case, benefits of G7 are for thermals and battery life, crucial for our OEM partners and hopefully you'll see some great laptop options."
There's no doubt that GDDR6 memory is cheaper and probably more easily to source than GDDR7. Given that the GeForce RTX 5050 is a budget GPU, that's the likely reason why NVIDIA decided to go with slower VRAM on the desktop part. That said, there is a difference in memory bandwidth between the desktop (320GB/s) and laptop (384GB/s) models, because of the memory chips used.
Credit to Videocardz for spotting the first GeForce RTX 5050 listing on Amazon.
